THE TURK IN POLITICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18563, 22 November 1923, Page 8

THE TURK IN POLITICS.

. Two utterly diverse opinions about the recent settlement in the Near East have just been expressed in London. General Sir Charles Harington, who was in command of the British forces during the Dardanelles crisis, declares that Britain has gained the friendship of Turkey, that the country would require British help, and that good traders would do well among the Turks. A Liberal manifesto says, The shameless Treaty, of Lausanne surrendered all securities of British commerce in Turkey." To judge which is correct is too formidable a task, for even were full and particular information at the moment available it would be risky .to be too dogmatic 'on a point which time alone can determine with certainty. An interesting side issue is the appearance of the Turk in British politics once again as a first-class subject of controversy. Near Eastern policy was a decisive factor in bringing about the fall of the Coalition Government and of Mr. Lloyd George last year. Now that another election is under way the Turk is to be utilised as a weapon to, strike at the Government. It is reminiscent of the years between 1870 and 1886, when Disraeli was in the hey-dey of his fame, when tremendous battles over foreign policy were fought in Parliament and on the platform, and when the terrible Turk was the catch-word of those who opposed the Government. This 1 election is turning back the political clock in more ways than one. With the question of food-taxes to the fore, with friendship for the Turk indicted, even with Russia pictured as a menace in the background, those whose memories go back to the politics of the seventies and earlier, and those who have read of the controversies then raging will feel as if old dramas were being revived. The needs of agriculture and the strengthening of Empire bonds help to fill in the details. Many phases "of this campaign support the theory that political controversies run in cycles. Nothing makes the impression more vivid than the 'reappearance of the Turk in the field.