FINALITY AT LAUSANNE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18455, 19 July 1923, Page 8

FINALITY AT LAUSANNE.

• The curtain has at last been rung down on the Near East Conference at Lausanne. That the conference should have reached agreement on all points will seem to many too good to be true, for. finality has proved weirdly elusive. It is claimed by some intimate with the Near East that the conference should not have been necessary. Had there been one Allied policy, the Turk would have accepted terms without parley. But he naturally took advantage of differences of opinion, among his Western foes to pursue his own ends. The fighting in Asia Minor, the burning of Smyrna, the discomfiture of the Greek army and the exasperation of the Greek people were the outcome, and to discuss fresh terms with Turkey became inevitable. Had France and Britain been actuated by a common policy, the Sevres treaty would have been ratified and enforced, and the Turk would not have returned to Europe. So long as there was any contrariety of policies concerning him, he clearly hoped to play off the Allies one against another. That is the explanation of all that Lausanne has seen —the calling of the conference, its crises, its long-drawn indecision, and now its conclusion. When once whole-hearted agreement was reached among the Allies, the end of Turkish obstinacy was in sight. Unfortunately, the Turk had so profited by the Allies* lack of a completely unified endeavour that his demands grew in strength until in the end he obtained terms far more generous than he could have hoped to get whea negotiations were first

opened. ; Now that it is all. over there is room for wonder how long the terms of the treaty will be honoured, A conference so long character!*} id by , irresolution and finest©. could not provide the best guarantor : for keeping of its covenants. Yet, remembering how often, its negotiations were broken off, it is better that there should be an agreement, even an agreement less satisfactory than might at one time have been got, than that there should have been no ultimate agreement at all. '~ For so cosmopolitan a conference to have failed wo aid have augured ill for the world. Leading personalities were there Curzon, Poincare, Mussolini, Venizelos, Ismet Pasha, Tchitcherin. Ra'kowsky, Weygand, Hamil Bey. Bulgars and Serbs, and other minor peoples were represented. Nor were these invited guests • all.; There were those who came on their own initiative to look after their own interests —Egyptians, Syrians, Palestinians, Armenians, Georgians, Indians, Arabs and others. Had Lausanne failed to produce an agreement it would have furnished this cosmopolitan company with an objectlesson in futility,' and put a premium on insincere talk and inconclusive bargaining. Even an unsatisfactory treaty is preferable to thnt. There is at' least something definite as a basis for an understanding in the Near East.