§ 3. RONALD M'NEILLasked the Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether the instrument known as the Treaty of London is a definitive treaty, or only peace preliminaries requiring ratification by the Governments concerned; whether it has been ratified. by the Ottoman Government; and whether, in the absence of such ratification, the Powers of Europe have any right in international law to demand its observance by Turkey?
§ Sir E. GREYThe instrument in question is a definitive treaty of peace, but it requires ratification by the Governments who are parties to it. I am not sure by which of them, if any, it has been ratified. As regards the attitude of the Powers towards the various belligerents, no specific provision of international law affects the question.
§ 4. RONALD M'NEILLasked the Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the break up of the Balkan League, the violation by Servia and Bulgaria of their treaty obligations, the atrocities committed by Bulgarian troops in territory conquered by them from the Turks, and the armed intervention of Roumania, there is any rule in international law to prevent the Turkish Government denouncing the Treaty of London and taking steps to restore her sovereignty in Adrianople and Eastern Thrace, especially having regard to the failure of Bulgaria to maintain effective occupation in that region?
§ Sir E. GREYI am not aware of a rule of international law that applies; the question appears to me to be one of ethics, political expediency, and self-interest.
§ Mr. RONALD M'NEILLCan the right hon. Gentleman say that there is any reason of political expediency for adopting a policy of coercion against Turkey?
§ Sir E. GREYThat arises on the next question. My answer applies to the question the hon. Member has put, which does not relate to His Majesty's Government at all; it relates to the Turkish Government.
§ 5. RONALD M'NEILLasked the Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether, at the outbreak of the Balkan War, His Majesty's Government and other European Powers intimated to the belligerents that no departure from the status quo ante bellurn would be permitted to result from the war; whether there was any reason except the unexpected success of the Bulgarian and Servian arms for the subsequent reversal of this declaration by the Powers; and whether, in view of the failure of the Allies to make good their conquest of Turkish territory, he will give an assurance that His Majesty's Government will refuse to join in any coercive policy against the Turks for the purpose of preventing them from recovering by force of arms any losses they have sustained in the war, or to consent to the employment of force for that purpose by any other Power or combination of Powers?
§ Sir E. GREYThe answer to the first part of this question is in the affirmative, as stated in my reply to the hon. Member for North Somersetshire on the 31st October last. I suppose the best general answer to the second part of the question is that the Powers did not consider it desirable to intervene by force to make good their original view. But I must qualify this by observing that as regards the Ægean Islands and Albania the Powers did continue to reserve their decision, and in the case of Albania have intervened by force to make it respected. It must not, therefore, be assumed that they will take no action at all in other cases, though hardly any one case is an exact parallel to another. I cannot give any undertaking, such as the hon. Member desires in the last part of his question, which might entail the separation of His Majesty's Government 702 from the rest of the Powers under circumstances that have not yet arisen and cannot be foreseen.
§ Mr. WALTER GUINNESSMay I ask. whether, in view of the Powers having allowed the former Allies to indulge in a naked war of conquest, there is any reason to object to the reoccupation of former Turkish territory in accordance with the. principles of nationality, which the right hon. Gentleman formerly supported?
§ Sir E. GREYThese questions are really based on the assumption that the action of the Powers is regulated by logic and international law. The action of the Powers seems to me to have been influenced in the case of each individual Power, first, by the view of what its own interests require, and, in the case of all the Powers, by a common desire to preserve the peace of Europe. I imagine that their action will continue to be regulated by those influences.