LAUSANNE CONFERENCE.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17721, 24 March 1923, Page 10

LAUSANNE CONFERENCE.

VICTORY, NOT DEFEAT.

LORD CURZON'S STATEMENT. (WOK OUR OWJT OOBUBBPOKDllTT.) LONDON, February S. Last evening the Marquis Cutzoii issued u utntement regarding tho Lausanne Conference, find tho circumstances in which it broke up. He recapitulates the historical facts which havo already boon recorded. In describing tho last hours of tho Conference he suyss—"Tho Turkish delegation, either unaware of tho gravity of tho crisis or not appreciating the rohitive significance for Turkey of the points which they had failed to win, or convinced that it wes still open to them to pursue up till the last second of the last minute of the eleventh hour the tactics of the bazaar, recapitulated fur tho hundredth time their long-ago exploded formulas about the sovereign independence of Turkey, and the servitude to which they were being \condemned. It was in vain that, for an hour and a half, my colleagues and I exhausted every resource of argument and persuasion. I described the Turkish attitude as unbelievable, "M. Bompard with greater eloquence denounced ij aa a crime. The MftTquis Garrino echoed these appeals. But the Turks remained immovable, and as the minutes slipped away, and tho train, the departure of which had already been delayed far thirty minutes, could not longer wait, it was clear .that, for tho barren satisfaction of sustaining a position which had long ago been sapped and destroyed, or on the off-chanco of squeozinij some further surrender from the Allies, they were prepared to forge tho chances of settlement, and to exhibit themselves as the real wreekors of the peuco for which all yearned. Terrible hut Momentary Depression. "When In these circumstances I steamed out of Lausanne station in the presence of every delegation escopt that of the Turks, I felt a terrible, but only a momentary, depression, for I was convinced that, as soon as they realised what they had done, tho Turks themselves would be the first to recognise, the extent of their error and the weight of responsibility which thoy had deliberately elected to assume, and that before twelve hours .had passed the reaction would assume definite proportions. When I arrived in London the Press was kind enough to remark that I appeared to be in good spirits. Why? It was because of the optimism to which I have just given expression,

"I wont forthwith to the Cabinet, aud I told my colleagues that, in my view, the Conference had succeeded and not failed, that I had come back not with defeat but with victory, and that the Treaty, so far from being torn up, would still be signed, nnd I added that the tactics of which this result would turn out to have been accomplished wero those, not of a palsied Surrender of every remaining tower in the fortress, but by firmness mixed with the maximum of conciliation, and by the insistence of terms which, while honourable to Turkey, would not be dishonourable to the Allies. Of course, I know that in some quarters I should be tauntod with failure, or held accountable for a breakdown where I had been battling, not for myself, nor even for British interosts alone, but for Allied unity and the cause of a genuine peace, and where tho responsibility rested with the Turkish Delegation, and them alone. But I folt that this did not matter, if the end could ultimately be secured.

Judged by the Results. "Whatever be the future, I consoled myself with one reflection. At a moment when I had every excuse for complaining that Allied unity had been endangered by the action of outside parties, I declined to swerve one inch j'from the position which I had taken I up before I went to Lausanne, and to which the British Delegation had adherod unflinchingly/for eleven weary and anxious weeks, namely, that it was only by absolute and unbroken solidarity between Groat Britain, France, and Italy that peace could bo won, and a treaty secured. When others weTe >teard to talk about a reloase from | these obligations and the conclusion of separate treaties or a separate j peace, I rejected the overtures ' that were more than once mado to me in this direction, and I preferred to fall with my Allies, and while helping to fight their cause, rathor than to win a selfish victory on the field of ■ Relf-interest or exclusively national advantages. lam content to be judged 1 by the results.'' Peace in Spite of the Entente. Tho "Daily Chronicle,", previously the strenuous supporter of Mr Lloyd George, seizes the opportunity to criticise severely tho results of Lord Curzon's negotiations. Lord Curzon's statement, the journal maintains, "reveals a British Foreign Minister justifying himself to tho naticm, not for the terms which he has succeeded in winning I from the Turks, but for the terms which he has so generously conceded. He [ justifies himself for yielding so many military, territorial, and political advantages to Turkey as to place her in a position she ha 3 'never before enjoyed, even in the plenitude of her power'; and for having also, at |he last moment, made two further concessions, removing the restrictions on the numbers of the Turkish Army in Europe, and consenting to pay twice over for the Turkish warships we properly seized at tho beginning of the war —once, presumably, to the contractors, and again to the reparation pool. There being no other British interests which ho could conceivably yield, ho only at the last moment stood firm as a rock against demands more damaging to our Allies, the French, than to ourselves. "It is at any rate sufficiently established that Lord Curzon is the last man who can justly be accused of breaking the Entente. What precise advantage we are gaining by this Entente, in any field of foreign politics, is not. easy to see. But it seems, however —not because of it, but in spite of it —that we are likely to secure a peace with Turkey, though an ignominious one . . . But we do not think there will be a war. We do not want it; nor do the Turks. And for what conceivable reason should they fight, having got almost everything 1"