Page:The King of Hedjaz and Arab Independence (1917).djvu/7



In their reply to President Wilson's Note of 20th December, 1916, the Allied Powers stated the general nature of their war-aims, and included among them "the setting free of the populations subject to the bloody tyranny of the Turk." And Mr. Balfour, in his despatch of 16th January, 1917, in which he explained these aims from the point of view of Great Britain, observed that "the interests of peace and the claims of nationality alike require that Turkish rule over alien races should, if possible, be brought to an end." It was in the same spirit that President Wilson himself, in his speech to the United States Senate on 23rd January, 1917, said: "I am proposing, as it were, that the nation should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world; that no nation should seek to extend its polity over any other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own policy, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful."

Thus the effort of the Arabs of Hedjaz to free themselves from the oppressive rule of the Turks has received the sanction of all the Powers which, in the great world-struggle that is now proceeding,