Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/230

 Gladstonian Liberals. Answering Lord Curzon, in the House of Lords, March 22, 1911, Lord Morley, a member of the Asquith cabinet, asserted the right of the Turks to determine their own destinies: "A great deal of nonsense," he said, "is talked about the possible danger to British interests which may be involved some day or other when this railway is completed, and there have been whimsical apprehensions expressed. One is that it will constitute a standing menace to Egypt because it would establish [by junction with the Syrian and Hedjaz railways] uninterrupted communication between the Bosporus and Western Arabia. That would hardly be an argument for Turkey to abandon railway construction on her own soil, whereas it overlooks the fact that the Sinai Peninsula intervenes. You cannot get over this plain cardinal fact, that this railway is made on Turkish territory by virtue of an instrument granted by the Turkish Government I see articles in newspapers every day in which it is assumed that we have the right there to do what we please. That is not so. It is not our soil, it is Turkish soil, and the Germans alone are there because the Turkish Government has given them the right to be there."[46]

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES