Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/254

 Ismet Pasha dropped away the non-essentials of the Pact while holding fast to the abrogation of the Capitulations which the Enver Government had decreed on Sept. 28, 1914, and on July 24, 1923, the British Foreign Office finally accorded its recognition to the essentials of the National Pact, exception being made for further negotiation over Mosul.

For the last century, the Ottoman Empire has sought justice at the hands of Czarist Russia and the West. Czarist Russia has finally ceased to exist and Turkey has finally gained justice from the West at the point of the bayonet, a fact which we Christians of the West might do well to ponder. It secured from the West at Lausanne a belated recognition of its right to control its own reforms in its own country and since Czarist Russia and the West by their long endeavor to impose reforms from without for the exclusive benefit of the Turk's minorities, have made it impossible for the Turk and his minorities to live together, the Turk today has only himself to consider in Turkey. Insofar as no further Western attempts are made to strangle Turkish reform (and if the past is any clew to the future, such attempts are quite certain to be made), the future of Turkey now depends on the Turk. We know at last who is responsible in Turkey, and this is a very substantial gain.