CROSS AND CRESCENT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 42, 12 October 1912, Page 4

CROSS AND CRESCENT.

The “Lyttelton Times” says: “It is no moan throat that is made by the Moslems of Oaloutta in conneotion with tlio tliroatenod raid on Turkov’s provinces in Europe. The age-old struggle between the Cross and tin l Crescent was revived in an acute form, from the point of view of. the Mohammedan peoples, when Italy landed her troops on the coast of Tripoli, and it is the fierce religious zeal of the followers of the Prophet in the North African deserts that has made it hazardous for the invaders to venture beyond the protection of fheir warships’ guns. The Moslem world has been stirred deeply by the invasion oi

Tripoli, ;nul now it secs n possibility of Christian Powers despoiling Turkey at yet another point, thus putting a new insult on the Khalifa and, more serious still, weakening the authority that guards Mecca and the other holy places. The situation is one to create alarm and anger from Constantinople to Khartoum and from Calcutta to '■Agadir. India contains some 02,000,000 .Mohammedans who are in close touch with their fellow-bel.overs in all parts of Asia and Africa and it is well known that these people are bitterly discontented with the failure of the Crescent to hold its own against the Cross. They charge Britain with failing to remember that her KingEmperor is the ruler of a very large section of the Moslem community. II the dread cry of “Allah Akbar” should ever be raised again in a “holy war” it will be because the Christian nations, in their competition for trade and territory, have continued to push their way into the Mohammedan lands. The protest made in. Calcutta shows that the Moslems of India regard the developments in the Balkans as a phase of this invading movement.