war, in dwelling on the sad failure of tsarism and its probable
results in June, 1905, predicted a revolution with "ten years of
the most frightful anarchy." "We shall," he added, "see the days of
Pugatchef[11] again and perhaps worse"--a striking prophecy verified
with appalling accuracy.
It is not pleasant to recall these dreadful episodes, which reveal the
betrayal of a devotion faithful unto death. But this story is essential
to the right appreciation of events. There is no savagery like that of
a trustful people which finds that its trust was being imposed upon the
whole time. Here the retribution has been hideous in all its aspects.
But the provocation was also revolting from every point of view. To
judge Russia fairly that must be taken into account.
I think the government are, therefore, taking the right view of
their responsibilities when through their foreign secretary they
open negotiations with the representative of the Soviet government
in this country. You can easily evoke resounding cheers amongst the
thoughtless by declaring melodramatically that you will never "shake
hands with murder." In practice this policy has always been a failure.
Mr. Pitt in a famous passage declined to assent to that doctrine when
he was attacked for trying to open negotiations with the "assassins"
of the French Revolution. He was driven out of this calm and rational
attitude by the inflammable rhetoric of Burke, aided by the arrogance
of the victorious revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the sequel proved he
was right. French Bolshevism was not defeated by foreign armies, nor
starved out by the British blockade. But it was driven into the arms of
Napoleon, and Europe suffered bitterly for the folly of the hotheads
on both sides. It would have been better for that generation had it
listened to the wise counsel of William Pitt.
If you decline to treat with Russia as long as its present rulers
remain in power, then you ought to place Turkey in the same category.
The military junta that governed Turkey has been guilty of atrocities
at least as vile as any committed by the Bolshevists. But at Lausanne
we ostentatiously stretched the friendly hand of Britain to the authors
of the Armenian massacres. And France, Italy--yes, and America
also--tendered the same warm handshake. I am not criticising the offer
of amity made as a condition of peace. We must make peace in the world,
and you cannot do so if you put whole nations off your visiting list
because of the misconduct of those who govern them. Once you begin you
are not quite sure where it will end.
In these cases the innocent suffer the most. A refusal to trade with
Russia would not deprive the Soviet commissaries of a single necessity
or comfort of life. The Communists are quite strong enough to take care
of themselves. But the peasants--who are not Communists--would continue
to suffer, and their sufferings would increase as their reserves of
clothing and other essentials became completely exhausted. And the
people of this country who need the produce of Russia for their own use
would also suffer to a certain extent. America can afford this exalted
aloofness. She does not need the Russian grain and timber. She is an
exporter of those commodities. But we cannot do as well without them,
and we also sadly need Russian flax for our linen industries, which are
languishing for the want of it. Last year there were quite considerable
imports of Russian produce into this country. This year owing to the
prospects of an improved harvest these imports will be much larger.
They are greatly needed here for our own consumption, and they pay
for exports of machinery and textiles which the Russian on his part
urgently requires.
But beyond and above all these material considerations, the world needs
peace. In the old days conveyancing attorneys in this country kept a
property transaction going by interminable requisitions on the title
of the other party. They exercised all their ingenuity and invoked the
added ingenuity of trained counsel to probe for defects in the right of
the vendor to deal. Those were leisurely days, and men could afford to
dawdle. Even then these exercises often ended in ruinous litigation.
To-day time presses and the atmosphere is dangerous for the plying of
irritating interrogatories. It is time we made up our minds that the
Soviets have come to stay, whether we like it or no, and that one or
other of the formidable men who rule Russia to-day are likely to rule
it for some time to come. The sooner we have the courage to recognise
this fact, the sooner will real peace be established.
FOOTNOTE:
[11] Pugatchef was the Pretender who led a revolt of the peasants
in the reign of Catherine and spread rapine and carnage through the
provinces bordering the Volga and Ural.
XXVII
PALESTINE AND THE JEWS
"What's his reason? I am a Jew."
_The Merchant of Venice._
Of all the bigotries that savage the human temper there is none so
stupid as the anti-Semitic. It has no basis in reason; it is not
rooted in faith; it aspires to no ideal; it is just one of those dank
and unwholesome weeds that grow in the morass of racial hatred. How
utterly devoid of reason it is may be gathered from the fact that it
is almost entirely confined to nations who worship Jewish prophets and
apostles, revere the national literature of the Hebrews as the only
inspired message delivered by the deity to mankind, and whose only hope
of salvation rests on the precepts and promises of the great teachers
of Judah. Yet in the sight of these fanatics the Jews of to-day can do
nothing right. If they are rich they are birds of prey. If they are
poor they are vermin. If they are in favour of a war it is because they
want to exploit the bloody feuds of the Gentiles to their own profit.
If they are anxious for peace they are either instinctive cowards
or traitors. If they give generously--and there are no more liberal
givers than the Jews--they are doing it for some selfish purpose of
their own. If they do not give--then what could one expect of a Jew
but avarice? If labour is oppressed by great capital, the greed of
the Jew is held responsible. If labour revolts against capital--as
it did in Russia--the Jew is blamed for that also. If he lives in a
strange land he must be persecuted and pogrommed out of it. If he wants
to go back to his own he must be prevented. Through the centuries
in every land, whatever he does, or intends, or fails to do, he has
been pursued by the echo of the brutal cry of the rabble of Jerusalem
against the greatest of all Jews--"Crucify Him!" No good has ever come
of nations that crucified Jews. It is poor and pusillanimous sport,
lacking all the true qualities of manliness, and those who indulge in
it would be the first to run away were there any element of danger in
it. Jew-baiters are generally of the type that found good reasons for
evading military service when their own country was in danger.
The latest exhibition of this wretched indulgence is the agitation
against settling poor Jews in the land their fathers made famous.
Palestine under Jewish rule once maintained a population of 5,000,000.
Under the blighting rule of the Turk it barely supported a population
of 700,000. The land flowing with milk and honey is now largely a stony
and unsightly desert. To quote one of the ablest and most far-sighted
business men of to-day, "It is a land of immense possibilities, in
spite of the terrible neglect of its resources resulting from Turkish
misrule. It is a glorious estate let down by centuries of neglect. The
Turks cut down the forests and never troubled to replant them. They
slaughtered the cattle and never troubled to replace them." It is one
of the peculiarities of the Jew-hunter that he adores the Turk.
If Palestine is to be restored to a condition even approximate to
its ancient prosperity, it must be by settling Jews on its soil. The
condition to which the land has been reduced by centuries of the most
devastating oppression in the world is such that restoration is only
possible by a race that is prepared for sentimental reasons to make and
endure sacrifices for the purpose. What is the history of the Jewish
settlement in Palestine? It did not begin with the Balfour Declaration.
A century ago there were barely 10,000 Jews in the whole of Palestine.
Before the war there were 100,000. The war considerably reduced these
numbers, and immigration since 1918 has barely filled up the gaps. At
the present timorous rate of progress it will be many years before it
reaches 200,000. Jewish settlement started practically seventy years
ago, with Sir Moses Montefiore's experiment in 1854--another war year.
The Sultan had good reasons for propitiating the Jews in that year,
as the Allies had in 1917. So the Jewish resettlement of Palestine
began. From that day onward it has proceeded slowly but steadily. The
land available was not of the best. Prejudices and fears had to be
negotiated. Anything in the nature of wholesale expropriation of Arab
cultivators, even for cash, had to be carefully avoided. The Jews were,
therefore, often driven to settle on barren sand dunes and malarial
swamps. The result can best be given by quoting from an article written
by Mrs. Fawcett, the famous woman leader. She visited Palestine in 1921
and again in 1922, and this is her account of the Jewish settlements:
"So far from the colonies and the colonists draining the country
of its resources they have created resources which were previously
non-existent; they have planted and skilfully cultivated desert
sands and converted them into fruitful vineyards and orange
and lemon orchards; in other parts they have created valuable
agricultural land out of what were previously dismal swamps
producing nothing but malaria and other diseases. The colonists
have not shrunk from the tremendous work and the heavy sacrifices
required. Many of the early arrivals laid down their lives over
their work; the survivors went on bravely, draining the swamps,
planting eucalyptus trees by the hundred thousand so that at
length the swamp became a fruitful garden, and the desert once
more blossomed like the rose."
Everywhere the Jew cultivator produces heavier and richer crops than
his Arab neighbour. He has introduced into Palestine more scientific
methods of cultivation, and his example is producing a beneficent
effect on the crude tillage of the Arab peasant. It will be long ere
Canaan becomes once more a land flowing with milk and honey. The
effects of the neglect and misrule of centuries cannot be effaced by
the issue of a declaration. The cutting down of the trees has left
the soil unprotected against the heavy rains and the rocks which were
once green with vineyards and olive groves have been swept bare. The
terraces which ages of patient industry built up have been destroyed
by a few generations of Turkish stupidity. They cannot be restored in
a single generation. Great irrigation works must be constructed if
settlement is to proceed on a satisfactory scale. Palestine possesses
in some respects advantages for the modern settler which to its ancient
inhabitants were a detriment. Its one great river and its tributaries
are rapid and have a great fall. For power this is admirable. Whether
for irrigation, or for the setting up of new industries, this gift of
nature to Palestine is capable of exploitation only made possible by
the scientific discoveries of the last century. The tableland of Judea
has a rainfall which if caught in reservoirs at appropriate centres
would make of the "desert of Judea" a garden. If this be done Arab and
Jew alike share in the prosperity.
There are few countries on earth which have made less of their
possibilities. Take its special attractions for the tourist. I was
amazed to find that the visitors to Palestine in the whole course of a
year only aggregate 15,000. It contains the most famous shrines in the
world. Its history is of more absorbing interest to the richest peoples
on earth, and is better taught to their children, than even that of
their own country. Some of its smallest villages are better known to
countless millions than many a prosperous modern city. Hundreds of
thousands ought to be treading this sacred ground every year. Why are
they not doing so? The answer is: Turkish misrule scared away the
pilgrim. Those who went there came back disillusioned and disappointed.
The modern "spies" on their return did not carry with them the luscious
grapes of Escol to thrill the multitude with a desire to follow their
example. They brought home depressing tales of squalor, discomfort,
and exaction which dispelled the glamour and discouraged further
pilgrimages. Settled government gives the Holy Land its first chance
for 1900 years. But there is so much undeveloped country demanding the
attention of civilisation that Palestine will lose that chance unless
it is made the special charge of some powerful influence. The Jews
alone can redeem it from the wilderness and restore its ancient glory.
In that trust there is no injustice to any other race. The Arabs have
neither the means, the energy, nor the ambition to discharge this duty.
The British Empire has too many burdens on its shoulders to carry this
experiment through successfully. The Jewish race with its genius,
its resourcefulness, its tenacity, and not least its wealth, can
alone perform this essential task. The Balfour Declaration is not an
expropriating but an enabling clause. It is only a charter of equality
for the Jews. Here are its terms:
"His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in
Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and will
use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this
object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done
which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing
non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political
status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
The declaration was subsequently endorsed and adopted by President
Wilson and the French and Italian foreign ministers.
The Zionists ask for no more. It has been suggested by their enemies
that they are seeking to establish a Jewish oligarchy in Palestine
that will reduce the Arab inhabitant to a condition of servitude to a
favoured Hebrew minority. The best answer to that charge is to be found
in the memorandum submitted by the Zionist Association to the League of
Nations.
"The Jews demand no privilege, unless it be the privilege of
rebuilding by their own efforts and sacrifices a land which, once
the seat of a thriving and productive civilisation, has long been
suffered to remain derelict. They expect no favoured treatment
in the matter of political or religious rights. They assume, as
a matter of course, that all the inhabitants of Palestine, be
they Jews or non-Jews, will be in every respect on a footing of
perfect equality. They seek no share in the government beyond that
to which they may be entitled under the Constitution as citizens
of the country. They solicit no favours. They ask, in short, no
more than an assured opportunity of peacefully building up their
national home by their own exertions and of succeeding on their
merits."
It is a modest request which these exiles from Zion propound to the
nations. And surely it is just that it should be conceded, and if
conceded then carried out in the way men of honour fulfil their bond.
There are fourteen millions of Jews in the world. They belong to a
race which for at least 1900 years has been subjected to proscription,
pillage, massacre, and the torments of endless derision--a race that
has endured persecution, which for the variety of torture, physical,
material and mental, inflicted on its victims, for the virulence and
malignity with which it has been sustained, for the length of time it
has lasted, and more than all for the fortitude and patience with which
it has been suffered, is without parallel in the history of any other
people. Is it too much to ask that those amongst them whose sufferings
are the worst shall be able to find refuge in the land their fathers
made holy by the splendour of their genius, by the loftiness of their
thoughts, by the consecration of their lives, and by the inspiration of
their message to mankind?
XXVIII
THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE[12]
The vanquished have returned to their spiritual home at Angora throwing
their fezzes in the air. The victors have returned with their tails
well between their legs. All tragedies have their scenes of comedy, and
the Lausanne Conference is one of those amusing episodes interpolated
by fate to relieve the poignancy of one of its greatest tragic
pieces--the Turk and civilisation.
The Turk may be a bad ruler, but he is the prince of anglers. The
cunning and the patience with which he lands the most refractory fish
once he has hooked it is beyond compare. What inimitable play we have
witnessed for six months on the shores of Lake Leman! Once the fish
seemed to have broken the tackle--that was when the first conference
came to an abrupt end. It simply meant, however, that the wily
Oriental was giving out plenty of line. Time never worries him, he can
sit and wait. He knew the moment would come when they would return
with the hook well in their gullets, and the play begin once more--the
reeling in and the reeling out, the line sometimes taut and strained
but never snapping. Time and patience rewarded him. At last the huge
tarpon are all lying beached on the banks--Britain, France, Italy,
and the United States of America--high and dry, landed and helpless,
without a swish left in their tails, glistening and gasping in the
summer sun.
It is little wonder that Ismet had a smile on his face when all was
over. Reports from Angora state that the peace is hailed there as
a great Turkish triumph; and so it is. The Turk is truly a great
fisherman. If he could govern as well as he angles, his would be the
most formidable Empire in the world. Unfortunately he is the worst of
rulers, hence the trouble--his own and that of those who unhappily have
drawn him as governor in the lottery of life.
The able correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_ at the Lausanne
Conference has supplied us from time to time with vivid pen pictures
of the four greatest Powers of the world struggling in the toils of the
squalid and broken remains of an Empire with an aggregate population
equal to that of a couple of English counties that I could name. This
is what he wrote about this conference, which constitutes one of the
most humiliating incidents in the history of Western civilisation:--
"The records of the present Conference present an even more
marvellous series of concessions and surrenders. What was frayed
before is threadbare now. The Allies have whittled away their
own rights with a lavish hand in the cause of peace. They have
also--and this is a graver matter, for which it seems they will
have to give an account in the not distant future--gone back on
their promises to small races, which are none the less promises
because the small races have not the power to enforce their
performance. The figure that the European delegates are cutting in
Lausanne, and the agents of the _concessionnaires_ in Angora--all
alike representatives of the West--has been rendered undignified
as much by the manner as the matter of their worsting."
Since those distressing words were written the Powers have sunk yet
deeper into the slough of humiliation.
_The Times_ correspondent wiring after the agreement writes in a strain
of deep indignation at the blow inflicted on the prestige of the West
by this extraordinary Treaty. In order to gauge the extent of the
disaster to civilisation which this Treaty implies it is only necessary
to give a short summary of the war aims of the Allies in Turkey.
They were stated by Mr. Asquith with his usual succinctness and clarity
in a speech which he delivered when Prime Minister at the Guildhall on
November 9th, 1914:--
"It is not the Turkish people--it is the Ottoman Government that
has drawn the sword, and which, I venture to predict, will perish
by the sword. It is they and not we who have rung the death-knell
of Ottoman dominion, not only in Europe but in Asia. With their
disappearance will disappear as I, at least, hope and believe, the
blight which for generations past has withered some of the fairest
regions of the earth."
In pursuance of the policy thus declared by the British Premier on
behalf of the Allies a series of Agreements was entered into in the
early months of 1915 between France, Russia, and ourselves, by which
the greater part of Turkey, with its conglomerate population, was to be
partitioned at the end of the War. Cilicia and Syria were allocated to
France; Mesopotamia to Britain; Armenia and Constantinople to Russia.
Palestine was to be placed under the joint control of Britain and
France. Arabia was to be declared independent and a territory carved
largely out of the desert--but including some famous cities of the
East, Damascus, Homs and Aleppo--was to be constituted into a new Arab
State, partly under the protection of France and partly of Britain.
Smyrna and its precincts were to be allotted to Greece if she joined
her forces with those of the Allies in the war. The Straits were to be
demilitarised and garrisoned. When Italy came into the war later on in
1915, it was stipulated that in the event of the partition of Turkey
being carried out in pursuance of these agreements, territories in
Southern Anatolia should be assigned to Italy for development.
What was the justification for breaking up the Turkish Empire? The
portions to be cut out of Turkey have a population the majority of
which is non-Turkish. Cilicia and Southern Anatolia might constitute a
possible exception. In these territories massacres and misgovernment
had perhaps succeeded at last in turning the balance in favour of the
Turk. But in the main the distributed regions were being cultivated
and developed before the war by a population which was Western and not
Turanian in its origin and outlook. This population represented the
original inhabitants of the soil.
The experiences, more especially of the past century, had demonstrated
clearly that the Turk could no longer be entrusted with the
property, the honour, or the lives of any Christian race within his
dominions. Whole communities of Armenians had been massacred under
circumstances of the most appalling cruelty in lands which their
ancestors had occupied since the dawn of history. And even after the
war began 700,000 of these wretched people had been done to death
by these savages, to whom, it must be remembered, the Great Powers
so ostentatiously proffered the hand of friendship at the first
Lausanne conference. Even while the conference was in session, and the
handshaking was going on, the Turks were torturing to death scores
of thousands of young Greeks whom they deported into the interior.
As "a precautionary measure" 150,000 Greeks of military age, of whom
30,000 were military prisoners, were last year driven inland to the
mountains of Anatolia. On the way they were stripped of their clothes,
and in this condition were herded across the icy mountains. It is not
surprising that when an agreement was arrived at for the exchange
of military prisoners, the Turks found the greatest difficulty in
producing 11,000, and of the total 150,000 it is estimated that
two-thirds perished. The Allied Powers had every good reason for
determining, as they hoped for all time, that this barbarian should
cease to shock the world by repeated exhibitions of savagery against
helpless and unarmed people committed to his charge by a cruel fate.