* * * * * ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXXIV TURKEY AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS—THE PARLIAMENT OF NATIONS MUST BE TRULY IMPARTIAL AND INTERNATIONAL FOR those of us who pinned their faith on the League of Nations, it is a matter of the deepest regret that Turkey has lost her trust in the great Parliament of All Nations, especially now that it could have played so important a part in settling our differences at the Lausanne Conference. It is not entirely the Turks’ fault; indeed, considering all things, one can scarcely urge them to any other attitude. To them, at least, the League must seem definitely anti-Islam, and (as founder of the Lyceum Club ‘League of Nations Circle,’ of which Lady Gladstone is president) I have continually endeavoured to impress upon Lord Robert Cecil the danger of allowing such an idea to remain uncontradicted, that it may spread more widely and be more firmly held. Turkey never interfered with British property during the war, and British merchants continued their business in Smyrna throughout the hostilities. Yet we not only confiscated, but sold enemy property. In one case, for example, the business of a man, brought up in England and a pronounced Anglophil, was sold to a Greek for a quarter of its value, and the money sequestered by the Government. Had the Bey even been a traitor he should have been given the full value of his business, and then expelled, instead of being driven to exist on money borrowed at an exorbitant rate of interest. On the other hand, Ottoman “Christian” property was freed from sequestration; a distinction between “neighbours,” hardly consistent with the teaching of our faith. The “pick-pocketing” habit of confiscating enemy property—Turkish, German, or Austrian—is surely beneath an Empire with our reputation; and the plea from France and Italy’s example does not strike one as a dignified defence. As a matter of fact, France emphatically denies ever having taken a penny from the Turks. Is not such flagrant injustice an obvious case for the League’s authority to intervene? When visiting the “League of Nations” headquarters in Geneva the other day, Sir Eric Drummond asked me why Turkey should be so suspicious of the League? I could only refer him to the public speeches of our most responsible statesmen. When Mr. Lloyd George hurled insults at Islam, it only meant one more item in the big bill of Moslem grievances against England; when Lord Balfour and Lord Robert Cecil speak in similar strains, Islam listens. While _they_ refuse justice and mercy, Turkey mistrusts the League. Because the League stood aside, and left the Greeks in Smyrna, as Britain refused discussion with Turkish emissaries, Mustapha Kemal was driven to arms, which gave Turkey, indeed, the victory, but spread ruin throughout Anatolia.