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Otago Daily Times, Issue 18293, 9 July 1921, Page 8

THE GRdECO-TURKISH CONFLICT. It is apparent that the dogs of war are increasing in fury in Eastern Europe. Moreover, the issues are so involved and far-reaching that they threaten to embroil many nations. The backward nations have frequently influenced their more enlightened neighbours, and there would appear to be a danger that history may once more repeat itself. During the many phases of the long-standing feud between Turkey and Greece, j British foreign policy has alternated between strength and weakness or, perhaps more correctly, between justice and leniency. Patience in itself may be a virtue, buf its exercise by Great Britain has not been productive of' virtue in the Turk. In 1844 the Ottoman Empire was nearing its end, and Great Britain considered proposals for making Constantinople a neutral city. The path of diplomacy in the East of Europe has ever been thorny, and in backing the Ottoman Empire against Russia Great Britain, according to Lord Salibury, “ put her money on the wrong horse.” In 1878 the mistake was repeated, and the final reward, for the British consideration of the Turk came in 1914 when the Ottoman Government declared war on Great Britain and France. The Turks’ treatment of the Christian population in Anatolia, Armenia, and Northern Syria was in harmony with that of the past. It is estimated that not less than a million souls perished, and in addition many of tho younger women were • consigned to a fate alongside which death would have been a happy release. The massacres were followed by the Treaty of Sevres which aimed amongst other things at protecting tho Armenians, but procrastination, in the art of which the Turk is a past master, has robbed the Armenian people of protection and hastened the deaths of thousands. President Wilson’s twelfth Point asserted the principle that

The Turkish portions of tho present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secured sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and on absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development.

This deliverance of high promise brought joy to the hearts of the Greeks of Thrace and Asia Minor, who for 500 years had suffered tyranny at the hands of their ruthless oppressors. M. Veniaolos struggled mightily for the liberation of his people the yoke, but the Fates were against him. It will be remembered that Mr Lloyd George favoured Gladstone’s policy of ridding Europe of the Turk, but the magnitude of the proposal frightened tie interested Powers. Nevertheless, the statesmen representing those Powers informed the Turkish delegation that since 1914, “on tho mendacious pretext of an alleged revolt, 800,000 Armenians, including women and children,” had been massacred, and “ more than 200,000 Greeks and 200,000 Armenians had been expelled or deported from their homes.” The indictment of Turkey by tho Powers could not have been more damning, but the modified terms of March of tho present year to a large and alarming extent undermined the high purpose of the original Treaty. And now the position is complicated V, : the rival ambitions of the Kemalists and the regular Government, both of whom hate the Greeks and all non-Turks. How far their mutual antagonisms will help the ends of humanitarian justice to the oppressed peoples time alone can decide, but in the meantime the Powers are implicated and the possibility of widespread hostilities is by no means remote. The cablegrams indicate the continued existence of strained relationship between the Turkish factions and the threatened Kemalist attack on Constantinople bodes trouble for the Turkish Government. There would be an element of poetic justice in the Turk fighting against Turk, but the prospect of Great

Britain becoming involved in another costly struggle is not a pleasing one. The aims of Mustapha Kemal are antiAlliecl, and the intervention of the Bulgars is generally feared. Tho action of Italy and the associated minor Powers should, however, • suffice to curb tho Bulgars. Had Greece been more constant to her real friends she might have fared better, while the barbarities of the Turk have been such as to rob his nation of tho world’s sympathy. Tho arrest of certain members of a Russian trade delegation furnishes one more evidence of the mischievous and dangerous influence of Bolshevism, but the real V problem of the moment in the East is the elimination of opportunities for the wreaking of vengeance by the Turks on their unfortunate neighbours. Ties return of Madame Curio to France with a precious phial containing a gramme of radium presented to her by women of America will bo not one of the least interesting episodes in her career. F ranee is badly enough in need of an adequate supply of radium, and the gramme brought by Madame Curie will help materially to counteract the deficiency, and enable research work to proceed with greater activity. Although radium was discovered in Paris by M. Pierre and Madame Curie, tho city has been hungering for a sufficiency of the precious article. It was not long ago that, with a view to the utilisation of radium in the treatment of cancer, from which disease there are 3500 deaths annually in Paris, tho Municipal Council was asked to spend 2,500,000 francs in the purchase of two grammes for the use of the Radium institute of the University of Paris. The Institute, it was stated at tho time, had only one gramme, given to it by Madame Curie, the emanations from which were concentrated m tubes for medical use. Before ’tho war all the radium made in France was sent abroad, and a few months ago Madame Curie was deploring the fact that, when Paris had need of a few grammes, radium had to be bought outside at a tremendous price, and that she was hampered in her research work, hesitating to take a tube from the Raditim Institute lest the lives of patients who had need of. it should be lost. It is said that a deputation from the Municipal Council which visited the Institute was Impressed with the evidence of Paris being worse equipped in this connection than London, Mew York, and Berlin. The gift to Madame curie of a gramme of radium is in the circumstances decidedly opportune. By the time tho supply of this remarkable clement is equal to the demand there is no telling what science may have discovered.

According to a London message Sir Ross Smith and Sir Keith Smith, not content with the laurels which they won in the flight from London to Australia, are contemplating an aerial voyage round the world. Such an enterprise is not improbable. The round-the-world flight is a topic of frequent discussion just now among aviation experts and controlling authorities in different countries. To any adventurous airmen who do not wish merely to be participants in an organised competition flight to put a girdle round the earth it is open to sot out upon their own initiative, facing such added mbs as may attend such procedure. But unless the arrangements present unforeseen difficulties there seems little doubt that in the near future a prize competition flight round the planet on lines first suggested by the Aero Club of America will be entered upon. According to the plans so far formulated the flight must be in a zone lying between 60 degrees North:latitude and 15 degrees South iati tude, and the period allotted for the journey will not be less than six months and may be more. This provision Its to the time limit indicates that the need of making allowance for all sorts of unforeseen contingencies is recognised. Great as have been the achievements of the aeroplane to date, the round-the-world flight will mean the establishment of new records and will present many a knotty problem. Writing upon the subject Major Turner observes Flying across the Pacific will be the greatest difficulty. It has so far never been attempted, and when the distance and climatic conditions of this section are taken into account, and an attempt is made to fit in the season of the year when it might be possible with the seasons for the transAtlantic and London-India-China sections, it will be seen that any six months would be all too little, and that to accomplish the complete round in any one year would call for a nice adjustment of times, to say nothing of separate flights of unprecedented length.” The survey of the project by Major Turner goes to emphasise very strongly how much the wonderful achievements of aeroplanes and airships are still subject to the kind permission of a meteorological providence.

The march of invention is not entirely a record of triumphal and beneficent progress. There is no cheer in reading of an announcement of the decision of tho governors that, when not required for the Shakespeare Festival, the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford on Avon shall be used as a picture palace. Of the millions who visit picture theatres probably very few have any idea ac to the identity of the man whoso brain evolved the machine which ministers so assiduously to their entertainment the world over. What rank, asks the Daily Chronicle, will the inventor of the cinematograph take among the heroes of invention? The question is of melancholy interest in view of the recent death of Mr W. Eriese Graene, the inventor of the moving picture camera. Greene was born at Bristol in 1855. His natural cent was for mechanics, but he was 35 before he invented anything of commercial value. This was the first known moving-picture camera. But fortune did not smile, on th» inventor. His death, which occurred while ho was addressing a meeting of the cinema industry and making an appeal for unity in all its branches, was the end of a life mostly of poverty, although many others made fortunes of greater or lees magnitude out of his discovery. According to tho testimony of a life-long friend Greene was a dreamer, and the tragedy and poverty of his life were largely due to Ids temperament and ill-luck. “ His claim to fame,” we read, “ is that he was the true source from which the whole cinema industry of the world lias sprung. His invention of the celluloid moving picture film preceded that of Thomas A. Edison by some three years. The ca.se was fought out in the Supreme Court of America. Greene’s claim of priority was admitted, and as a conso'iuence one of the biggest tracts in the States was smashed. But Greene reaped no cash reward.”

PosT-PTIANDTAI. discourse is not often directed to the possibilities of the future, but “London Fifty Years Hence’’ was recently the subject of discussion at the London Society-'s annual dinner. One of the speakers was Dean Inge, notwithstanding his well-known disposition to take a gloomy view of what is to come. As £o the possible size of London in 1971 ho recalled the fact that in a calcination with regard to the water supply the authorities twenty years ago had fixed tho limit of population at twelve and a-half millions. But Dean Inge has no belief that London will ever reach that figure and he very much hopes that it will not. With his mind upon the probably inevitable decay” of Great Britain’s foreign trade, he thinks London will find it difficult 50 years hence to support its present* jojpulatioo. He foresees the

shrinkage rather than the expansion of London, and visions the city as looking, after the lapse of another half century, “ very much what it is now, only a good deal more out at elbows.” It is a little unexpected, perhaps, to find Dean Ingo girding at the conservatism which moves the British people to like solidity in houseconstruction, discussing on the merits of tarred felt as a building material, and observing that in the ideal town there ought to be a very great contrast between public buildings, which were intended for permanence, and the habitations of private citizens which ought to be very cheap and easy to take to pieces and carry about. Possibly he was merely exorcism" his humour in some of these little excursions. Perhaps ho realised that a depiction of the results of a probable progressive decline in the national wealth was not very cheering. “I am afraid,” he said, 41 I am rather living up to my character in niy view of the London which our children and grandchildren may live to see, but I cannot be very optimistic about our future. I don’t think any sensible man can.” It is an interesting prediction of Sir William Soulsby, who has been secretary to every Lord Mayor of London since 1875, that in 1971 there will probably bo very few people living within London’s famous square mile. It may surprise many people to learn that oven to-day the City of London proper has not more than 12,000 residents.