The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1923. BETTER PROSPECTS

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11437, 6 February 1923, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1923. BETTER PROSPECTS

At first sight the report of the recovery of Greek army looks disquieting. Their defeat in. Anatolia certainly brought about a crisis, and this crisis saw some awful things. The crisis was due to the removal of the shield in front of Constantinople, which the Greek armies were. The Angora Turks, taking advantage of this removal, prepared to rush Constantinople and the Straits of Gallipoli. But for the firmness of the British and the resourcefulness of Mr Lloyd George they would have succeeded. Constantinople would have fallen, in that event; the Straits would have been closed; and there would have been appalling massacres in Constantinople and Thrace. As for Anatolia and Pontus—the southern littoral of the Black Sea, between the Bosphorus and Trebizond, including minor ports such as Samsun—it is not necessary to refer to any possible massacres in those regions, for the simple reason that everybody massacreable had already been massacred by the Turks; there was, in fact, nobody left to he massacred. Such were the immediate possibilities when the Turks made their demonstrations against Chanak and Constantinople, and the British banned their way single-handed. The Turk was cowed, and at least half a million lives were saved in Thrace, and not less than a quarter of a million in the Turkish capital. But it was a very near thing. The whole of the matters in dispute with the Turk were referred to Lausanne, and the Turkish troops were allowed to enter Thrace. They intended to move west in order to help a proTurkish movement in 'Western Thrace—a movement in keeping with the general Turkish policy of the great alliance preparing, and , then foreshadowed plainly, to dominate Eastern and Central Europe and Asia Minor as a new Triplice, the most sinister of any in recent history, even the Triplice which Germany had engineered before the Great War. To oppose this tendency—to nse the mildest term available under the circumstances—-the Greeks put ah army Into position on the western border of Eastern Thrace. This army is to-day reported to be 100,000 strong, to be well organised and equipped, to bo patriotic in the deepest Greek sense, and to he ntrongly supported by a unanimous Greek publio opinion. Apparently this means war, in a certain event. The event is Turkish refusal of tho Lausanne terms. Now, the Greek armies are supported by the unanimity of the Allies in tho matter of the Lausanne terms. The Turks, it is now announced, have agreed to tho Lausanne terms. The certain event lias not come to pass. The strengthen-

ing of the Greek army on the Thracian border has passed frorh a menace of war into a guarantee of peace. The world can breathe again, at all events, for a while. There are mysterious points yet in the situation. For example, what has been settled about the infamous proposal to “exchange populations?” It is a proposal to deport hundreds of thousands of peaceful, prosperous peoples from their homes, and place them in another coun try without land, capital, and even without ant' personal property remaining after tho loss and devastation of their homes. The Greeks have over half a million of refugees on . their hands, and are in arms to prevent increase to that mass of human misery. It would be interesting to know how that question has been settled, in the submission of the Turk. It is deplorable that the Turk has been allowed back into Thrace at all; and one cannot resist the conclusion that if the Allies had firmly refused his plea of reacfmission, the Turk would have submitted. Had the Allies been firmly united on the point, and stood by the Treaty of Sevres, the Turk would not have returned to Europe. As it is, he is once more a source of terrible trouble in the Balkans. That is the consequence of the disunion of the Allies, which forced the British Government to save a very ugly situation single-handed. The union having been restored, the only course is to make the best of the bad situation caused fcy the temporary lapse of Allied unity.

Bad as it is to have the Turk back in Europe, it would have been much worse if the Allies had given way to his demand for control of. the Straits. The refusal of this demand, made possible, let us not forget, by the firmness of the British Government about the Straits and the capital, gives the Western Powers access to the Black Sea, to help their friends when attacked by such a combination of enemy Powers as has been recently foreshadowed. The Turkish submission to the Allied demands is the death-blow of such possibility of combination. Russia has been reported as making vast military demonstrations to help her new ally the Turk. Military movements have been announced on a great scale, converging towards western points. Had there been any truth in these announcements ; had they been, in other words, as true as they were definite, would the Turks have submitted to the terms at Lausanne? Obviously they would not. The Turkish submission is the strongest proof that all that evidence of military support to Turkey was manufactured. The Russian armies are no doubt realities. But they are not fit for foreign service, for reasons to be found in the radical failure of the Russian Government to govern. These forces are good as local props of anarchistic nonsense, but as attacking agents over the border they are useless. The map has been their imaginary chessboard, and the Turkish submission has proved that their movements upon it were as imaginary as their’ allotted places. The fact deepens the regret for the temporary disagreement of the Allies, which let the Unspeakable Turk bade again into Europe. The completeness of the submission is shown by the agreement to accept the capitulations, and the control over Turkish sovereignty enough to protect, at least on paper, the lives and liberties of the subject races, should any be left to protect. The doubt represents a blot on the honour of Europe, the honour proclaimed when the true horror of the Armenian story burst on the world, which will never he effaced. For the present, at all events, we can feel relieved by the Turkish submission, which proves that there was nothing in the situation to encourage the Turk to fight. A great evil having passed, let us hope that no others will he allowed to develop from the situation resulting.