Mr. Lloyd George on Friday week received the delegates of
the Indian Moslem f aetion which is urging that the Sultan of Turkey, -as Caliph, must not be deprived of any of his territories. The delegates told the Prime Minister that Constantinople was hold
"very sacred" by Moslems. Mr. ,Lloyd George in reply told -them that Turkey had wantonly attadked us, and that the -Allies would apply the same prineiple of self-determination in her ease as in the cases of Germany and Austria-Hungary. Thus the Turk would lose Arabiarfor example,-and Thrace and Smyrna. Mr. Lloyd George brushed aside the delegates' attempt to minimize the horrors of the Armenian massacres. As he said, the Turkish Government had admitted the fact, though they put the blame on Enver and Talaat. The- Turks were -incom- petent rulers, and had reduced Asia Minor to a desert. "Here is a bad farmer in a farm which is essential to a world." The Turks were being punished not aa-Moslems but as Turks. They -could not be treated, on the ground that they were Moslems, with a leniency that was not exercised in the settlement of the Christian communities with which we had- been at war.
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