THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JUNE, 3, 1910. THE MOHAMMEDAN DANGER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10060, 3 June 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JUNE, 3, 1910. THE MOHAMMEDAN DANGER.

The remark of „ex-President Roose- : velt, published in our cables of yes- : terday, that Britain must maintain » her right to govern in Egpytatall ' hazards, opens up again the absorbing question of Mohammedan danger in the East. Mohammedanism, both in Turkey an A in Egpyt, is powerfully excited by a sinister conjunction of two disturbing events. In the firct place, the powerful Mohammedan minority in Crete has been excluded from .representation in the Cretan Assembly by a resolution of that body, and in the second place the ' Mufti, who is the spiritual head of Mohammedanism in Egypt, has refused to sanction the infliction of j the death penalty upon the NationalJ ist Waidani, who was convicted of { the murder of Boutros Pasha, late I Prime Minister of the Khedive, the dead pasha having been a nonMohammedairprofessing Christianity | aB practised by the Copts.' With re-: gard to the Cretan question, it is to be noted that a demand is voiced in Turkey for the issue of an ultimatum to the Cretans, on the ground that Great Britain, France* Russia, and

Italy, the four Powers that guaranteed the maintenance of Turkigh suzerainty over Crete, have neglected to compel the Cretans to observe their obligation towards the Moslem population of the island, which is under the Turkish flag. The Cretans were categorically forbidden recently to send a delegate to the National Assembly of Greece, and the Greek Government was informed that Turkey would invade Greece if the Cretan delegate took his seat. Baulked in their endeavour to effect a political union with Greece, and thereby wriggle out of their obligation to Turkey, the Cretans have now adopted the device of excluding Turkish Nationals fiom their own Assembly, and as the four Powers that originally guaranteed the Turkish suzerainty over the island —and sent their warships to enforce their mandate upon the Cretans—are still in the position of guarantors, they cannot evade their obligation to compel the Cretans to abide by the ruling previously given. Detachments from the warships of the guaranteeing Powers compelled the Cretans not long ago to haul down the Greek flag, which they had erected at the capital. Logically, thereiore, the Powers are bound to prevent the Cretans from taking of action whichhas practically the same effect. , But logic does not always rule in international politics, and if s the Turkish Government should decide to take independent action against its tributary dependencyj the Eastern question | may enter upon a new and possibly dangerous phase. A Moslem outburst in Crete would be certain to react in Egypt, and would probably be felt also in India. In Egypt the proclamation of the spiritual head of Mohammedanism, whose "fetiva"' or edict carries great weight, seems likely to embarrass the administration of justice seriously. Acceptance of the Mufti's contention that the killing of a Christian by a Moslem is no murder by Mohammedan law, and furthermore that Mohammed's definition of murder did not include homicide by revolver huliets, would remove the basis of all government in Egypt. To say that a Moslem may kill a Christian with impunity is to revive a bloodthirsty tenet of Mohammedanism, which if acted upon by the MosSera peoples throughout the world, would mean the speedy arrival of that great wave of Moslem fanaticism which many thoughtful observers have predicted as one of the probabilities of the future. The Mufti's pronouncement, in fact, amounts to the declaration of a "jehad," or "holy war." The Khedive's Government, to which the .British Agent at Cairo acts as adviser, is bound to ignore the Mufti's refusal to sanctioh the death-sentence upon the convicted murderer of the late Prime Minister. To palter with justice for the sake of conciliating Mohammedan feeling in such a matter would give British authority in Egypt its death-blow. And yet at the same time a grave danger must be faced. The ex-President of the United States indeed goes so far as to assert that Britain "must either face it ur quit." Ever since the infliction of the death penalty upon the Egyptians who were found guilty of the Denshawi outrage, the pent-up passions of the disaffected Egyptians have been simmering. At the time of the outrage, Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, in justifying, in his place in Parliament, the infliction of the<penalties to which the perpetrators were sentenced, uttered serious words of warning as to the danger of refusing to support the decisions of the Egyptian tribunal which tried the prisoners. Inasmuch as Uoufcroa Paaha, the recently murdered Prime Minister, was directly responsible for the execution of the persons who committed the outrage upon British officers at Denshawi the sequence of events is clear. If Sir Edward Grey's warning was justified then, it is doubly justified now. The situation in Crete and in Egypt resembles a double-bar-relled gun. Unless decisive steps are taken to prevent the contingency, either barrel may go off separately. Or both may go off at the same time.