SETTLEMENT BETWEEN GREECE AND TURKEY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3149, 25 December 1922, Page 7

SETTLEMENT BETWEEN GREECE AND TURKEY.

In the Contemporary Review (Bondon) lor October, Professor Arnold J. Toyiibce, after asserting that all the blood that has been shed, and may still bo shed, by tho unhappy peoples of the Near fast in this ''war-after-the-war," is on the heads of the Allied Governments and especially on the head of tho British Government, ventures to discuss the coining settlement under three principal subdivisions: Anatolia, Thrace ami the Straits. In Anatolia, says Professor Toynbee, there will be little to do except to confirm what has already happened. Turkish sovereignty has actually been restored over the entire mainland of the Peninsula up to tho borders of the zone of the Straits. Furthermore, that sovereignty will not be restricted as formerly. Tt will now be the kind of sovereignty that is exercised by the Government of Western Europe:

"Non-Turkish minorities will be secured neither more nor less than the status given by the recent peacetreaties to defeated, newly created or aggrandised states on the Continent. Ilesiden ali'ent will be subject to the laws and the taxes of the country in which they have chosen to settle, nad will no longer live there 'extra-terri-torially' under the shelter of the Capitulations. Will the minorities and the foreign colonies emigrate rather than face the prospect The present writer is inclined to think that a far larger percentage of them will remain than will he agreeable to anti-Turkish propagandists and that even of those who have iled in the first panic, a considerable number will unobtrusively return. Certainly, if the exodus were anything like universal. Turkey would lose heavily in productivity and vitality as Spain lost by the exodus of the Moors. In any case, the country will suffer for years from the decimation of all elements in the populaton which tho Oicco-Turkish War has brought in its I rain. Hut national survival depends on psychological as well as on physical conditions, and, after this military and moral triumph, the Turks can afford at least as well as "the Australians, British Columbians, or California ns to take their time in building up a population commensurate with the rich and spacious 'homelands' to which thev have vindicated their title." Thrace is a more difficult problem. Tho principle of .self-determination gives

no clear title there*, since the different elements! in the population were originally so evenly balanced and have been modified so often during the last ten years by expulsion and counter-expul-sion. As to geographical considerations, while it may be granted that Turkey should have more of a European hinterland than was provided under the Treaty of Sevres, it is also desirable, in her interests as well as 1 those of her neighbors, that her frontiers should not be carried so far West as to involve her once again in the politics of Southeastern Europe. However that may be. the Turks will at least insist on the whole of Thrace, and it is known that France and Italy favor Turkey's territorial claims in Enrope as well asi in Asia. Can such a disposition of Thrace be made compatible with the political stability of South-eastern Europe? Professor Toynbee's conclusion is that the restoration of Thrace to Turkey must prevent the use of Bulgaria and her potential partners of. the railway running down the left or western bank of the Biver Maritza. The question of the Straits may be regarded as of far greater international importance than the others, but it would seem that the golden opportunity for a. satisfactory settlement has been thrown away. Great Britain has lost the initiative, and the result will depend l partly on Angora and partly on Prance. The present arrangement of a naval control by three Powers is disliked by both the Turks and the French. From the French point of view, the alternative proposal for the complete neutralisation and disarmament of the Straits 1 has fewer objections than the present arrangement. The question is, can the Turks be expected to be as reasonable about the Straits after their military successes as they were prepared to be before them?