THE TREATY WITH TURKEY.

HL Deb 04 August 1920 vol 41 cc726-44

LORD WESTER WEMYSS rose to call attention to the Treaty with Turkey; and to move for Papers.

The noble and gallant Lord said: My Lords, I am under no illusion as to the difficulties under which I labour in addressing your Lordships for the first time on a question of such grave moment as the Treaty with Turkey. I am perfectly aware that the ratification in no way rests with Parliament, and that therefore were I even a Solomon and a Demosthenes rolled into one there is nothing which I could do or say which would alter the destiny of this Treaty. But in spite of this—indeed I am not sure it is not because of this—I feel, and feel very strongly, that the ratification should not go by without some protest on the part Of those who (however small their number may be), like me, feel that it contains very little that is good and a great deal that is both harmful and even dangerous to ourselves and our Allies

The first perusal of the contents of the Treaty left me wondering what on earth could have been the line of policy which members of the Supreme Council laid down for themselves when approaching this subject. And a further study of the subject convinced me that there was no line of policy, and that the baneful and illogical conclusions which had been arrived at had been reached by a compromise, if not by a jettisoning of all principles and a yielding to the dictates of mere day-to-day expediency. I trust that I am wrong in my deductions. I hope sincerely that the noble Earl the Leader of the House will be able to show us that there was a policy, and be able to convince us that the reasons which governed the Council in coming to these conclusions were of sufficient weight to outbalance the harm which their fulfilment must inevitably cause.

Everybody must realise, of course, the enormous difficulties which the Allied statesmen encountered at Paris. There were clashing of interests, divergencies of points of view, differences of psychology, and so forth, but surely there must have been one idea, one ideal, which was common to all the statesmen—I mean a determination to eliminate as far as is humanly possible all those factors which make for war and to leave that part of the world with which they were dealing in a state less chaotic than that in which they found it. If, as we hope, and might reasonably expect, this was the case, how lamentably short did they fall of its realisation! Could anybody really believe that the arrangement with regard to Smyrna helped to do away with the chaos? Can anybody really believe that a local Parliament there is capable of successfully grappling with these matters, difficult always as they have been, and now rendered doubly so through the intensification of racial feeling which has resulted from recent events there? Does anybody believe really that a plebiscite, whenever it may take place, is going to allay all the jealousies and settle once for all those questions which always have been, and always must be, present?

I look upon these expedients as a cloak to hide some reasons (which I cannot fathom) for this transaction. But I am sure, if it is a cloak, that it will be blown away at the very first political breeze, from whichever direction it may come. Smyrna is purely Turkish, though of course the city contains a large and influential Greek population. But it is not singular in this respect. There are many other cities where the same state of affairs obtains, notably Alexandria. Will anybody in his wildest flight of imagination suppose that the mere setting up of a local Parliament, with a future plebiscite which is to decide the destiny of the Delta of the Nile, will be a means of getting us out of our difficulties in that country? No.

Again there is Thrace. Does anybody really believe that the handing over of Thrace to Greece and the shutting-off of Bulgaria entirely from all access to the Ægean and the placing of Greek forces at Adrianople will eliminate the war-like factors which are present? On the contrary, it can only add to the many that exist. I hold no brief for the Turk or the Bulgar, but this I do know—that they are strong, virile, and war-like races, and that if they accept these terms now they will do so nursing feelings of revenge which will inevitably grow into a determination to win back some day by the sword what has been lost by the sword. And I ask what are the reasons for this creation of an Eastern Alsace-Lorraine? When these provinces were wrested from France at the instigation of the German military party and under the pretence of strategical necessity, there was opened in Western Europe a festering sore which lasted for nearly fifty years. Now, in spite of the experience we have had, in spite of the lessons taught us by history, it seems to me that we are creating just such another situation in the East, for assuredly the handing over of these Turkish provinces to Greece will raise an irritant in that part of the world which will last just exactly as long as those provinces remain in the hands of Greece.

I ask myself this question, What are the reasons for this transaction? I can find no satisfactory reply. Is it a reward to Greece? That can hardly be. Greece, of all the Allies, appears to be the one which has done least in and suffered least from the war; and have we not proclaimed from all the house-tops, in the loudest manner, that the word "reward" has no place in the Allied vocabulary? I cannot believe that it is a punishment to Turkey and Bulgaria for the course they have pursued. Punishment, to be efficient, must be deterrent. So far from being deterrent, I am afraid that this will only strengthen their desire to resort to arms again should a favourable opportunity occur.

When Turkey, misguided, criminally perhaps, threw in her lot with our enemies, Great Britain as an assurance to the Mahomedan world pledged herself to maintain the spiritual authority of the Sultan, and later the Prime Minister declared that we were not fighting to deprive Turkey of her capital or of her rich and renowned lands of Asia Minor predominantly Turkish in race. How do the terms of this Treaty accord with those declarations? Constantinople, it is true, remains as the capital of Turkey, but it is an open secret that this is the case only because of the inability of the Allied and Associated nations to find some satisfactory means of filling that void which the expulsion of the Turkish Government from the city would create. Thrace, it is true, is not in Asia Minor but, equally with Smyrna, it is a rich and renowned land predominantly Turkish in race, and the handing over of these provinces to a hated rival Power will inevitably be looked upon by the Mahomedans all the world over as a breach of faith on our part.

It is not very long ago that we listened in this House to an extremely interesting debate wherein more than one noble Lord of great knowledge and experience of Indian affairs declared that the security of our Indian Empire rested mainly upon the mutual faith and confidence of the peoples. That is a sentiment with which, I am sure, all thinking men would agree. What, therefore, must be our feelings—they can be feelings of nothing but dismay—when we realise how far towards the shattering of that trust this Treaty goes? And that trust in us on the part of our Indian fellow-subjects once broken, or even bent, the inhabitants of India will inevitably turn in other directions than Great Britain in the hope of finding the means of fulfilling their political and social aspirations, and I fear that in so doing they will believe that in Pan-Islamism they will have found the instrument for which they seek. Is such a time opportune for launching on the world a Treaty which outrages the feelings of millions of our fellow-subjects in India and helps to ferment the antagonism of people who, up to now, have looked upon us as their friends?

When Turkey, prostrate and defeated, signed the Armistice, she looked upon the Allies almost in the light of friends who had come to deliver her from the thraldom of the German yoke. She knew that, as a consequence of her conduct, she would be disarmed and rendered militarily impotent. She suspected—she must have suspected—that she would be deprived of those parts of her Empire which were alien to her in race, but she did hope that under the auspices of the Allies a regenerated Government would arise which, under the direction of those Allies, would be able to set her house in order and commence the reconstruction of her homeland which is so necessary not only for the welfare of herself but for the welfare of the world at large. I believe that had a Treaty framed on some such broad and liberal lines been put into force in the early days of 1919 we should have had now a very different state of affairs. We should have had, I believe, a wiser and a repentant Turkey, in whom we should have had a line of defence against the insidious attacks of Bolshevism, instead of, as now under the terms of this Treaty, a Turkey half of whose population has been driven into the arms of that sinister power.

At that time the Young Turk Party was discredited, finished. There was no National Party then to dispute the will of the Allies. That Party owed its existence simply and solely to that unhappy landing of the Greeks in Smyrna, with its, accompanying massacres and bloodshed. Since the signing of the Treaty twenty months have passed. Instead of peace we have war. There have been twenty months of delay and indecision, during which peoples, who trusted us in our hour of victory, have learned in the hour of negotiation to distrust us; twenty months during which a perfect torrent of literature and oratory has been poured upon a hypnotised world giving vent to every sort and kind of impossible and impracticable idea which has only served to make material for propaganda in the hands of our enemies; twenty months during which the Turkish Empire has been dissolved, not, as one might reasonably expect, into its legitimate, original parts, but into a very jumble of small States whose existence, from the very nature of things, cannot but be ephemeral, and wherever the Allies have tried their hand among those nations I fear the results have hardly been such as to raise their prestige in the world.

In Mesopotamia we are no longer looked upon as liberators; on the contrary, we are looked upon as the successors of a tyrant, and are hated as such. Armenia still drags out a miserable existence, hopelessly wondering what is going to be her fate. In Palestine we are attempting to set up a community which, by all the laws of economics and by all the laws of psychology, from the force of reason and from the lessons of history, cannot either maintain itself or live in amity with its neighbours And in Syria we have succeeded in manœuvring ourselves into such a position that the fulfilment of our promises to one Ally entails the breaking of our moral obligations to another. That is hardly a pleasant picture for Englishmen to look upon, and yet I do not see that one can view the Treaty in any other way. This Treaty, which it had been hoped would eliminate war-creating factors, which would dispel chaos, on the contrary only multiplies the one and intensifies the other. And its makers, its parents, have entirely forgotten that, easy as it may be to alter a map, it is practically impossible to change either geography or human nature.

We sailors and soldiers have been in some quarters—not very important perhaps—but still we have been accused of being callous as to whether a state of war existed or not. It has even been insinuated that we welcome war as an outlet for our activities and our ambitions. I am sure that it is quite unnecessary for me in this House to refute such statements. But I will go further and say that if there is one section of the community which looks upon war with greater abhorrence than another it is probably that section of the community which has the honour of wearing His Majesty's uniform, whether it be blue or khaki. It is because I share those feelings with my comrades of the Navy and the Army that I look with dismay upon a Treaty which contains so many seeds fruitful of war.

I am an admirer, and a passionate admirer, of the British Empire, not from an Imperialistic or jingo point of view, but from the point of view of its being one of the greatest assets which the world contains for the maintenance of law and order and of that physical and moral stability which is so necessary. It is because I have those feelings that I look with dismay, distrust, and suspicion upon a Treaty which contains the germs of a disease which must inevitably attack that Empire at its very roots. It has been said of the war from which we have just emerged that it was a war to end war. I fear that with this Treaty as a guide to the peace upon which we are about to enter it can be much more aptly said that it is a peace to end peace. I beg to move.

Moved, That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the Treaty of Peace with Turkey.—(Lord Wester Wemyss.)

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON)

My Lords, I hope the House will allow me, for reasons which I will state, to answer the noble Lord without delay. I need hardly say how glad we all are to welcome the first appearance of the noble Lord in our debates. But I confess for my own part that I hope, for the sake, at any rate, of the Government Bench, that some of his later efforts may be marked by a somewhat greater moderation of tone and language than that which we have heard from him this evening.

Had my noble friend Lord Wester Wemyss, following a not unusual practice here, asked the representative of the Foreign Office in your Lordships' House whether the present moment was the most suitable at which to raise a discussion upon the Turkish Treaty as a whole I should have been bound to answer him in the negative, and for this reason. The noble Lord in his remarks spoke of the Treaty as if it was about to be ratified, and seemed to think that some duty lay upon him to snatch the sole remaining opportunity, before ratification takes place, in order to favour your Lordships' House with an expression of his personal view. He even spoke of the Treaty as having been signed more than a year ago. He is surely quite mistaken in his facts. The Treaty has not been ratified, it has not even yet been signed, and I cannot imagine a more unfavourable moment at which to embark upon a discussion of a matter of this sort or to invite a Ministerial statement upon a Treaty than at the very date when the signatories of that Treaty are, I believe, either at or approaching the place where we shall presently know what they propose to do—a moment when the Treaty has not been signed, when it has not even been published (as, of course, it will be after it has been signed), when the great majority of your Lordships who have listened to this speech can only have a very general idea of the subjects under discussion, and when, for these and other reasons, the spokesman of the Government is necessarily incapacitated from dealing with many aspects of the case. If my noble friend, following another and still commoner feature of our proceedings, had given me some indication in advance (as he did not do) of the particular subjects arising out of this vast question which he desired to bring before your Lordships, I should perhaps have been in a better position to give him satisfaction than I am. However, I will do my best to deal with the speech to which we have just listened.

The noble Lord, as I have already remarked, did not spare his language. He had not a good word to say for the Treaty from beginning to end. He told us that its conclusions were illogical, that a total lack of principle inspired its authors, and, without saying that the shaft went home, I could not help remembering the fact that I personally presided Over a Conference of the representatives of the Allies for over two months in this city, sitting day by day carefully examining the features of the case, endeavouring to work out a reasonable and just Treaty. And yet as the result of those proceedings I gather from the noble Lord's diatribes this afternoon that those of us who were responsible for the Treaty were little better than incompetent idiots, if we were not deliberate knaves. That is the only deduction to be drawn from the class and character of epithets which the noble Lord has thought well to level at us.

He denounced the arrangements that are proposed in the Treaty about the future of Smyrna as an unscrupulous and dishonest transaction. He spoke of Smyrna as a purely Turkish province. It is nothing of the sort. A Commission was set up to examine this particular question of Smyrna. It spent days and, I think, weeks in probing the facts, examining the figures, endeavouring to arrive at some just solution. And the data which, after this examination, were submitted to us proved conclusively that Smyrna is not a Turkish Province, but that the area which is to be handed over to the Greeks is an area in which there is a substantial Greek majority In the same way with regard to Thrace. Again, with similar confidence, the noble Lord spoke about Thrace as a purely Turkish province. It is nothing of the sort. I do not know whether the noble Lord has examined the figures, but it had necessarily been part of my duty to do so, and taking the area from the Chatalja lines up to the Bulgarian frontier which it is proposed to hand to Greece, and of which the Greeks have already entered into occupation, there again the figures show a substantial, though I admit a not very large, Greek majority.

The noble Lord was not even satisfied with the arrangements that we have made with regard to Constantinople. He really, if I may say so, was entirely ignorant of the reasons which led to the decision that was taken. He said that the Powers had decided that the Turks should remain in Constantinople because they could not devise any satisfactory plan by which the void should be filled either by one of themselves or by a combination of themselves. That is not in the least the case. The reason why Constantinople, about the future of which there were grave differences of Opinion, was ultimately left to the Turk was exclusively with the desire of considering, and as far as possible conciliating the sentiments of our own Moslem fellow-subjects in different parts of the world. Yet, my Lords, having made that concession—and I am by no means certain in my own mind that it was a right concession; I think it is quite likely that, as time passes, it will be shown to have been a mistaken concession—exclusively from the point of view of and in those interests, I stand here to-day to be told by the noble Lord that we have inflicted an outrage upon the feelings of our Moslem fellow-subjects, the reaction of which may be expected to effect us unfavourably for years to come.

Again, in the concluding passages of his speech my noble friend expressed in a sentence, but without any explanation, extreme dissatisfaction with our proposals with reference to Mesopotamia, to Palestine, and to Armenia. I wonder what solution the noble Lord himself would have proposed for any of those areas. Would he have left Mesopotamia under the Turk, which had ruined, misgoverned, and devastated those areas for centuries? He blamed us for not having been successful in our treatment of Armenia. What would have been his solution? I gather from the passionate admiration that he displayed for the Turk that he would have left Armenia in statuquo, putting wholly on one side the long and tragic record of cruelty and bloodshed which has stained the history of the Turkish connection with Armenia during the last half-century, and the fact that she lost no fewer than 800,000 of her people massacred by the Turks since the beginning of the war, not to speak of 200,000 who were expatriated and deported from their own native country to other parts of the Turkish Empire.

As regards Palestine, what is the noble Lord's solution? He is very much dissatisfied with the proposals under which Great Britain has accepted a Mandate for Palestine with the idea of setting up, so far as we can, with due justice to the Arab majority, a national home for the Jews in that country. What would he have done? Palestine under the Turks for the last 500 years has been one of the great scandals of history. Yet when now at length we seize the opportunity of rectifying it, when we accept a Mandate in deference to what we have every reason to believe to be the wishes of the inhabitants, before that Mandate has even been made public, before it has been submitted to the sanction of the League of Nations, the noble Lord comes down here, dismisses the whole thing in a sentence, sweeps aside our policy, and condemns it unstated and unheard. With all respect to the noble Lord I have never listened in this House to a speech in which there was more unbroken vehemence or less light and shade, or in which less consideration was extended to those who, dealing with a very difficult problem, have, I can assure the House, had before their minds justice, peace, future order, and prosperity quite as much as the noble Lord himself can have in view in dealing with those countries.

My Lords, you have had one picture of the Turkish Peace Treaty from the noble Lord. May I in a few sentences give you the other side of the picture, which any stranger dropping into this House for the first time would never have guessed from the almost impassioned denunciations with which the noble Lord has favoured us. I say little about the circumstances in which Turkey entered the war, but I cannot help recalling that in 1914, when the war broke out elsewhere, the Allied Powers guaranteed to Turkey the absolute integrity of her territories and the retention of her independence provided only that she would maintain her neutrality in the war. She spurned that offer. She deliberately linked her fortunes with those of the enemy Powers. And with what consequences? By cutting off communications with the Black Sea, which, owing to the accidents of history and geography, were in her hands, she prevented Rumania and Russia from playing that part in the early stages of the war which they would otherwise have done. Her entry into the war greatly prolonged it—prolonged it by a period, I should think, of at least two years. She imposed upon the Allies the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives and millions of treasure. Apart from the burdens which they were thus called upon to suffer, there was the ruinous toll to which I alluded just now which she exacted from her own subject-populations in every part of the Empire which she then ruled. Such an experience was, I think, fit to show the civilised world that such a Power could no longer be left in a position where it could repeat these crimes. The interests of humanity demanded that its power for evil in the future should be curtailed if not destroyed, while at the same time, following the pledges given by our Prime Minister—to which the noble Lord referred and as to which I have to say a word—following those pledges an opportunity, of which he did not say a word and which no one could have guessed from his speech, is given to Turkey to take her place as a peaceful and prosperous Power in the future.

I am, perhaps, rather more familiar with the Peace Treaty than is my noble friend, and let me tell him and the House what are the conditions under which Turkey is left under the Peace Treaty. It is true that there are taken from her—and this I did not understand the noble Lord to contest—those subject-populations, whether they be Armenians, Syrians, Arabs, Kurds, or others, whom she has so grievously misgoverned in the past. But there are left to her those homelands in Asia Minor which are fairly homogeneous in race, in language, and in creed; a territory larger than Spain; a territory three times the size of Austria, as she is left by the Peace Treaty; an area over which it is perfectly within her power to build up, with that aid which Europe is willing to give her, a stable and peaceful kingdom in the future.

Again, consider the financial and economic advantages which Turkey will derive from the terms of the Treaty. Is it not a matter of common knowledge that it was the corrupt, the chaotic, condition of Turkish finances during the last half century that constituted the chief weight upon her own people, that was the main source of friction between Turkey and foreign Governments, and that acted as a crushing handicap on the development of the natural resources of the country? Under the terms of the Treaty a Financial Commission is to be set up at Constantinople, consisting of the Allied representatives with a Turkish member in a consultative capacity upon it, which is to take over the entire control of the finances, revenue, and expenditure of Turkey, which will secure, what the Turkish population have never enjoyed yet, a fair incidence of taxation, and which will, above all, prevent that constant barter of concessions with the subjects of foreign Powers which more than anything else was the cause of the corruption of Turkish government.

In dealing with the financial clauses of the Treaty may I remind your Lordships that a lenient measure, an exceptionally lenient measure, has been dealt out to Turkey in this respect—that all those European Powers which in one capacity or another will be responsible in future for the government of the regions that have been taken away from Turkish sovereignty, have taken with them and assumed their share of the Ottoman public debt for those areas. Moreover, in the case of Turkey the Allied Powers, with a view of setting her on her legs again, have foregone all claim to reparation, though they might in relation to the expenditure which has been imposed upon them have asked for thousands, and indeed for millions; they have not even exacted from Turkey any war indemnity.

The noble Lord, in his stream of universal denunciation, had not one word to say about the arrangements that are proposed for the control of the Straits in the future. Yet the Straits, and the Channels adjoining, which constitute a feature in the noble Lord's career which he must always look back upon, as his countrymen do, with honourable pride, are in future to be guaranteed as an international highway, free to the navigation of all countries during times of peace and safe from that arbitrary and unilateral power of closing the Straits which Turkey, by the accident of her position, has been able to exercise to the grave detriment of the peace of Europe in times of war. The noble Lord spoke strongly about the sacrifices to which Turkey is called upon to submit in respect of her harbours, notably Smyrna, under the Treaty. But Turkey is assured a free access to the ports of the Mediterranean and Aegean, she is given freedom of transit to the ports which have been severed from her and a lease in perpetuity of a free zone in the Port of Smyrna.

If the Turkish Government can sever themselves from the evil memories and traditions of the past, as I believe they are not incapable of doing, can realise that in future their people are going to be free from the burden of conscription, that they are going to be free from the excessive military expenditure which has hitherto weighed them down, free from the temptation to play off one Power against another, free from the exactions of corrupt officials—if the Turkish Government and the Turkish population can realise these advantages I believe they have before them a great opportunity, one of the greatest opportunities that has ever occurred in history, to recover their stability, no doubt on a smaller scale, and become a useful factcr in the development of the world.

The Treaty, as I remarked in my opening observations, is now lying on the Table at Paris. The Turkish Plenipotentiaries have, I believe, arrived in that capital. I am told, though I have no authoritative information on the point, that they are going to sign the Treaty. I cannot myself conceive a wiser course of action for them to pursue, and I believe that in signing the Treaty they will be signing it with a deliberate intention on the part of their Government at Constantinople to do their best to carry it out. We all of us know that the obstacles are great. I admit that in many of the areas concerned racial passions, existing for centuries and very likely fomented by recent events, still burn. I agree that in some of these parts trouble may be anticipated, but if Turkey suffers in that way she will not be the only part of the world that finds the consequences of war almost as disagreeable as the experiences of war itself.

Now occurs a great opportunity. The Powers who have imposed this Treaty and who regard it as a fair and just Treaty will not be slow, if they find a spirit of good will on the part of Turkey, to render to her such assistance as lies in their power. Every one of us must realise, whether he be pro-Turk or Turkophobe, that the old Turkey of the Pashas and the past, the Turkey of corruption, intrigue, mis-government and massacre, has gone, has fortunately gone for ever, and now is the occasion for building upon the ruins of that old and vanished Turkey a new Turkey which shall be better than anything that in modern times has been associated with her name.

In view of the circumstances of the case, and the fact that the Treaty has not been signed—its terms have not been made known, not yet been published—I do not think it possible for me to go further than I have done in the remarks I have made. As soon as the Treaty is signed, if it be so, Papers will be laid before Parliament and noble Lords will then be in a better position to realise whether there is justification for the remarks I have made this afternoon, or whether they will prefer to follow my noble friend in the much less sanguine account of the whole of these transactions that we have heard from him.

LORD LAMINGTON

My Lords, may I say a word or two on this subject? The noble Earl has severely treated the noble Lord who brought forward the Motion, but who, I understand, is only animated by the lack of confidence prevailing amongst Mahomedans throughout the world at the way they have been treated consequent upon this great war. The noble Earl did not refer to it specifically, but there was that famous declaration of the Prime Minister in January, 1918, when he laid down emphatically what were the objects of the Allied Powers with regard to Constantinople and the Near East, and he must remember that Thrace was specially mentioned as being outside the powers with regard to any idea of annexation. I think that is one of the points on which the Moslem population considers strongly—it cannot be said that faith has been broken with them—that the declaration made by Mr. Lloyd George has not been acted up to. I was glad indeed to hear the reassuring terms in which the noble Earl mentioned Anatolia, and also the very favourable account which he gave as to the possible prospects of the successful administration of that part of Asia Minor by the Turks.

Beyond that question of Asia Minor was the matter referred to by Lord Wester Wemyss—the feeling among other Moslems outside Turkey that we have not acted up to our distinct pledges. The matter has been brought before your Lordships' House before, and I do not intend to go into the matter of Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine, but I think we did feel in this instance that everything had not been done to set up a separate Arab State, which was the undertaking given specifically and repeatedly by His Majesty's Government during the time of the war; that we have in some degree—it may have been inevitable—not been able to act up to our promises towards the Moslem population of these different countries. Mr. Lloyd George again in February, 1918, in the House of Commons, repeated most emphatically that not for a moment could there be any doubt or question as to the British Government not carrying out faithfully their word. He spoke with emphasis in saying that it should not be thought for a moment that we should depart from any pledges which had been given; and your Lordships cannot deny that at the present moment, rightly or wrongly, among the Moslem population of India and elsewhere there is a feeling that we have not acted up to our promises.

Everybody who knows the noble Earl will be perfectly well aware that devotion to India has been one of the most prominent points of his political life, together with a desire to see fair treatment meted out to Indians. Therefore I was glad to hear him speak so emphatically of the prospect of the Turks, who are to be left part of their previous territory, being given every assistance. Still the point remains that there is this profound feeling of lack of confidence entertained by the Moslem people in the different parts of the world, and I can only trust that what has taken place this afternoon, and the speech of the noble Earl, will have a reassuring effect.

With regard to one point on which the noble Earl particularly challenged the noble Lord for having introduced the Motion this afternoon, it seems rather difficult to understand why this House should not consider the terms of the Treaty. After all the original terms came out in May of this year, and it is rather perplexing to myself and others to know when we can usefully debate the question in this House. It is rather hard that we may not be allowed to express an opinion on certain points. I agree that the relative positions of these different peoples who inhabit the Near East, and other most complicated problems, must be left to the Government, but it seems desirable that we should not be debarred altogether from uttering any opinion on points on which we consider we know something; and I trust that the noble Lord will consider that he has not done altogether wrong, because I think he has elicited from the noble Earl a feeling of some sympathy with Turkey in her present distressed condition.

THE MARQUESS OF CREWE

My Lords, I have no desire to prolong this debate, but after what has fallen from the noble Lord behind me I desire to confirm his view in one sense—namely, that I think the noble Earl opposite was somewhat hard upon the noble and gallant Lord who initiated this debate. We are accustomed here to express regret that those who join this House, either by succession or creation, do not take as much part as we should wish in our debates, particularly on important subjects of public interest. Therefore when a noble and gallant Lord like my noble friend above the gangway starts a debate of this kind on a matter of great public interest I fear he may think it rather discouraging to receive—ought I to say? so very cold or so very warm a reception as he did from the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Also, I cannot help feeling that the complaint of the noble Earl that this is not the proper time for such a discussion is not altogether a reasonable one. It is quite true, and of course I fully admit it, that the particular circumstances of the approaching dealing with the Treaty in Paris may make it seem an inappropriate occasion to bring forward this particular Motion, but, as Lord Lamington pointed out, in all its main features the Treaty has been before the country for a considerable time, the House is about, to rise in the course of a very few days, and if the noble and gallant Lord had not taken this opportunity of putting down the Motion there would probably have been no opportunity for your Lordships to consider the matter at all. As it is, it is surely an advantage to us that the Foreign Secretary has been able to state so far as he could, within certain limits, his objections to the arguments set forth by the noble and gallant Lord whose Motion is on the Paper.

I do not want to discuss this Question at length in all its detail, because I feel the force of what the noble Earl has said, but I confess that I do share—it is impossible not to share—the impression mentioned by Lord Lamington that there is a feeling in the Moslem world that Turkey has received somewhat hard measure. I do not want to lay much stress on the Indian agitation in that regard. It has been conducted with much energy and evidently with much expenditure of money, but I have too much experience of Indian affairs to attach undue importance to what is said by the more extreme type of Moslem agitators in India, who, for political purposes, ally themselves, or are prepared to ally themselves, with Hindu revolutionaries, not really from grounds of devotion to Islam, but from a general desire to bring British rule in India into disrepute.

But even after making every allowance for that, there does exist a feeling, which it seems impossible to deny, that whatever the sins of Turkey may have been in coming into the war when she did—and I quite agree that it is hardly possible to exaggerate the magnitude of her offence in that respect—she is receiving somewhat extra hard treatment in the terms of the Treaty. I have never been one of those who con- sidered that the Turkish claim to the retention of Constantinople was at all an absolute claim. Constantinople was gained by the Turks in conquest, and any reasonable Turk might naturally expect to lose it by conquest; therefore, if Constantinople had passed from Turkish hands altogether I cannot believe that Islam could have regarded it as an outrage upon the Faith. On the other hand, the somewhat expansive sentences uttered by the Prime Minister have been mentioned in the course of the debate. The noble Earl, Lord Curzon, in an early stage of his speech, announced that he was going to make some allusion or explanation of what I have just described as the rather expansive phrases of the Prime Minister with regard to the Turkish home lands, and in particular to the case of Thrace, but he forgot to do so. Those expressions have, I am afraid, been misunderstood. They have sunk into the minds of a great many Turkish advocates, and their use has not, so far as I know, ever been completely explained away. The fact that they were used might, I think, have made it possible to put a somewhat easier construction in favour of the Turkish case when the terms of the Treaty had to be considered.

I do not want to attempt to redraw in any sense the boundaries of a new Turkey, but one does get the impression that a very strict line has been drawn in limiting the new Turkish Empire to the parts of Asia Minor where there is a definite Turkish majority. A stricter line has been drawn here than in a great many other cases, both in Europe and in Asia, from the numerical standpoint. The Turks, I think, may feel that, although they may have received justice, it has been closely-cut justice, and that if, as they undoubtedly did—to use the famous expression which was applied to us by the late Lord Salisbury—put their money on the wrong horse at an early stage, they have not received any kind of consideration. They have been treated, as I think the noble Earl has been able to prove, with justice, but it is the barest justice, and with nothing more. I should have liked to see something done which would have left us with fewer responsibilities in Mesopotamia, and have allowed Turkey to retain a suzerainty at any rate over some considerable part of that Province. But that, I know, is past praying or asking for, and it is useless to raise a matter of that kind.

In the meantime those who, like the noble and gallant Lord, are pure critics of the Treaty, may, I think, take some comfort from the more hopeful tone in which the noble Earl opposite concluded his speech. I do not for a moment believe that he is anything but a well-wisher of Turkey, and all that he desires is that within her new boundaries she may prosper and do well. I was glad, too, to see that he guarded himself from a pitfall into which some of the critics of Turkey have, I think, fallen. They have regarded the present Turkey—the Turkey of to-day—as bound to suffer for all the sins in relation to Armenia or Palestine or Arabia which were inflicted by a former régime, which, as we hope, has disappeared for ever. If that measure were meted out to all countries whose Government has been reformed, there would be some strange results. I gathered that the noble Earl desired in that respect that bygones should be bygones, and that he, at any rate, and His Majesty's Government were prepared to assist the new, and as we hope resuscitated and reformed, Turkey to march in the path of progress and future prosperity.

LORD WESTER WEMYSS

My Lords, I must apologise for once more addressing your Lordships on the subject, but there is a personal matter in regard to which an explanation is due from me to the noble Earl the Leader of the House. He complained that I had not given him notice. As a matter of fact, what happened was that when I took steps to learn the procedure of the House to which I must submit in order to bring forward this Motion, I communicated the nature of the Question to the secretary of the Leader of the House, and if that was not sufficient I beg to apologise to the noble Earl for not carrying out a procedure of which I was unaware.

I will also add, as regards my treatment of the subject of the Treaty, that I did not for one instant say that there was no good in it. On the contrary, I see that parts which the noble Earl pointed out are excellent. I am merely dealing with that part which I felt—and perhaps my feeling has been somewhat modified by the assurance of the noble Earl—attacked so vitally our British interests. I kept myself to that. The noble Earl, in what I suppose—I do not know—is a political castigation, which I must confess has not had a great deterrent effect upon me, said that I was in no position to give a solution to those grave difficulties which have arisen as to all these matters. I have not given my thoughts to those things. Whether, if I did so, I should be able to suggest a solution is another question. But I do not see, because I make no constructive proposition to the Government, that I should not be allowed to criticise what seems to me is a matter which deserves criticism, and if, as I say, my speech is supposed to have been politically castigated I feel no repentance, inasmuch as it has drawn from the noble Earl the Leader of the House certain statements which certainly help one to hope that matters may not be so bad with regard to Turkey as one feared. I apologise to your Lordships for speaking a second time.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.