The Press Monday, March 13, 1922. India and the Near East.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17402, 13 March 1922, Page 6

The Press Monday, March 13, 1922. India and the Near East.

Events in connexion with the immensely important and difficult problems of India and the Near East have moved with startling rapidity during the last few days. The publication of the despatch of the Government of India urgently appealing for a drastic revision of the Treaty of Sevres, was immediately followed by the resignation of the Secretary of State for India (Mr E. S. Montagu), under whose regime India was given a large instalment of self-government. .Now comes a report of the arrest of Mr M. K. Gandhi, the arch-apostle of Swaraj or complete Home Rule for India, whose widelypreached creeds of non-co-operation, non-violence, civil disobedience, and other strange forma of resistance to alien rule and all the machinery of modern civilisation that it has brought with it, have won for him an immense following amongst the ignorant, fanatical masses of India. Not all of his followers are ignorant—many of them are educated men of high standing and great influence in their provinces. Not all of them have prnctised non-violence, as many ugly incidents of the last three years have proved. But this mildmannered man, who openly proclaims that he would have the patient East turn to its sleep again, after the expulsion of the "Satanic Government," is revered as a saint by millions of fanatical Indians, and the influence bis personality and philosophy have exerted has impressed even those who have bitterly assailed or ridiculed the man and his teachings. He has in the past even craved for arrest, but the Government hitherto refrained from arresting him, though they imprisoned the Ali brothers and many other leaders of the Khilafat and non-co-operation movements, and in recent weeks have arrested many of those responsibleffo r 'hartals in bentres visited by the Prince of V "Wales. What effect! throughout India the arrest of Mahatma Gandhi will produce soon show, but there is, in faot, 'no reason to suppose that the present grave political and religious discontent can more be stay-* ed by the repression of individuals than any other movement of the kind which history records. Nevertheless, it is impossible . not to . connect ther arrest of Mr Gandhi With the Indian Government's renewed insistence on very drastic revision of the peace terms to Turkey. We do not propose to discuss here the action of Mr Montagu or the comments of Mr Uoyd George and others on his action, but to show how the grave unrest in India' to-day has been rendered more acute than it need have been by the deplorable state of affairs existing in regard to Turkey. In his campaign against British role in India Mr Gandhi has insisted with unfailing strategic insight on, the revolutionary doctrine of Hindu-Moslem unity. ■ The two wings of the movement are: inspired by very different motives. The Moslem leaders insist that the Khilafat, the Sultanate of Turkey in its religious aspect, is endangered and diminished by British policy in regard to Turkey. Britain is the greatest Mohammedan Power in. the world, and. it is vital to her interests in the Near and Middle East, as it is to those of France sad Italy, to reach £t lasting settlement with Turkey which will satisfy the 500,000,000 of the Modem world. The Indian Government's proposals for the evacuation Of Constantinople, the suzerainty of the Sultan over the Holy Places of Islam, and the restoratipn of Ottoman ihrace aro even in their bare outline very far-reaching, , and in some respects they exceed Turkish expectations. But so far as the Khilafat agitation is concerned it is vitally important that, in conjunction with her allies, Britain mut>t make a'settlement with ihe Turks' so fair and just that i* will strike their principal weapon from the hands of the Moslem politicians in India. *

" One of the greatest and, so far, one of the most'neglected questions left by the war, is that of the custody of Constantinople and the Straits; It involves other important questions, the future of Asia Minor and the Turkish State; the future also of Thrace, the region round Constantinople • at present in Allied occupation assigned by the unratified treaty to; Greece. Ths Treaty with Turkey is not only unratified, it is to all intents and purposes abandoned, and nearly four years after the Armistice the problems involved in it remain unsolved and almost no progress has been made> towards a solution. Greece refused the modifications of the Treaty of Sevres propounded at the London Conferenoe thirteen months ago, and has since been waging war in Asia Minor with the Turkish Nationalist Government under Mustapha Kemal Pasha. After two serious setbaoks at the hands of the Turks, whoßtf" forces tire said to stand /at 200,000, Greece is about to embark on a third campaign, but it is idle to pretend that this wretched war will bring any settlement. The >vhole' situation was complicated last October by the agreement which France arranged with the Kemalist Government, which was a clear 7 violation of the Treaty of London concluded early in the war by which the Powers then taking part in it bound themselves not to eater into any separate treaty or even to negotiate separately with

any enemy Power. The terms of the Franco-Turkish agreement injure and endanger many important British interests, and its provisions in regard to Syria, which was conquered from the Turks by British and Arab arms and is inhabited by people of Arab stock, are a breach of the mandate by which this territory was transferred to France as a tnii't under terms clearly laid down in the Treaty of Versailles. Clearly the task of the Conference on the Near East, which is about to take place, will be a delicate and difficult one, but its grave problems must be faced and settled, always remembering that even the satisfaction of Moslem relisrious susceptibilities will not solve all of India's 1 roubles.