Mar, 11.
Wuetuer the Viceroy of India was right or wrong in urging the Imperial Government to tear up the Treaty of Sévres, evacuate Constantinople and recognize the} Sultan of Turkey's suzerainty; over the Holy Places, there can be no question that publication of the telegram was imprudent and unwarrantable. Not only is Mr., Montagu's conduct in permitting publication on his own responsibility opposed to the whole prin-! ciple of Cabinet government, but, coming on the eve of the Near Eastern Conference in Paris, it may gravely prejudice the results! of that meeting. That Mr. Mont-agri's resignation from the India Office should be required was inevitable. It is the one bright spot in the recent sad history of India. Mr. Montagu, no doubt! with excellent intentions, but un-} fortunately devoid of the faculty which would have enabled him to} take advice from the men who; understand the East,. has been India's evil genius. We say nothing about the merits or otherwise of the Montagu-Chelmsford scheme. The mischief lay in supposing that that scheme could! possibly succeed in an atmosphere of rank sedition and that to pretend not to notice the treason-not take this in any invidious sense. Nothing ''anti-Jewish", as such, is intended. But to send a Jew to rule over Mohammedans, with another of the same creed behind him in the Cabinet, is simply to invite trouble.
As regards the concessions which Lord Reading desires should be made to Turkey it is impossible, out here, to form an accurate opinion. The whole story of the Allies' dealings with Turkey since the war has been one melancholy series of concessions to the Turk. Between anxiety as to the state of mind of her millions of Mohammedan subjects and the importunities of France, who, having lent considerable sums to the Turk, is desirous of keeping him in a good temper, Great Britain has been driven to give way so far that now, it is to be feared, there may be no alternative to giving way altogether. There was a time when the Kemalists were treated by the Powers as rebels and outlaws. Now they send envoys to the Near East Conference, who will, tacitly at any rate, be received as the accredited representatives of the Turkish Empire. That is not the sort of thing which is calculated to make for peace in any part of the East. Furthermore, the principle of robbing Peter to pay Paul is a very bad one in government of any kind, let alone that of a mongers would presently induce Sreat Empire. The Mohammethem to be quiet. Anybody who, dans of India knew very well that knows anything of Oriental agita- Britain was at war with and de-tors knows perfectly well that' feated the Mohammedans of Tur-such a course means nothing to key and they did not rebel. On them but fear on the authorities' the contrary, they supplied Great part and adds fuel to their viol- Britain with many valuable ence. With Mr. Montagu now soldiers to help her win the war. happily out of the way, it is ear-land inasmuch as they are essen-nestly to be hoped that the next tially a fighting race, they will Secretary. of State for India will have been fully prepared for the be one who knows something of victor's taking the fruits of vic-that country. At the same time.tory. The wretched vacillation it might well be advisable to re- shown in this respect is probably place Lord Reading. Judging by far more responsible for what the comments of the ''Daily Tele-, Lord Reading now fears in the graph', his administration ap- Mohammedans of India than the pears to have been in question terms which it was once supposed even before his recent attempt to Turkey was to accept.
On one point, at least, it is most earnestly to be hoped that there will be no surrender, and that is in the occupation of Constantinople and the retention of Allied contro) over the Dardanelles. For in this matter much more is concerned than the peacefulness of the Mohammedans alone. The brief telegrams which from time to time have spoken of negotiations between Russian Bolsheviks and Turkish Nationalists have very likely been forgotten, even if they were noticed, by most newspaper readers. But they point to a danger which cannot be ignored. Let the Allies withdraw from Constantinople and the Dar-dandles and an alliance between>
Russia and Turkey, with Bolshevik control over the keys of the Near and Middle East, is not far off. Both Powers, or the Governments which now represent them, are in a mood to regard themselves as pariahs in the eyes of other nations, to whom they will naturally do all the harm possible. And it does not need much imagination to foresee that the Mohammedans_ will certainly be no less likely than they are now to make trouble when exposed to the adroit suggestion of the train—ed Soviet agitator.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.