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THE WELSH OUTLOOK The Editor does not necessarily identify himself with the opinions of contributors to The Welsh Outlook." Editorial responsibility is limited to t he views expressed in the Notes of the Month," and in the unsigned article immediately following. NOTES OF THE MONTH The resistance offered by the so- The Turkish called Turkish Nationalists to Treaty. the Allies and their demands shews the inept folly of leaving Constanti- nople to the Sultan. The fact that the Allies hesi- tated to take Constantinople out of the Moslem's hands convinced him of their weakness, and the fact that the Peace Treaty wiped out the Ottoman Empire everywhere, except in Constantinople and Asia Minor, convinced him of their hatred and malice. Surely we ought to have learned before this that there is no person on earth from whom it is so foolish to run away as the Turk, especially when he is in a bad temper, and, on this occasion, the result is that the Allies have a serious war on their hands. If we are saved from the full consequences, it will be largely due to M. Venizelos, who, whatever may be his faults, is a man of Faith and Vision, and thinks, at any rate, as much of ideas as he does of oil-wells. But even if the best ha->peis, and the Turkish resistance comes to a speedy collapse, the continued presence of the Sultan in the ancient capital of the Eastern Empire will be a con- tinued menace. In the first place, Constantinople will be the centre of unceasing Turkish intrigues, and the lives of the Christian population of the city will never be safe. In the second place, the city, now almost defenceless, will be more than ever a temptation to adventurous and unscrupulous Powers, and, indeed, the question of its possession may, at no distant date, be the cause of another European war-on such a scale as would satisfy even Mr. Winston Churchill and the militarists. And yet all the dangers would be removed and a great step towards the pacification of the Near East taken. if the city were made into the capital of the League of Nations. It is still not too late to take this senwDiJ?.,step. Why doesn't the British Prime Minister live up to his magnificent early war speeches? JULY, 1920. The League Things do not look bright at the of Nations. moment for the League of Nations, but the cloud that envelopes its pre- sent fortunes shows some signs of a silver lining. It saddens everyone who believes in the League, and in the great purpose of which it is an expression, to find mandates distributed and provinces assigned wholesale, without even a form of consent by the League, and it is even sadder still to find that, after all their high professions, English statesmen are the worst offenders of all, as in the case of the appointment of a High Commissioner for Palestine without any reference to the League, and particularly as in the revolting affair of the phosphate island of Nauru, which was very justly described by Mr. Asquith as being illegal in its origin, unequal in its operation, and opposed in all respects to the letter and the spirit of the Covenant of the League of Nations." The failure of the League to intervene between Poland and Russia, and the hopelesness of its discusions on Persia and the Soviets, are also disappointing, and show that we are only at the beginning of the task of forming a real Council of the world's peoples. Nevertheless, the strong feeling expressed on these subjects, both in the House of Commons and in the country, indicate that there is a real earnestness in the crusade for the League. Th- opinion of the religious world, as voiced by Lord Robert Cecil and Bishop Gore, for the Church of England, and by the English Free Church Council for the Nonconformists, is determined that the League shall not be for ever shelved. The Llandrindod Conference, on May 25th, showed that there was, at any rate, some truth in the Prime Minister's statement that there is no part of the country where the great ideal of the League of Nations is better understood than in Wales," but Wales will not be worthy of its past until every pulpit in the land resounds with the