THE DARDANELLES QUESTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3057, 30 November 1908, Page 4

THE DARDANELLES QUESTION.

At the present time the history of the regulations regarding the passage of the Dardanelles is interesting and suggestive. In the middle ages, and to the close of the seventeenth century the Black Sea was the exclusive pussession of the Sovereign" who reigned at Constantinople, whether he was Emperor or Sultan. This exclusive ownership was ended in 1696 by Peter the Great, when he conquered Azov. The struggle of Russia to extend her power cn the Black Sea and the efforts of the Turks to resist her constitute an important and suggestive chapter in the history of the eighteenth century. The conflict was ended by the decisive victories of Catherine 11., and an article in the famous Treaty of Kutschuk-Kainardscho in 1774 provided for the sailing of Russian merchant ships in the Black Sea. Eighteen years afterwards, on January 9th, 1792, the Crimea was ceded to Russia at the Peace of Jassy. The wars of the Revolution and' the Empire then brought the question of the Straits prominently to the tront. In 1807 a British squadron forced the Dardanelles. In 1809, England agreed with the Sultan not again to force an entrance through the Dardanelles provided the Porte excluded men-o-war of every other Fovver from those waters. This treaty of January sth, 1809, is of capital importance, and subsequent arrangements concernir.g the Straits were all more or,l*ss based upcn it. At the time of Lord Palmerston's great triumph during the Eastern troubles of 1840 he succeeded by the fourth article of the Convention of London of that year in getting the sanction of the Great Powers for the doctrine that the closing of the Straits to ships of war was a cardinal principle of international European law. France acceded to this view in the following year, and the Convention of JLondon became the Convention of the Straits. They were closed to all ships of war, but when hostilities broke out between Turkey and Russia in 1853, the French and English squadrons, the allies of Turkey, passed through the Dardanelles and Bosphnrus. The Treaty of Paris of 1856 restored the Convention of 1841 in its integrity, but it contained provisions forbidding the formation of Russian maritime power in the Black Sea. They were abrogated at the subsequent Conference of London. The Convention of 1841, however, was confirmed on that occasion, but in Article 2 the Sultan was given power to open the Straits in time of peace to the navies of his allies should he consider it necessary to insure the stipulations of the Treaty of Paris. This is the situation to the present time.