“To insist upon our accepting ‘foreign judges,’ is an humiliating insult to our Government that is altogether incompatible with National Sovereignty. Such interference, and such an affront to the authority of the State would be no less injurious to the interests of foreigners in Turkey than to our own. It could not fail to provoke continual clashing of interests, confusion, and friction between Turkish and foreign administration of law, that would be fatal to commercial security for all alike. Here again the Powers are still ‘building on sand.’
“As to finance, it is a serious difficulty for us; but no question of mere money will ever separate us from England.
“I firmly believe that, when once the Powers can get rid of their old prejudices, the traditional friendship will revive. England and Turkey, surely, need each other; we need England and England needs us, if only to pacify those Moslem people whom England’s injustice to us has roused to righteous anger against her.
“A strong Anglo-Turkish alliance would mean not only peace in the Near East and for Islam; it means peace for the whole world.”
People have asked me “Why did Lausanne fail?”
I answer: “It did not fail. It would have been failure had Ismet Pasha signed, at the pistol’s point, a treaty that could not be ratified. He knew that the Assembly would never sign the terms offered by the Powers; and, as I told Lord Curzon, he had to consult his colleagues in Angora. It would hinder peace, not promote it, to sign with no security for ratification.”
As Ismet said, “We have purchased our Anatolia with the blood and money of her peasants. We can die, but we cannot betray them.”