Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-02-27
HOW DOES 1T
STRIKE YOU?
MR.. WINSTON CHURCHILL cannot

MR.. WINSTON CHURCHILL cannot
1Nl take his eyes off Constantinople.
In the beginning of the war he saw in the
Turkish capital the key to the whole war.
Today he sees there the key of empire.
Empire Is never dull business for Mr..
Churchill.
In 1914 handful of men making a sur
prise attack in the rear of Germany on the
Dardanelles would change the whole fate OF
Europe.
Today few picturesque bandits in Con-
stantinople will change the whole fate OF
Asia.
Considering our burdens" he says,
throughout the Middle East, Persia and
Mesopotamia, no relief can be expected until
a real peace is made with Turkey.
l trust that we shall not now
take steps that will drive the Turkish people
to despair"
Make friends of the Turks is his argument,
and all the national aspirations, all the love
Of liberty that is stirring among the Moslems
of the British dominions and making British
burdens too heavy to bear will. disappear.
Hence when Mr.. Lloyd George mods one
of his half acquiescences, some messenger,
perhaps to force Mr.. Lloyd Georges and
President Wilson's hands, is dispatched
through India with the glad tidings that the
Turk will stay in his old capital.
q 9 9
TNGLAND is half gentleman adventurer
IL and half Puritan, half Cavalier aid half
Roundhead.
Domestically she is all Puritan, all Round
head.
In her foreign policies she is less certainly
Puritan, and when those foreign politics
affect the romantic parts OF the earth, the
Near East, for example, she is mostly gen
tleman adventurer.
The Turkish question is an issue between
the gentleman adventurer (the modern equiv
alept of Raleigh and Drake), Mr.. Churchill
and the Puritan, the parson following Lord
Robert Cecil, each pulling Mr.. Lloyd George
his way, and the Churchill party having
stolen a march by sending word to India and
nrobably to the Moslem world generally that
the Turk would be undisturbed in Con
stantinople.
Shall the Puritan conscience prevail in
relations with the Near East!
Or the gentleman adveuturer's policy of
useful friendships and profitable alliances
with heather and paynim potentates whose
weakness for Staying Christians by the mil
lions must be overlooked?
rs ENGLAND going to remain half gentle
i man adsenturer or is it going to become
all Puritan?
Empire is half excitement to Mr.. Churchill.
II is all conscience to Lord Robert Cecil.
Churchill narrowly missed making it all
excitement.
Had the Elizabethan exploit of the attack
on the Dardanelles succeeded-and it missed
only by a hairs breadth-Churchill instead
Of Lloyd George would probably now be the
master spirit of England
But Churchill's exploits have all gone
amiss.
The fight by airplane to Paris to tell
LLOYD George how Russia could be conquered
| by a handful of volunteers, -
| Mr.. Churchill called them-ended in confirm
| ing Lenine's power and in Europes going
| without the cheap raw materials necessary
| for her recovery.
So Mr.. Churchill's short way with the
troubles of empire, the old, old way of the
gentleman adventurer, making an alliance
| with some influential savage, rather addicted
TO murder, but controlling some important
gateway--in this instance the gateway ia
several hundred million Moslem souls-may
fail to commend itself to his country.
There is a phrase that is potent In Eng
| land. more potent perhaps than the gentle
man adyenturer's tradition, the Gladstoniau
| phrase, "the unspeakable Turk"
q q q
TINE Turks are puzzled by the word man
l. date"
1t is the same in their language as tn,
word meaning buffalo
They are not sure whether they have beer
"buifaloed' or not.
Neither is the rest Of the world, especially
| America, which is being told by the Turk,
that "even the poultry" of Americans re
siding in America. are scratching in peace ant
plenty
Meanwhile, the killing of the Armenian,
has been resumed.
The Turk Is evidently striving to please.