15 JUNE 1918, Page 16

The Greek Foreign Office has issued a Report on the

Persecutions of the Greek Population in Turkey since the Beginning of the European War (Constable and Co., Is.) which shows plainly that the Turks, under German direction, are exterminating the Greeks as they exterminated the Armenians. Over two hundred thousand Greeks had been deported last year from the coast into the interior ; all their property was confiscated, and prosperous Greek towns like Alvah were ruined, as if by a German sack. Many were murdered singly or in batches. All their ancient privileges were abolished, their schools were taken away, and their churches were deprived of their estates. The Greek Foreign Office justly observes that the ex-King Constantine, by his pro-German policy, encouraged the Turks in this persecution of the Hellenic element in Turkey. The persecutors will defeat their own ends, for the Greeks and Armenians were the trading class without which Turkey can never prosper. But that is poor consolation for a tragedy as grievous as any recorded in the bloodstained annals of the Turk.