Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1923. KEMAL'S PRAYER

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 26, 31 January 1923, Page 4

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1923. KEMAL'S PRAYER

!A: deacon who was ruled oat of order at a church meeting because he was exceeding the time limit is said to have retorted that if he was not allowed to proceed with his speech he would put his concluding remarks in the form of a prayer.' Though the eloquence of Kemal Pasha is not liable to be closured, he also finds that it may sometimes be conveniently given the same form. At Angora, where the National Assembly will shortly have to decide for peace or war with the Allies, he would doubtless be free to talk the. clock round if he bo desired, but he has nevertheless deemed it advisable to begin in the manner in which the deacon threatened to end. The procedure was thus described in a message from Constantinople yesterday:—

Praying over his mother's grave on the cv« of his departure from. Smyrna for Angora, in the presence of a great crowd, Mnstapha Kemal Pasha swore by his mother's son! to defend the country's newly-won liberties. "I would rather join you in the grave," he said, "than allow Turkey's sovereignty to be imperilled."

Christians are warned against the example of the hypocrites who "love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be of men." Though Kemal Pasha does not acknowledge the authority of the book in which this warning was found, the book of his own prophet contains a somewhat similar injunction. "Pronounce not thy prayer aloud," says the Koran, "neither pronounce it with too low a voice, but follow a way between these." The precise interpretation of this command is a matter upon which the commentators are divided, but a reasonable construction of the part of it which concerns us is that the prayer is not be "so loud that the infidels may overhear thee, and thence take occasion to blaspheme and scoff." In praying as he did,' Kemal Pasha seems to have violat^ ed both this and any other reasonable interpretation of the precept against loud prayer.

Not only was Kemal's prayer over his mother's grave at Smyrna loud enough to be overheard by the infidels, but it was intended so to be. Due notice was evidently given of the time and place; a great crowd assembled, which included representative infidel reporters, or, if the sacred soil of Smyrna has already been purged of their presence, a sufficient staff -of Turkish pressmen to ensure that the prayer would be scattered far and wide "in partibus infidelium." If the Nationalist leader had spoken from the house-tops with the aid of a megaphone and a wireless installation, his prayer could not have commanded a wider circulation, and circulation is what he wanted. He was not talking religion but politics. He was not addressing Allah or his mother's soul, but his own people and the other nations which were represented at Lausanne, and especially Britain. He put his political manifesto in the form of a prayer because that form was best calculated to stir the fanaticism of his countrymen and to impress the greatest of Moslem Powers with the gravity' of the menace by which it is threatened. The infidels have not overheard any of the secret communings of Nationalist/piety. They have not failed to hear what was blared right into their ears, and they have certainly not been driven to blaspheme and scoff on the ground of any difference of religious opinions. It will, of course, be impossible for Mr. Bonar Law or Lord Curzon to reply in the same way, nor is it likely that they will reply in any other way than by keeping right on along the lines of policy which they have laid down a dozen times at Lausanne. Kemal Pasha's piety is in effect a restatementof the aggressive and irreconcilable attitude by which Ismet Pasha brought the Conference to an impasse, and demands no change on the part of Britain nor any restatement of her case. .

We were informed on Monday that Ismet Pasha was arranging to leave Lausanne, and thai his departure would be the signal for the resumption of hostilities by the Turks. But the formal breach has not come, and the French Government is said to be sparingno effort to bring about the suspension instead of the breaking off of the Conference. Though France's adventure in the Ruhr guarantees her a sufficient supply of trouble to make her more anxious than ever to avoid a breach with Turkey, the approximation of British and French policy in the Near East marks a great improvement in the position from the British point of view. When Mr. Lloyd George issued his dramatic challenge to the Turks in September, the official comment of France was to withdraw her troops from Chanak. The French Press warmly approved of this action, and seemed even to find some comfort in the embarrassment of the Ally that had backed the wrong horse. At Lausanne, Britain has still borne the burden of the struggle with the Turks, but France has stood loyally by her. The most conclusive testimony to the loyalty of France is supplied by the attitude of the Turkish delegates. They aye reported to be ''most bitter against England and France." and the same message sajjra, pr&suaiably on their authority, that "if French troops bar the

way to Moral, the Turks will fight." It is comforting to know that Bnow in the mountain passes interposes, another barrier to a Turkish offensive in thi6 direction for some time to come. A drive >at Constantinople is therefore considered more likely to be the Turks' first move if they carry the bluff of Ismet's diplomacy and Kemal's prayer to its logical conclusion. But their prospects are certainly not so bright as they were four or ,£ve months ago. The breach between France and . Britain is at least partially healed. The breach in Britain's home front is much less serious than it was. Eussian help does not look as formidable as it once did. Colonel Hughes declares the British hold on ■Chanak to be beyond challenge, and the "Temps" considers "that the Kemalists will be at a great disadvantage if they resume hostilities, as the British Fleet holds the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmora." It is gratifying to get this admission from a French authority that there was som? method in Mr. Lloyd George's madness after all.