THE BRINK OF THE ABYSS

Southland Times, Issue 19653, 2 October 1922, Page 4

THE BRINK OF THE ABYSS

This morning's budget of news from and concerning the theatre of disturbance in the Near East seems to bring us to the brink of rhe abyss. If it be reliable, and there is only too little reason to doubt its essential accuracy, the issue of peace or war will be very quickly settled. The situation in the Chanak neutral zone has reached a stage at which its further prolongation becomes impossible, in the judgment of the British Government. The

Kemalist troops are now right up to the British posts, and so far from showing any disposition to respond to the characteristic patience and forbearance with which the position has been handled by the British Government and its Commander-in-Chief and troops, the attitude of Kemal Pasha is provocative and defiant. He still asserts a desire to avoid “incidents” that would precipitate hostilities, but in the circumstances which he has deliberately created at Chanak, it would soon be beyond his power to exercise that restraint upon his troops, which, while they were separated by a substantial space, served to avoid a clash. The British Government has decided that a situation so fraught with peril does not permit of further temporising, and it has informed the military authorities that they will have complete support in demanding the withdrawal of the Kemalist forces from the Chanak neutral zone. Whether the intimation to the Turkish commander will take the form of an ultimatum with a time limit for compliance is left to the discretion of Sir Charles Harington. A very short time promises to remove the issue from the sphere of conjecture, and the Empire’s peoples must brace themselves to meet eventualities which may prove beyond the power of pacific counsel and negotiation to avert.