The Hokitika Guardian TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3rd, 1922. THE CLOUDS OF WAR.

Hokitika Guardian, 3 October 1922, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3rd, 1922. THE CLOUDS OF WAR.

i m; i-ame news puonsiiea yesierciay indicated very clearly that the clouds of war hang very ominously over the Near Fnstern position. The cmhroilment of Britain and Turkey in a war is now rather more than possible, though how probable vests in the end in the definite acts of Turkey. The Turks are very much elated by their successes over the Greeks, and hacked up as they appear to be by the moral support of France, they have assumed what is praeticallv a defiant attitude to Britain. They were clearly warned by Britain against transgressing the neutral zone. yet they overstepped the mark, and it is being inferred that they are concentrating behind the advanced guard which is being used as a screen. The hint that Britain may remove forces from the Rhine is evidently given out for the consumption of France, on behalf of which it was stated authoritatively there would he no pnrt’eipation in an Auglo-Turkish conflict. However, Britain is organising her naval strength which can he very material. The Turks demand that Britain should leave

the neutral /.one as Italy ami France have; but if that were done there would he no guarantee as to the upholding of the Turks, who are hardly to be trusted. It seems very clear if France and Italy had joined Britain in upholding the treaty conditions so far as the neutral zone was concerned, the threat of war could not have grown so ominous. As regards the intervention of the League of Nations in a practical way, a contemporary points out difficulties. Tn the first nlace two of the nations most intimately concerned in the trouble- Turkey and Russia—are not members of the League of Nations, and are not bound by its rules. In the second place the League has no immediate and material means of enforcing its decisions. It could protect the neutral zone between the Black Rea and the Mediterranean with nothing more effective than edicts. In the third place the various nations whose interests are effected by the crisis in the Near Fast have not disarmed. The weakest and smallest of them could chase the League of Vat ions Scoretariat out of Geneva any time it elnwe to undertake siieh an enterprise. TCemal Pasha and his victorious troops are not likely to be swayed by moral appeals or pious counsels, particularly as their systems of theology and ethics arc radically different to those of the majority of the members of the League. IVc should like to see (lie peace of the world placed in the hands of a League of Nations equipped by common consent and by a common resolution to disarm with the means of enforcing its decisions.