§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYhope the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I change the subject. I will only refer to the subject with which he has been dealing, by saying that the 1987 right hon. Gentleman made the usual exhibition of himself as a well-meaning but rather inefficient brake, just preventing the Government coach from plunging over the precipice of reaction. An opportunity is provided by the present conditions of trade for the unscrupulous employer to sweat his workmen, and I think I shall be doing a service to the workmen if I try to point to one cause for the depression of trade to-day. May I say that I am speaking now either as a Turcophobe or a Greekophobe, but I am speaking on behalf of a national and Imperial interest, namely, the employment of the inhabitants of the cities of these islands, and especially my own constituency. I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not making any sort of attack upon my hon. Friend who represents the Foreign Office. In fact, I want to go out of my way to say that the recent replies that he has given in regard to the question of Asia Minor have been frank and statesmanlike and a great improvement on the attitude of other sections of the Government.
Yesterday we had the usual defence by the Prime Minister, when the foreign policy of this Government is attacked, that it is not his fault that things go wrong, but the other boy's. He did not want to sign the Treaty of Versailles, but M. Clemenceau insisted on it. In spite of M. Clemenceau's great courage, it appears that he could not tell the French people the truth, and therefore they signed the Treaty. Or it was President Wilson, of somebody else. It was the usual excuse of that sort, and the Prime Minister will now, of course, again do the statesmanlike thing and think of his Allies. I will now deal with a matter in which the position is the precise reverse, in which long since peace, with all it means to British trade, could have been made if the only countries concerned had been France and Italy. I refer to the great question of Asia Minor and the present state of affairs there, and I think it is right to raise this point very briefly, before we disperse for a long Vacation, because many serious things may happen there. At the present time British troops are marching and being sent to man the lines of Chatalja, because of the impudent threat of King Constantine. British ships are steaming up and down the Dardanelles and the Bosphorous instead of being at their proper stations, and this is a matter 1988 which certainly concerns the House of Commons. We had a great Conference at Genoa, in which the Prime Minister, I must say, made very laudable efforts to do something to restore the trade of Europe. I am going to propose to him a policy which will do much to restore our trade in another area, namely, in the Levant and Turkey, a country with great possibilities for British trade and where in the past we have had a sure and valuable market., a country in which 30 per cent. of the trade went to this country in the past, and which is of great importance, particularly to the textile areas of this country.
First of all, in spite of it having been stated before in this House, I must remind the Prime Minister, because I am going to criticise his policy, of the pledge that he made in the spring of 1918, in the Central Hall, Westminster, I believe, to a meeting of trade union leaders, who had been disturbed by the reports of what our War aims were, by the publication of secret. Treaties, and so on. The right hon. Gentleman assured them of the cleanliness of our war aims, and he particularly dealt with the question of Turkey, and before doing so, he said he had consulted the right hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. Asquith) and Lord Grey. This pledge of course, was that we were not fighting to deprive Turkey of her capital or of the rich and ancient lands of Thrace and Anatolia, the homelands of the Turkish race. That message mollified the trade union leaders at the time, and they went off heartened. It was also of great value in our Moslem dependencies in India. It was circulated throughout India, placarded in the bazaars, and it did much to reassure our gallant Moslem fellow subjects, who formed such a great part of the British armies, and who were gravely disturbed by what they called the threat to break up the ethnographical territories of Turkey. That was a pledge, and one thing that we used to be proud of was that the word of a Britisher was respected. Whatever our faults, we had that reputation. That was what enabled us to rule India with 1,200 civil servants, that the right hon. Gentleman rightly boasted about on Wednesday—faith in the word of a British statesman.
How has that been proven in this case? I need not go into the details of the 1989 Greek landing at Smyrna and what happened there. Greece was not our Ally in the War. Greece waited till the War was over. It, was only the threat of the British guns, and an occasional shot fired in the gardens of the Palace at Athens, that kept Greece out of the War on the side of Turkey. Greece was sent to occupy Smyrna. What happened there has been described by a Committee of Inquiry, the members of which were Admiral Bristol, of the United States Navy, General Hare, of the British Army, and two very distinguished Allied generals, one Frenchman and one Italian. They have made a Report on what happened, the slaughterings, the excesses, and the outrages that were committed there—a Report which has been suppressed. That, of course, roused all Turkey. It brought thousands of men to the banner of Mustapha Kernel, and to-day the gentleman who is referred to occasionally by Members of this Government as some rebel general is the great national hero of Turkey, and is looked upon as the wielder of the Sword of the Faithful.
Might I, in passing, say a word about Armenia. To-day Armenia, I am sorry to say, is being used as an excuse for Greek Imperialism. I give way to none in my desire that the Armenian people should have the promises so freely made to them. The Armenians stood by us in the War, and rose against their Turkish masters and embarrassed the Turkish armies. That is why they were massacred. We ought now to fulfil our pledge to them, but I believe I am right in saying that at the present moment there is a Republic of Armenia set up, that it is recognised by the Turkish Government, and that Treaties have been exchanged, and I understand that the Turks are willing to give further guarantees against the scattered colonies of Armenians in places outside the Republic of Erivan. Provided we will give them a fair deal, they will play the game and look after these people and see they are not proceeded against. But all the killings of Turkish peasants in the Villayet of Smyrna by the Greeks, the bombarding of Turkish ports by Greek warships, the blusterings of Constantine at the gates of Constantinople, do not protect the Armenians. Do not bring in the Armenians, therefore, as a red 1990 herring across the track in this case. We shall be told by the Prime Minister, I suppose, that the Christian minorities will all be massacred unless the Greeks remain where they are. I am now talking of the Greek minorities. They have lived there for 500 years when the Turk was supreme, and not only that, but they grew to great positions of wealth and influence. A large part of the wealth and great positions were held by these Pontine Greeks, and the Greeks in the Villayet of Smyrna held honourable positions until the intrigues of the Imperialists in Athens, with the sympathy, open or covert, of the right hon. Gentleman, led them astray.
When the French, after their agreement with the Kemalites, left Cilicia, a great many Greeks and other Christians evacuated the country in terror, very largely, I am afraid, because of the propaganda. The evacuation was supervised by French officers, and the advance of the Kemalist army was also accompanied by French officers. I believe that there are not 20 cases of killing or other maltreatment which can be produced, and the occupation of the evacuated territory was carried out peacefully and with good results, considering the fearful state of fanaticism and war spirit that prevailed. I say that in passing, because, in answer to a. question of mine in the House this week, the Government said that when the opposing Governments were invited to an armistice this year, the Greeks accepted and the Turks refused, and that, therefore, the Turks put themselves in the wrong and our support of the Greeks was justified. But I understand that, although the Greeks accepted, they had armies far beyond any just limits of Greek territory, and the Turks said that, before there was an armistice, the Greeks should begin, at any rate, to retreat and that the retreat should be supervised by Allied officers. I think that is perfectly fair. For a long time we refused overtures on the part of the Germans until they evacuated Belgium, and we did make them evacuate it before there was any sort of peace negotiations. I do not think that is unfair.
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I now wish to turn to two aspects of the question. The first is the extraordinary demand of King Constantine and his Ministers that the Greeks should be 1991 allowed to occupy Constantinople in order to bring pressure to bear upon the Government. Constantinople has been occupied by the British at enormous expense. In Angora, which is now the capital of the Turkish Nationalists, there is a representative of every Moslem community in the world. There are ambassadors from Persia, Afghanistan and every independent Moslem State. Even the Moors in Morocco are represented. I got this information a month ago in Paris from French gentlemen—men of repute—who have recently returned. No Englishman has been there for many months, except my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wrekin (Sir C. Townshend). Any Englishmen going outside the range of the guns of the English warships at Constantinople are likely to have their throats cut, and those are the people who had 30 per cent. of the trade of the country in their hands, and are now in danger because of the hostility aroused against us. It is true there have been faults on both sides. One of the reasons why the French left Cilicia, and came to terms with Angora, was the advice of the Governor-General, who told us in Paris that he could not go into the most remote village in Southern Morocco without the headman coming and saying, "What are the French Government doing in Angora Are they helping the Turks?"
We have this tremendous demand that Constantinople should be occupied by the Greek armies, and, I suppose, King Constantine should be re-crowned as Emperor of Byzantium in the mosque of St. Sophia. Could they have had any opportunity of occupying Constantinople if we had not beaten the Turks, largely with the aid of Mussulmans? I am astonished to see that we have landed troops, and have had to send special ships from Malta to Constantinople. During the War, the only argument which the Greeks seemed to understand was a fleet at the Piræus. If ships have to leave their stations at Malta, let them go there. It will have more effect than moving a few extra troops to Constantinople. I see that the British Government have issued a very stern warning to the Greeks against any such venture, but it shows the effect of our policy that such a thing should be ventured upon. 1992 A much more serious matter, however, is the apparent intention to imitate the example of D'Annunzio and Zilogowski in an attempt to set up an independent Ionian State in Smyrna. Apparently the Greek Army is going to remain there and we are to be defied as in the case of D'Annunzio and other advemurers, I am sorry to say, with success.
I hope we shall make it clear to Athens that any announcement of that sort is going to bring severe retribution on the Greeks. Without the connivance of the Powers with sea power, it will be impossible for the State of Ionia to be maintained from the mainland, and there will be no excuse if we permit it. I do ask the Prime Minister to recognise that the atrocities committed by the Turks, which are the excuse put forward by the Lord Privy Seal and other Members of the Government, are not sufficient for encouraging a continuance of war in Asia Minor. There have been, unfortunately, terrible excesses committed on the other side as well. War in that part of the world means excesses. The only way to stop them is to stop war. May I trouble the House by reading from independent reports of neutral observers? There is Professor Arnold Toynbee who has written most strongly in the "Manchester Guardian" and elsewhere, about the excesses committed by the Greeks in Asia Minor. Miss Allen and Billings, two American ladies, and Mr. Gehri write about villages where the Greek armies were hospitably treated and which were burnt by the Greek armies when they retired after defeat. This is the signed report of those two devoted American ladies:
When the Army went through here we did everything they asked us to do. We gave of our butter, our egg our chickens; we baked bread. But what good did it do? This (the ruined houses) is our reward!Later it is said:As we were about to leave the village, a group of women surrounded us, telling us of the various happenings. One said: It was my sister-in-law who was shot when she tried to escape from the hands of the soldiers. My daughter-in-law was seized and violated. I begged the soldiers not to burn my house, and their reply was: "Is not your husband a Kemel soldier? Get your rights from Kernel."'No, their remedy should come from us who loosed these fanatical intolerant, bigoted Imperialists on these defenceless 1993 peasantry. There have been equal, or worse, deeds done on the other side—in greater volume, no doubt. The opportunity has been greater. But two wrongs do not make a right. I am perfectly certain if, in his reply, the Prime Minister makes it clear that we are not going to support this War of aggression, for such it is in Asia Minor, that we are prepared to throw ourselves on the side of Greece, with the French and the Italians, that peace will come. The offers made by the Kemalists are quite fair under the circumstances.Recently the Prime. Minister addressed a great meeting in London, ably assisted, of course, by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. I refer to the gathering of the Free Churchmen. The right hon. Gentleman said to that assemblage that he proposed to, devote his life to the cause of peace. It was an admirable sentence. Is the right hon. Gentleman going, in face of that, still further to estrange us from the great world of Islam? There is a generation in Turkey that are taking an interest for the first time in national matters, and they know for what they are fighting. For the first time, an observer who has recently been in Anatolia has paid a tribute to them, and says there is a recrudescence of Turkish national life. Are we alive to the dangers of force? The worst thing that can happen to us of the British Empire would be a great victory. I beg the Prime Minister now to have the courage that he praised in Lenin and to change his policy. We have been in the wrong in this matter. It is not a question of Cross against Crescent. It is not a question of helping the underdog. In this case the under-dog is the Turk, disarmed, rendered helpless by British arms, before Greece. I beg the Prime Minister to take his opportunity of restoring a great market, and perhaps to pave the way for a reconciliation between our ideas and the great world of Islam.
§ Major GLYNI was surprised that the tone of the hon. and gallant Gentleman was not more constructive to bring about that settlement at which he aims, because it seems to me that it is the business of this House and the Government to do everything possible to put an end to these mutual atrocities, and to try to find some common ground by which peace can be re-estab- 1994 lished and trade set going. The difficulty experienced by the Turkish nationalists is that if they demobilise their Army they will lose control over large numbers of men for whose actions they cannot then have any responsibility. They are anxious to see peace established and trade set going. These men of the Turkish Nationalist Army want to be re-established on the rich and fertile soil of Anatolia, cultivating their farms, and working, with the Greeks, as they have done before. The Greek's function is that of a trader. Without him the Turk cannot market his goods. The Turk is a very bad trader, but an excellent cultivator. If we refuse to recognise the fact that large masses of Greeks and Turks, no matter what the Allied Powers may say, or whatever any Peace Conference may do, have to live cheek by jowl, both in Constantinople, in Asia Minor, and other places, so much the more our attention should be directed, not to work up passions, but to re-establish trade and try to wipe out the passions of the past. It is a little ungenerous of Members here to throw stones at the British Government, because, so far as I can understand, they have endeavoured over a very long period to bring about peace in Asia Minor. It may be a defeat for this country, although 1 rather doubt it, if the Greeks gain a victory. But I am perfectly certain that if the Turks gain the victory that it would not be a victory for Christianity.
We have got a very solemn duty to perform. It is this country that gave the Greeks their freedom. Our history, and the history of the Greeks, is bound up. Let us not forget the deeds of Byron and the words of Mr. Gladstone which combined our action with Greek destiny. Personally I believe that M. Venizeios was one of the most remarkable men that came to the front during the late War. M. Venizeios, however, is not a Greek, he is a Cretan. I believe, that all the trouble has been that M. Venizeios' ideals of Imperialism were on such a very high level that a great many of the Greeks could not follow it. I am convinced that when we backed up the policy of M. Venizeios we did so in good faith, and that the reaction over which nobody had any control occurred, through the death of the young King of the Greeks from the bite of a monkey was a terrible catastrophe that could not 1995 have been foreseen. But is it not our business to interfere with Greek domestic affairs and their form of government when we are always saying that it is our right and duty to help small countries to work out what Constitution they themselves think they should possess?
I would ask the Prime Minister, if he can possibly do so, to reconsider the difficult position in which the present Greek Government are placed. I had the good fortune to be in Athens a short while ago, where I met Venezelists and Royalists. I found one very curious thing displayed in that country as in this —the impossibility of the older politician to forget past differences and to work for the common good. The younger men want to allow for the discrepancies of the political ideas of the past. I was struck by the younger Venezelists and the young Royalists who saw quite clearly that the financial position of the Greeks could not stand indefinitely against the present strain. They believe, just as the Prime Minister himself believes, that the future of their country can best be served by forming a Coalition Government. If you can fuse the interests of Venezelists and Royalists and get them to pursue a similar policy, the Greeks will walk hand in hand with the Great Powers. I should have thought our association with the Turk in the past would be a sufficient guarantee that we could not allow the Turkish position to suffer by being guided by our advice. Obviously, as the hon. Member for Central Hull said, we must consider all the Moslems who are our fellow-citizens, but it is a curious fact that those whom I met who were Turkish Nationalists, and who tried to bring about a rapprochement between the Allies and the Turks were at once disowned by the Turkish National Government. It is extremely difficult to know to whom you can go and whom you can meet as a real representative of the Turkish Nationalist Government. Again, the hon. and gallant Gentleman spoke about a famous French administrator for whom we all have got the highest admiration, but he will find that at Fez there is a Moslem university from which they send out emissaries to every part of the world, who carry on propaganda against the Western civilised nations of the world, and stir up trouble and heap coals of fire on 1996 the smouldering embers of Moslem feeling against Christianity. I think if the Prime Minister could recognise the position of the Greek Government and adjust that position, it would be found possible to have a Coalition Government in Greece. Anybody who will inquire will find that the younger Greeks and Turks are both ready to combine economically and forget the past and proceed along lines of peace, yet at present it is too much to expect that we should demand of the Greeks that they should evacuate their own people, and leave them defenceless against men who have shown no inclination to respect them.
I hope it may be possible for League of Nations to take some part in the settlement of this most difficult problem. I know there was at the Versailles Conference an idea that Constantinople should be in some way brought under the administration of the League of Nations, and it is curious to note now that although the League of Nations is established at Geneva yet the sovereignty of the Swiss Government is in no way affected. I should like to see a branch of the League of Nations established at Constantinople, with control up to the Maritsa, forming a buffer state between Greece an Turkey. If the British wish to have a strong policy, it is high time that this country, which has taken such a prominent part in guiding the destinies of the nations of the Middle East, should again come to the front and help to establish prosperity amongst those peoples. We want neither a pro-Turk nor a pro-Greek but a strong pro-British policy. If we have that without pushing selfish interests at the expense of people who are trying hard to extricate themselves from terrible difficulties, I believe we shall have contributed towards history as we did in days of Mr. Gladstone.
§ Brigadier-General SURTEESMy remarks are always noted for their brevity, and I do not propose to depart from that golden rule on this occasion. I happen to have an intimate knowledge of Turkey and Greece, and I wish to say that I think it most unfair to the people of those two countries that no definite peace has hitherto been brought about. This is not the time to discuss the Turkish Treaty, or to allude to the con- 1997 ditions which some of us consider were a gross injustice to Turkey, nor do I wish to animadvert upon the preferential treatment shown to Greece, a country which has done very little to deserve it. I do claim, however, that in the interests of tranquillity and trade, an end should be put to the very unsatisfactory state of affairs existing in the Near East. That is all I wish to impress upon the Government, and I hope they will redouble their efforts to obtain peace.
§ The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Lloyd George)I think there is very little in the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) with which I can say that I am in agreement. He made, however, one observation which I will accept—that it is desirable, before we separate, that there should be a discussion on the affairs of the Near East. The Government have nothing to conceal in their policy. I agree with the observations made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gateshead (Brigadier-General Surtees) in the very shrewd and sensible speech which he has just addressed to the House, in which he said it is desirable above all things that peace should be established in that portion of the world. The Government have no other desire. There is, however, one very important consideration, and it is that the peace must be a just and fair peace, and one which is likely to be enduring. There, I think, I shall also have the assent of my hon. and gallant Friend.
The hon. and gallant Member for Central Hull seemed to present the case to the House of a friendly Turkey alienated by the policy of His Majesty's Government. The hon. and gallant Member for Hull seems to have forgotten the very recent history of that country. He has forgotten that eight years ago, when we were engaged in a very deadly struggle with the Central Powers of Europe, when the Dardanelles, the Bosphoros, and free access to the Black Sea were very vital to us, this very friendly Power slammed the gates of the Dardanelles in the face of the two countries without whose continuous assistance the Turkish Empire would have not been in existence. We fought one great war to preserve Turkey against her enemies. Before that we had constantly intervened to protect her against those 1998 who attacked her, and, as late as 1878, the whole power of this country was mobilised to protect and save Turkey from the consequences of a disastrous defeat inflicted upon her by her old enemy.
In August. 1914, when we were engaged in a struggle of life and death, when Turkey should have assisted us without hesitation, as a result of a conspiracy into which she entered before the War with our greatest enemy, she did us the greatest dis-service any country could have done. And I have no hesitation m saying, from my knowledge of the War, and I am sure that I am confirmed in it by everybody who has ever read the, history of the War, that the action taken by Turkey then had the effect of prolonging the War by probably a couple of years. I will go beyond that, and say that the collapse of Russia was almost entirely due to Turkey, and would probably never have happened, had the Black Sea been free. And the same applies to Roumania, because, in other circumstances, we should have poured a sufficient amount of ammunition into those countries. The difficulties we had in supplying Russia in 1915 was almost entirely due to the fact that we could only get to Russia through Archangel during a few months of the year. There was only one line which we could use for a few months in the year. We could not pour ammunition in, and the failure of Russia was entirely attributable to that fact. That was due to the action of Turkey, which for a whole century, by finance, by diplomatic influence, by military support, and by the blood of our sons and the blood of the sons of France had been kept alive. That was the payment we got in August, 1914. What is the use of talking of the friendliness of Turkey a few years ago?
There is another illusion under which the hon. and gallant Gentleman seems to be labouring, entirely through ignorance of the facts. He is under the impression that the occupation of Smyrna and the proposals of the Sèvres Treaty were entirely the work of Great Britain. He clearly cannot have acquainted himself with the facts. What was done there was due to a Commission appointed by the great Powers, upon which France, Italy, Japan and ourselves were represented. We were represented by one of our greatest Dominion statesmen, Sir Robert Borden, who, in addition 1999 to being a man of very great breadth of mind, was a great jurist. He represented Great Britain with the aid of the officials of the Foreign Office. We never interfered with that Commission. We left it to them to recommend, and they recommended, upon the facts, that Smyrna and the adjoining villayets ought to be handed over to Greece, because they were predominantly Greek in population, in interest, and in history. That was not our decision. France took the same view. America took the same view. The only Power that expressed no opinion was Italy, for very obvious reasons. Italy was claiming Smyrna herself at that time. That was why this part of Asia Minor was assigned to Greece. It is perfectly true, for reasons which are thoroughly well known, that France has changed her mind since, but it was not our action alone. It was action in which the jurists and experts of France agreed with ours to put Smyrna under the control of Greece that led to the occupation.
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYBut they went there to restore order, according to the dispatch. They were sent there because of alleged atrocities, which were afterwards found to be false.
§ The PRIME MINISTERThe hon. and gallant Gentleman is now getting away from the point he made. The point which he made was that we are responsible. I am answering that by saying that it is not in the least consistent with the facts. It was the report of a Commission upon which we were only one out of five who made that recommendation. It was not our action. The only change has not been a change of policy on our part. Such Change of policy as there has been has been a change of policy entirely on the part of other Powers. I want to make that perfectly clear. What is the position? The position is that the fall of M. Venizelos and the accession of King Constantine has produced a certain chilliness of opinion in France, and also, undoubtedly, in this country, towards Greece. It made a very considerable difference to French opinion. I do not believe that you would have had any of this trouble at all had M. Venizelos still remained at the head of affairs. His influence, as one of the greatest democratic statesmen in Europe, would have been sufficient to keep French public opinion 2000 loyal to its original decision in this respect. But King Constantine had been responsible for certain acts of hostility to the Allies which hurt France very deeply, and I am not at all surprised at the fact that French opinion felt angry with Greece because it elected to stand by its King. If Greece is loyal to her King, that her business. We must judge the whole question upon its merits. But it did produce a modification of the Treaty of Sèvres.
Two efforts have been made to try and get the parties to agree. The first was in London where very considerable modifications were introduced into the Treaty of Sèvres, and there was good reason to believe that the representative of Angora was, on the whole, in favour of accepting. I have no doubt that if they had accepted, Greece Also would have accepted. I have good reason to know that Greece would have accepted the terms then proposed. But the Angora Government repudiated its representative, and the failure to come to terms was entirely the failure of Angora. Then another effort was made by my Noble friend the Foreign Secretary to secure another modification n Paris which would secure peace and tranquillity in this region. I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Gateshead that this is highly desirable in the interests of everybody. It was proposed that there should be a meeting of all the parties somewhere in the East—Turkey, and Greece as well as the Great Powers—but as a preliminary it was stipulated that there should be an Armistice. I. should have thought that that was a most obvious condition to impose. How could you sit in Ismid, Brussa or anywhere else to discuss terms of peace when the belligerents were engaged in cutting each other's throats somewhere outside Brussa? It has been the condition of every conference of peace that has ever been held. Therefore, without any hesitation, the Powers were perfectly unanimous in imposing this condition upon both parties. Greece accepted; the Angora Government refused. The Constantinople Government were, I believe, prepared to accept, and that is where the Sultan is; that is where the Caliph is. That is where the head of Islam dwells. Mustapha Kemal may be a great general and a great patriot; but the head of Islam is in Constantinople. He is the Caliph. 2001 Mustapha Kemal refused, with the result that nothing has been accomplished. He insisted upon preliminary evacuation by the Greeks. He professes to desire peace, but the Turks were encouraged in their refusal of the one condition which the Powers sought to secure from them. That is not the road to peace. The Greek Army said, "We cannot evacuate the position, and leave our people behind, until we know what provisions have been incorporated in the Treaty for the protection of those people." That was not unreasonable.
The hon. and gallant Member admits frankly that there have been atrocities committed by the Turks. He has dwelt with great indignation upon one or two isolated instances of Greek atrocities, but I did not notice the same tone of indignation when he referred to the Turkish atrocities. His anger is reserved for the Greeks. Has he read the Official Report? It is perfectly true that in some cases there have been deplorable outrages by Greek soldiers. It is almost inevitable in that part of the world where there is war. It happened in Macedonia, in conflicts between various nationalities. There have been inquiries instituted by the French, Italian, and British Missions. The Report, says:—
There is no doubt there have been a large number of atrocities, and that those on the part of the Turks have been more considerable and more ferocious than those on the part of the Greeks.But all the indignation the hon. and gallant Member had was reserved for the atrocities committed by Greek soldiers.I wonder whether the hog: and gallant. Member has acquainted himself with the Report of the American Mission with regard to the atrocities in Pontus. There have been individual cases of outrages by the Greeks in the war region, but in Pontus there was not the slightest suggestion that there was any rebellion or preparation for rebellion, and, indeed, it would have been an act of supreme folly on the part of the population to have acted in such a manner. Under the conditions that obtained, I cannot imagine they would have done so, for whatever the Greeks lack, they do not lack intelligence. What has happened there? Not individual instances, but tens of thousands of men, women and children 2002 have been deported, and tens of thousands have died. The reports with regard to the women are perfectly horrible, and all these outrages were committed without any rebellion, and without any provocation. It was pure deliberate extermination. "Extermination" is not my word. It is the word used by the American Mission.
It was open to the Greeks to say, "Before our troops retire from the lines which we have occupied after driving the Turks out with great loss, leaving 500,000 men, women and children of our race behind us, we want some guarantee that the same thing may not happen here as happened in Pontus.' Our business is to hold the balance justly and fairly between both parties. It is not a question of Mussulman versus Christian. I want to make that perfectly clear. Supposing the Armenians were in control of Asia Minor, and supposing they had been guilty of these atrocities, these wholesale atrocities against Mussulmans, we should have been bound to intervene. We should have been bound to use the whole of our influence as a great Mahommedan Power. Scores of millions of Mahommedans are our fellow subjects, and we should have been bound to intervene on their behalf. It is a pure question of humanity. After all, the responsibility for the defeat of the Turks was our responsibility. They were our troops who overthrew the Turks, and, therefore, the responsibility for the establishment of peace in Turkey must be our responsibility. We cannot abrogate the predominance which has been won by the sacrifice of our own people. We have a right to say that without some guarantee we will make no peace which will place hundreds of thousands of poor defenceless people who are looking to us for protection at the mercy of those who have been guilty of the deportations and outrages in Pontus.
These outrages have undoubtedly modified, and profoundly modified, the position. First there is the fact that the Turks have refused to accept the conditions imposed by all the Powers quite unanimously with regard to an armistice. We could not allow the war to go on in that very important quarter. We could not afford to allow the trade of the district to be kept in a condition of disturbance and uncertainty. But the Turks have deliberately insisted on it. In addi- 2003 tion to that, they have disturbed the balance of the Paris proposals, after having shown that they cannot be trusted with complete sovereignty and sway in a quarter like the Smyrna Vilayet, where there are hundreds of thousands of Christians who would be entirely at their mercy. The Turk is an Oriental. He knows many things. He does not always know, perhaps, the value of time, but he always plays for time in diplomacy. He hangs on in the hope that the other party will give way first. It ought to be made quite clear that the terms I have mentioned are not indefinitely open to the Turk, who is saying to himself, "If I hold out, I may have a chance of getting everything I want, and if I do not, the worst that can happen to me will be that I shall get the Paris terms offered to me." That cannot be the case. The hon. and gallant Gentleman quoted what I said at the end of 1917, or the beginning of 1918, about a year before the end of the War. That was a definite offer to Turkey to go out of the War, and she did not. The same offer was made, I believe, privately. There were the usual approaches, coming, perhaps, from an authorised person—I cannot tell. It is very difficult to tell when a war is on whether a man is authorised or not. At any rate, we got the same proposals. Turkey went on for a year. She went on until she was completely beaten, and had added scores of millions to our debt, and tens of thousands to our casualties. Turkey thinks that she is entitled to the same offer a year later as was made to her at a time when there was a good deal to be gained by getting her out, and it was worth our while to give her better terms.
§ Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHYOf course, if it was a just offer. Why not?
§ The PRIME MINISTERThe question whether it was a. just offer was tried by this Commission, and this Commission—a perfectly fair, reputable and honourable Commission—gave that decision, and we abided by it. I forget who it was who said that we were not fair as between the parties. I am not sure that we are. What has happened? Here is a war between Greece and Turkey. We are defending the capital of one of the parties against the other. We must not overlook that fact, and it is a very im- 2004 portant fact. If we were not there, there is absolutely no doubt that the Greeks would occupy that capital in a very few hours, and that would produce a decision. There is only one way now in which the Greeks can have a decision, and that is by marching through almost impenetrable defiles for hundreds of miles into the country. I do not know of any army that would have gone so far as the Greeks have. It was a very daring and a very dangerous military enterprise. They established a military superiority in every pitched battle. They were barred by the conformation of the country, and the fact that they had to maintain lines of communication that no other Army in Europe would ever have dreamed of risking.
But there was one way in which they could have established a decision. If we were simply holding the ring between them and said, "There you are, light it out," they would have marched to the capital, and taken it, I will not say to-morrow, but in a week. Who is preventing that? British troops, French troops, Italian troops, and the British, French and Italian navies. It is quite right that we should do so, but do not let us say that we are unduly favouring the Greeks, that we are giving then) some sort of preferential treatment.
There are even suggestions, not altogether, perhaps, without foundation, that the Kemalist forces are being re-equipped from Europe. The Greeks, under other conditions, would have been entitled to blockade the coast of Asia Minor. Had it been any other belligerent, they would have been entitled to search ships and to prevent arms from going to the Kemalists. They are not allowed to do that. That is what the hon. and gallant Gentleman calls "preference for the Greeks." On the contrary, one of the unfairnesses of the situation is that we are driven, by the position we occupy there, into not giving a fair field and no favour to fight the issue out. Peace the Kemalists will not accept, because they say we will not give them satisfactory armistice terms: but we are not allowing the Greeks to wage the war with their full strength.
We cannot allow that sort of thing to go on indefinitely, in the hope that the Kemalists entertain, that they will at last exhaust this little country, whose men have been in arms for 10 or 12 years, with one war after another, and which 2005 has not indefinite resources. That is the position. We only want to see a just peace established. Facts which have occurred during the last few months make it clear that, whatever happens, there must be adequate efficient protection of the minorities in this part of Asia Minor, as an essential part of any settlement which Great. Britain can accept. By these guarantees I do not mean the word of Angora. That was given in Armenia. What has it been worth? It has not saved the life of a single Armenian or Greek. The protection must be an adequate one, which will take form and effect in the very constitution of the government of this particular province.
The hon. and gallant Gentleman talked about events in the past history of Turkey, when the Greeks were not massacred and the Armenians were not massacred. Yes; that is the change which has come over the policy of Turkey in the last 30 years. There is no doubt at all in the mind of anyone who has watched what ha happened that a sentiment has grown up that there is only one way by which Turkey can get rid of her embarrassments with non-Mussulman populations, and that is by deportation or extermination. Abdul Hamid was very largely responsible for that policy. Millions of Armenians have been exterminated, and the same policy is being applied to the Greeks. What does the Turk say? He says, "As long as these people are here, Europe will interfere. I shall be receiving diplomatic notes. I have been threatened constantly. I cannot always control my Pashas and my Beys. Therefore, the best thing is to get rid of them, and to get a homogeneous population." There is no doubt that that is the policy which is governing and controlling a great many Turkish officials, and it is written in blood in the history of the last thirty years in Turkey. It is now extending to the Greeks. It is no use referring to the Turkey of a hundred years ago, or even of fifty years ago—certainly not to the Turkey of 200 or 300 years ago. There has been a complete change in their attitude. I agree that there was a Turkey which was tolerant, which, on the whole, was indulgent in its treatment of people of a different religion and race. But there is a new spirit which is inspiring a good many of those who direct the policy of the country, and we must 2006 take that into account in every settlement that is made.
There is one word which was said by my hon. Friend behind in his most interesting speech, that Greece is suffering undoubtedly from the unfortunate division amongst her people, the division between the followers of Venizelos and Constantine, which is paralysing her activities. It is remarkable that she has been able to accomplish what she has. She has maintained an army, and a large army. I am told there are men who have not been home to see their families for 12 years in Greece—peasants drawn from the soil—and they are prepared still to go on for the liberation of the men of their race. They have made financial sacrifices which are almost incredible. There is that ingenious device, in order to extricate themselves from financial difficulties, by which notes were halved, one half remaining currency at half the original value of the note and the other becoming a forced loan to the country. It is a device worthy of the ingenuity of the Greek mind. By that means you enforce loans of half the currency in cash circulating throughout the country. It was accepted without a murmur by the whole of the population, and it has enabled them to keep their sons still longer in the field. A people who have done that are worthy of consideration at the hands of any country, and therefore I earnestly trust that, whatever happen, we shall see that the Christian populations of Asia Minor are adequately protected against a repetition of such horrible incidents as have disgraced the annals of that land.
§ Sir D. MACLEANThere are just two minutes in which I might contribute very briefly to the very useful Debate which has taken place. Whatever may be said about my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy), he has rendered a service in inducing the speech from the Prime Minister in regard to a. most difficult problem in the Near East, with which I desire to say that I find myself in substantial agreement. The great tradition of the great party to which I belong has been, I am glad to recognise, fully reflected in the speech which the Prime Minister has made this afternoon. I am glad that the Session closes this afternoon, not on the note of mere pounds, 2007 shillings and pence, but on the note of humanity and of our obligations towards the oppressed races of the Near East under the heel of a nation which, after all the lessons which have been read to it during the past few years, has learned nothing if anything at all.
§ Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at One Minute before Four o'Clock till Tuesday, 14th 2008 November, pursuant to the Resolution the House of this day, provided always that if it appears to the satisfaction of Mr. SPEAKER, after consultation with His Majesty's Government, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at any earlier time during the Adjournment, Mr. SPEAKER may give notice that he is so satisfied, and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such notice, and shall transact its business as if it bad been duly adjourned to that time.