WE

E talked of many things, Mrs. Fiske and I, as we sat at tea on a wide veranda one afternoon last summer. It looked out lazily across a sunlit valley, the coziest valley in New Jersey. A huge dog that lay sprawled at her feet was unspeakably bored by the proceedings. He was a recruit from the Bide-awee Home, this fellow, a great Dane with just enough of other strains in his blood. to remind him that, like the Danes at Mr. Wopsle's Elsinore, he had but recently come up from the people. It kept him modest, anxious to please, polite. So Zak rarely interrupted, save when at times he would suggestively extract his rubber ball from the pocket of her knitted jacket and thus artfully invite her to a mad game on the lawn.

We talked of many things-of Duse and St. Teresa and Eva Booth and Ibsen. When we were speaking casually and quite idly of Ibsen, I chanced to voice

The arguments against the Russian occupation of Constantinople are unanswerable. Only those who adopt the German mental attitude, or who are so anxious to defend the Russian point of view that they forget they are at the same time pleading for the German point of view, can combat them. Since the war began no article has been written advocating Russia at Constantinople which has not furnished material for German polemicists and weapons for German diplomats. The harm done to the cause of the Entente powers in the Balkans by thoughtless writers in Paris and London, who saw only one move in the great game, and believed they were helping the common cause by encouraging Russian aspirations, has been incalculable.

Too much writing about Constantinople and too little writing about Poland is giving the German propaganda in eastern and southeastern Europe the chance to instil doubt of the good faith of France and Great Britain. Did not the statesmen of the Occidental powers tell the world that they took up the sword in defense of small nationalities? It is because I am in perfect sympathy with the ideal clearly and unequivocally set forth by Lord Grey that I regard the arguments against the Russian occupation of Constantinople as unanswerable. Lord Grey said, "We shall struggle until we have established the supremacy of right over force and until we have assured the free development, in conditions of equality and conformity to their own genius, of all the states, large and small, who constitute civilized humanity." Unless Lord Grey believes that the Balkan States and the Ottoman subject races do not form a part of "civilized humanity," he, and all who have applauded his beautiful and soul-stirring setting forth of the cause of the Entente powers, must agree that the arguments against the Russian occupation of Constantinople are unanswerable.

Here are the arguments. I speak not from books, but from intimate personal knowledge gained by years of travel and residence in the near East.

(1) There is not a single element, Christian or Moslem, among those that make up the population of the Balkans and of the Ottoman Empire that desires Russian. sovereignty, and there is no Russian element at all in Constantinople or anywhere around the straits. Pro-Russians do not exist in the near East, especially in Constantinople. In virtually every other debatable or contested territory in Europe I have found partizans of the power or powers that were ambitious of overthrowing the existing political status to their advantage. Considerations that make partizans are religious, political, and economic. Some point of contact is found and fostered by the outside propaganda. But Russia has no local support in Constantinople. None feels that his particular political, religious, or economic interests would be benefited in any way by Russian occupation.

On the contrary, the most bitter enemies of the Turks, and those who have suffered most at the hands of the Turks, never hesitate to tell you frankly that they prefer the status quo to a change in favor of Russia. The reasons for this are easily set forth. The Turks are occasional oppressors. While they can be, and sometimes are, annoying and harmful through arrogance and inefficiency and maladministration, for the most part and for most of the time they allow Christian subjects and foreigners as much liberty to carry on their business and amass wealth as they would have anywhere else in the world. The British and French residents are of this opinion.1 In Constantinople and along the shores of the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmora, and the Dardanelles are probably as many people as in Serbia. Just as strongly as the Serbians do not want Austro-Hungarian domination, these people do not want Russian domination. The Entente powers are fighting to free Serbia.

1 It is possible to find at the present moment former Constantinopolitans of French and British nationality who declare that Russia must have Constantinople. They do this from the mistaken notion that the interest of their nations demands this sacrifice, and they are looking at the problem from the point of view of Paris and London. The statement in no way represents their real opinion as Constantinopolitans.

We applaud and second the efforts of the liberators. By the same token Turks and Greeks and Jews and Armenians of Constantinople and the straits can cite the ideal of the Entente powers, and claim our sympathy and support in their common determination not to undergo the Russian yoke.

If we consider the vital interests of the people of Asia Minor and the Balkans, who are equally unanimous in their opposition to Russia at Constantinople, the two millions increase to a formidable number of perhaps thirty millions. Rumania's only outlet to the world is through the straits, and Bulgaria's principal outlet is through the straits. The commerce of the Greeks is largely dependent upon the straits. These Balkan States have every bit as much reason for not wanting to see Russia at Constantinople as the British have for not wanting to see Germany at Antwerp. Who would dare to assert that Russian control of the straits would "assure the free development, in conditions of equality and conformity to their own. genius," of the Balkan States?

(2) Russia at Constantinople would make impossible a logical and equitable, and hence a durable, establishment of world peace. In the admirable discourses of MM. Viviani, Briand, Poincaré, Lord Grey, and Messrs. Asquith and LloydGeorge, there is a plea that has won for the Entente powers world-wide sympathy. We are taken to the mountain-tops and shown a new era of world history, in which right rules in the place of force. We have not regarded the discourses as the rhetoric of polemicists and the ideal as impracticable; for we believe in the sincerity of the speakers and in the soundness of the program set forth by them as a means of attaining the goal for which the nations they represent are fighting. The peace they intend to give the world will be durable, because it is to be logical and equitable. Therefore we do not consider the question of granting Constantinople to Russia from the point of view of military reward or expediency or Russia's own interest. It is a matter primarily of Bal

kan and Ottoman interest and secondarily of world interest. Is a peace that means Russian sovereignty of Constantinople logical? Is it equitable?

It is not logical. The sequels of past international treaties clearly indicate the fallacy of artificial settlements made at the point of the bayonet. When a nation accepts a peace dictated by victorious enemies according to the particular interests of the victors, it is simply a matter of yielding to force majeure. The preparation for the day of revenge begins immediately. Let us not forget that the war broke out over the question of Serbian independence. What is the issue between the Entente powers and Germany in regard to Constantinople? If the Entente powers are fighting Germany to prevent Constantinople from falling into Germany's hands and to save the Balkan States and the Ottoman Empire from subjugation to Germany, they are justified in their action from the world's point of view, and are contributing to the world's peace, only if they refrain from using their victory to do exactly what they fought to prevent Germany from doing. The allies of Russia in the near-Eastern theater of the war are under the imperative necessity of persuading Russia to declare her disinterestedness in Constantinople. Otherwise their contention that they are fighting for a durable peace breaks down. There is no durable peace for the near East in shutting out Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians to let in Russians. There is no durable peace for the world in increasing the Muscovite power in Europe. We have dreams of a regenerated, democratic, civilized Russia. The world needs that sort of Russia. But can we expect it after a triumphant war has added to the empire, already so large that its democratic evolution is seriously handicapped, territories inhabited by hostile aliens? If we do, we are believers in chimeras, and deny the general experience of mankind.

It is not equitable. Unless we are going to see disappear from the Great War the glamour of idealism, then principle, not expediency and national interest, must be