to regard the Sultan of Turkey as their spiritual head is a matter on which it would be presumptuous for a Christian to offer any opinion, but however this may be, Indian Moslems would do well to recognise the fact that circumstances, and not the hostility of Great Britain or of any other foreign Power, have materially altered the position of the Sultan in so far as the world of politics and diplomacy is concerned. Whether the statesman in whose hands the destinies of Turkey now lie at once abandon Adrianople, or whether they continue to remain there for a time with the certainty that they will be sowing the seeds of further bloodshed in the near future, one thing is certain. It is that the days of Turkey as an European Power are numbered. Asia must henceforth be her sphere of action. That these truths should be unpalatable to Indian Moslems is but natural; neither is it possible to withhold some sympathy from them in the distress which they must now feel at the partial wreck of the most important Moslem State which the world has yet seen. But facts, however distasteful, have to be faced, and it would be truly deplorable if the non-recognition of those facts should lead our Moslem fellow-subjects in India to resent the action of the British Government and to adopt a line of conduct from which they have nothing to gain and everything to lose. But whatever that line of conduct may be, the duty of the British Government and nation is clear. Their European policy, whilst allowing all due weight to Indian interests and sentiment, must in the main be guided by general considerations based on the necessities of civilised progress throughout the world, and on the interests and welfare of the British Empire as a whole. The idea that that policy should be diverted from its course in order to subserve the cause of a single Moslem Power which has rejected British advice is, as Sir Edward Grey very rightly remarked, wholly inadmissible. XXVI SOME INDIAN PROBLEMS[106] _"The Spectator," August 30, 1913_