Page:Gandhi - Freedom's battle.djvu/58

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other Englishmen to appreciate mine and that of hundreds of Hindus who feel as I do. Mr. Candler's letter is an attempt to show that Mr. Lloyd George's pledge is not in any way broken by the peace terms. I quite agree with him that Mr. Lloyd George's words ought not to be torn from their context to support the Mahomedan claim. These are Mr. Lloyd George's words as quoted in the recent Viceregal message: "Nor are we fighting to destroy Austria-Hungary or to deprive Turkey of its capital or of the rich and renowned lands of Asia Minor and Thrace which are predominantly Turkish in race." Mr. Candler seems to read 'which', as if it meant 'if they,' whereas I give the pronoun its natural meaning, namely, that the Prime Minister knew in 1918, that the lands referred to by him were "predominantly Turkish in race." And if this is the meaning I venture to suggest that the pledge has been broken in a most barefaced manner, for there is practically nothing left to the Turk of 'the rich and renowned lands of Asia Minor and Thrace.'

I have already my view of the retention of the Sultan in Constantinople. It is an insult to the intelligence of man to suggest that 'the maintenance of the Turkish Empire in the homeland of the Turkish race with its capital at Constantinople has been left unimpaired by the terms of peace. This is the other passage from the