according greater independence. The French are following suit in Syria. The Mandate system as applied to these regions is virtually ended except in Palestine, of which a subsequent chapter speaks.

In the name of self-determination of peoples and self-government, the Southern Mediterranean peoples who have been under European control, whether from pre-war days or only since the war, are demanding a change. There are three ways of responding to this demand. First, to resist the demand by force; second, to let them go and become entirely separate from, and perhaps antagonistic to, Europe. The third way is at once or progressively to withdraw control, substituting for it, in manner adapted to each one of the Moslem peoples concerned, a contract of alliance and cooperation, providing for economic advantage and martial defence. Something of this was foreshadowed about a year ago by the French representative on the League of Nations, M. Paul Boncour. On the subject of French Colonial policy he remarked that a new point of departure has been reached. It is high time, he maintained, to oppose the policy of Moscow, "which tends to nothing less than to submerge the world under a flood of exasperated nationalism," a general and organic conception. This conception, .without in anything repudiating the great historic fact represented by the foundation of the colonial empire, should, said M. Boncour, be directed-not precipitately, not violating the fundamental differences of race and culture-toward making this evolve toward its proper end, which is, under a

régime of treaties and economic co-operation, the progressive liberation of the conquered peoples, already liberated by our conquest, from the previously existing anarchy and servitude to their own chiefs. Since then the new development of French policy in Syria has begun.

At no distant time, it would seem, the new settlement with Islam will be made. Though the settlement apply only to the Moslem peoples dwelling within the old Roman border-line, yet the ramifications of Islam are so many and far-reaching that, through their association with these peoples, the Western nations may expect to be in peaceful relation with the Islamic world as a whole. That, indeed, is one more of the facts explaining the prophesied supremacy of the Roman Empire in the closing period of this Age. Persia may be expected to side with the Empire, and she is, of course, part of the Image-territory involved in Daniel's prophecy. Of more distant lands it may be true to-morrow, as it was in old times, when, says Gibbon, the Roman name was revered among the most remote nations of the earth. Considering the vast territories on the map of the Empire and the other affiliations which this restored Roman Empire will have, its prophesied power is not wholly surprising.

What will draw the Moslem peoples into willing association with Western Europe is above all the might, the prestige, the attraction, the glamour of the Roman Empire to which, in ancient times they did actually belong.

The compelling power of this great Institution

even in its decline, was such that the very foes who could have destroyed it preferred to become part of and to restore it. "The grandeur that was Rome" is to be outshone by the grandeur that will be, in its final career.

Then there is the magnetic power of leadership. This, the final leader of Rome, whosoever he may prove to be, will possess in excelsis. And the Moslem believes in leadership, thrills to it, answers to it. As in a “magic” painting-book, the colours come to sight at the touch of the moistened brush, we see, now that the brush of the fulness of time touches the prophetic picture drawn so long ago, the colours start into life and the picture steadily becomes complete.

X

THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND TURKEY

A

CCORDING to the Roman map, Turkey will be included in the revived Empire. The present Turkish territory was a highly important part of Persian, Greek, and Roman Empires in turn. It is a land steeped in the history of the early Church. All that points to its inclusion in the Roman Empire in its modern phase.

The new Turkey has taken "Westernisation " as a watchword. The Western calendar, alphabet, dress, and various manners and customs have been adopted, as by some attraction which the country cannot or will not resist.

That the inclusion of Turkey might come through war, not through peaceful agreement, seemed all too likely while the Anglo-Turkish controversy regarding Mosul was still acute. But, now that the agreement between Great Britain and Turkey has been made, the peaceful entrance of Turkey into the Roman imperial group is an obvious probability. It is said that as the outcome of negotiation with Great Britain, Turkey contemplates joining the League of Nations. This indicates a tendency to associate with the Western nations.

How and to what end Italo-Turkish relations

will be adjusted is another question which time and events will answer. Italy's profound interest in that part of the world is indubitable. For every reason, the promoters of the Roman imperial revival will do all possible to bring Turkey within the Empire. The decisive importance, not only commercial but strategic, of the Turkish domain, and all the more that it includes Constantinople, is obvious. The master of that domain can, in some sort, turn the world-balance.

Asia Minor must be a prominent consideration when it comes to the inevitable and imminent reorganisation of Mediterranean affairs. All, and more than all, the reasons prompting the inclusion of Turkey's Mediterranean neighbours in the renovated Roman Empire will apply to Turkey herself. Indeed, an arrangement with Turkey has, for some time, found advocates, as being the key to the Islamic problem. In this connection a small volume entitled Manuel de Politique Musulmane, written by an anonymous author, has been largely noticed on the Continent. Its author says:

"The new Turkey sits astride Asia. Turkey is becoming the educator of her Asiatic neighbours,' says a prominent Turkish intellectual. One of these neighbours has said that Islam is a big body of which Turkey is the head. . . . It is obvious that the day that Turkey, feeling behind her the formidable pressure of Asiatic Islam, and counting also upon the eventual support of Northern Africa, should nourish designs of expansion towards the West, there would arise a great danger for the Mediterranean Powers and