THE GRAVES OF GALLIPOLI.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18774, 30 January 1923, Page 4

THE GRAVES OF GALLIPOLI.

The unsatisfactory upshot of the discussions at Lausanne concerning the care and custody of the graves on the Gallipoli Peninsula, consecrated for evermore in all true British hearts and in the very heart of hearts of the people of New Zealand and Australia, cannot fail to stir anxious interest throughout the dominion. We may remark in passing that the present state of this question may well quicken any feeling of regret that it was impracticable (as presumably it was) to refer the Turkish troubles to the adjudication of the League of Nations. During the debate on the Near East situation in the House of Representatives on September 21 more than one member warmly expressed the opinion that the subject of the Gallipoli graves was too sacred, too peculiarly a British concern, to be submitted to the League. We do not share this view. Eventually, if the League is to be entrusted with one problem, it must be entrusted with all; and we should be quite ready to repose confidence in the justice and right feeling of the representatives of the associated nations in regard to the issue of the custody of the hallowed burial places. The Turkish diplomatists arc not likely to meet with any European approval of their present attitude, unless perhaps in the haunts of Bolshevist brutality. They have cynically and callously repudiated the obligations which they accepted when sighing the Sevres Treaty, which, whatever may he its vulnerability in some respects, is not fairly open to modification as regards the Gallipoli provisions. Relying on the disingenuous pretext that the Allies might, if granted possession of all the cemetery ground, make use of it for strategic purposes, they refuse to concede the ownership of anything beyond the actual enclosed burial-places. But beyond those places the bones of dead Anzacs are still being found. In the debate already mentioned, Mr Ha-nan described a photograph which Mr Jennings had taken and shown to his fellow members. It was a photograph of “what might be termed a small mountain of bones and skulls of brave New Zealand soldiers who had made the supreme sacrifice.” “There came to each of us,” said Mr Hanac “a mute but eloquent appeal that that land where their bones and skulls lay should be prevented for evermore from passing into the possession of the Turks.” Though Ismet Pasha (in Curzon’s scathing language) has “not taken the opportunity afforded him of carrying out his elementary duties of humanity and honour,” it is so far satisfactory to know that the British troops occupying Gallipoli ! Peninsula “will not budge” until the British claim to the custody, of the whole cemetery region has been allowed. Doubtless, if necessary, those troops will be reinforced. *