“But we know the whole history of these massacres to some extent. It is only in Armenia that the Turk is said to be so intolerant; there are other parts of the world where he deals with Christian people, and where he deals with the Jewish community. No complaints of massacres come from those communities. Then the Armenians themselves lived under Turkish rule for centuries and never complained. The farthest back that we can go to discover any trace of this is the beginning of the last century. But in reality the ‘massacres’ begin only in the last quarter of the last century.
“It is pretty clear that they begin after the success of efforts like those made in the Balkans by Russia, which has never disguised its desire to take Constantinople since the time of Peter the Great. It has always wanted to go to Tsargrad, as it called it—that is, the city of the Tsars. They wanted to go there. They tried these things in the Balkans, and they succeeded beyond their expectation, only probably Bulgaria became too independent when it became Greater Bulgaria. But in the case of the Armenians, they had people who were not very warlike, who had no sovereign ambitions themselves, and who were also to a great extent afraid of conversion to another branch of the Orthodox Church, the Russian branch, so that they were not very willing tools. Still, they were egged on, and plots and intrigues went on all the time. These people were incited, and they understood that if they made a compromise with Tsarist Russia they would get something better. It was then that these massacres came on the scene. No doubt there have been several outcries about them; some evidence has been produced; but there has been no thorough international inquiry which would satisfy the entire world, Muslim as well as Christian. It is in that connection that we earnestly appeal to you, to the whole of Christendom, to the whole of Europe and America, that if the Turk is to be punished on the assumption that he is a tyrant, that his rule is a blasting tyranny, and that he ought to be punished, in that case the evidence should be of such a character that it should be absolutely above suspicion.”
Mr. Lloyd George in his reply upbraided Turkey with fighting by the side of the Central Powers though Great Britain had never fought against her, and protracting the hostilities by closing the Black Sea to the British fleet; but he did not seem to realise that the Russian policy of the Allies partly accounted for Turkey’s decision. Only at the end of the interview, in answer to a remark of the leader of the Indian delegation, he pleaded in defence of England “that she had made no arrangement of any sort with Russia at the expense of Turkey at the beginning of the war.” Then, before coming to the various points M. Mohammed Ali had dealt with, Mr. Lloyd George, who had kept aloof for a long time from the policy of understanding with France, said:
“I do not understand M. Mohammed Ali to claim indulgence for Turkey. He claims justice, and justice she will get. Austria has had justice. Germany has had justice—pretty terrible justice. Why should Turkey escape? Turkey thought she had a feud with us. What feud had Turkey with us? Why did she come in to try and stab us and destroy liberty throughout the world when we were engaged in this life-and-death struggle? Is there any reason why we should apply a different measure to Turkey from that which we have meted out to the Christian communities of Germany and Austria? I want the Mohammedans in India to get it well into their minds that we are not treating Turkey severely because she is Mohammedan: we are applying exactly the same principle to her as we have applied to Austria, which is a great Christian community.”
As to Arabia—which will be dealt with later on together with the Pan-Arabian movement—though M. Mohammed Ali had declared that “the delegation felt no anxiety about the possibility of an understanding between the Arabs and the Khalifa,” and that the Moslems “did not want British bayonets to subject the Arabs to Turkey,” Mr. Lloyd George answered:
“The Arabs have claimed independence. They have proclaimed Feisal King of Syria. They have claimed that they should be severed from Turkish dominion. Is it suggested that the Arabs should remain under Turkish dominion merely because they are Mohammedans? Is not the same measure of independence and freedom to be given to Mohammedans as is given to Christians? Croatia has demanded freedom, and we have given it to her. It is a Christian community. Syria has demanded it, and it is given to her. We are applying exactly the same principles in Christian places, and to impose the dominion of the Sultan upon Arabia, which has no desire for it, is to impose upon Arabs something which we certainly would not dream of imposing upon these Christian communities.”
With regard to Thrace, after owning it was difficult to give reliable figures and saying that according to the Greek census and the Turkish census, which differ but little, the Moslem population was in “a considerable minority,” Mr. Lloyd George stated that “it would certainly be taken away from Turkish sovereignty.” As to Smyrna, he asserted that according to his information “a great majority of the population undoubtedly prefers the Greek rule to the Turkish rule.”
Concerning the temporal power of the Khalifa, he seemed to have forgotten the difference which had just been pointed out to him between the Christian religion and Islam on this point, for he declared:
“I am not going to interfere in a religious discussion where men of the same faith take a different view. I know of Mohammedans—sincere, earnest, zealous Mussulmans—who take a very different view of the temporal power from the one which is taken by M. Mohammed Ali to-day, just as I know of Catholics who take one view and other Catholics who take a very different view of the temporal power of the Pope. That is a controversy into which I do not propose to enter.”
And as if M. Mohammed Ali’s remarks had quite escaped him, he added: