channel through which alone our Allies, Russia and Rumania, have access
to the Mediterranean. Though this was not formally stated in the Allies'
reply to President Wilson, it is clearly part and parcel of the object
in view, for while the Ottoman Empire retains the smallest control on
either side of either of the Straits, she is so far able to interfere in
European concerns, in which she must never more have a hand. The east
shore, then, of the Straits and the Sea of Marmora, as well as the west,
must be under the control of a Power, or a group of Powers, not alien to
Western civilisation. Germany and her allies therefore, no less than
Turkey, must be excluded from the guardianship of the Straits.

As we have had previous occasion to note, this ejection of the Turkish
power from Constantinople is the absolute reversal of European and, in
especial, of English policy for the last hundred years. No crime that
the Ottoman Government could commit, no act of barbarism, would ever
persuade us to do away with the anachronism of Turkey's existence in
Europe; but at last the seismic convulsion of the war has knocked this
policy into a heap of disjected ruins, and it can never be rebuilt again
on the old lines. For among our other avowed objects in prosecuting the
war to its victorious end, we have pledged ourselves to uphold the
right which all peoples, whether small or great, have to the enjoyment
of full security and free economic development. But while Turkey can
close the Straits at her own arbitrary will, or at the bidding of a
superior and malevolent Power, and block the passage of ships from
Russian and Rumanian ports into the Mediterranean, the economic
development of both these countries is seriously menaced. Three times
within the last six years has she exercised that right, and while she
holds the shores of the Straits she can at any moment blockade all
southern Russian ports. That such power should be in the hands of any
nation is highly undesirable; that it should be in the hands of a
corrupt despotism like Turkey, especially now that Germany, as things
stand, can dictate to Turkey when and what she pleases, is a thing
unthinkable by the most improvident of statesmen. Already we have paid
dearly enough for the pusillanimity of a hundred years: it is impossible
that we should ever allow a similar bill to be again presented.
Whatever be the guardianship of the Straits, whoever the holder of
Constantinople, it will not