advantage by doing so. For a Turkey cut down to the Turkish parts of
Asia-Minor, Constantinople would be a very inconvenient capital. I
think its inconvenience would more than outweigh the sentimental
gratification of keeping up a phantom of the old Ottoman Empire. But
if the Indian Mahomedans want the Sultan to retain his place in
Constantinople I think the assurances given officially by the Viceroy
in India now binds us to insist on his remaining there and I think he
will remain there in spite of America."

This is an extract, from the letter of an Englishman enjoying a position
in Great Britain, to a friend in India. It is a typical letter, sober,
honest, to the point and put in such graceful language that whilst it
challenges you, it commands your respect by its very gracefulness. But
it is just this attitude based upon insufficient or false information
which has ruined many a cause in the British Isles. The superficiality,
the one-sidedness the inaccuracy and often even dishonesty that have
crept into modern journalism, continuously mislead honest men who want
to see nothing but justice done. Then there are always interested
groups whose business it is to serve their ends by means of faul or
food. And the honest Englishman wishing to vote for justice but swayed
by conflicting opinions and dominated by distorted versions, often ends
by becoming an instrument of injustice.

The writer of the letter quoted above has built up convincing argument
on imaginary data. He has successfully shown that the Mahomedan case, as
it has been presented to him, is a rotten case. In India, where it is
not quite easy to distort facts about the Khilafat. English friends
admit the utter justice of the Indian-Mahomedan claim. But they plead
helplessness and tell us that the Government of India and Mr. Montagu
have done all it was humanly possible for them to do. And if now the
judgment goes against Islam, Indian Mahomedans should resign themselves
to it. This extraordinary state of things would not be possible except
under this modern rush and preoccupations of all responsible people.

Let us for a moment examine the case as it has been imagined by the
writer. He suggests that Indian Mahomedans want Turkish rule in Arabia
in spite of the opposition of the Arabs themselves, and that, if the
Arabs do not want Turkish rule, the writer argues, no false religions
sentiment can be permitted to interfere with self-dete