The King-Crane Commission Report, August 28, 1919

III-REPORT UPON NON-ARABIC SPEAKING PORTIONS OF FORMER OTTOMAN EMPIRE

IV-THE PROBLEM OF THE GREEKS

(1) The situation of the Greeks is not that of the Armenians. The Greeks have suffered much in deportations by the Turks, but there have been no such extensive massacres of the Greeks as of the Armenians. The Greeks, too, in the adjacent Greek Islands, have a possible congenial refuge within former Turkish territory, such as the Armenians do not have. The Greeks also have, in territories recently acquired by Greece, opportunities for settlement on Greek soil, for which there is no parallel for the Armenians. The general situation of the Greeks, too, in diminished numbers, is much less desperate than that of the Armenians. Moreover, the Greeks are more widely scattered in small groups through Turkey than the Armenians. The drastic remedy of establishing a state for the Greeks completely separated from Turkey, seems, therefore, both less possible and very much less desirable.

(2) The Results of the Greek Occupation of Smyrna do not seem to indicate that the Greeks of Turkey should now be given rule over others or be granted their own full independence. Local autonomy in a territory strictly confined to a district in which they were in a decided majority would seem the most that could be recommended at present.

(3) The ability of the Greeks is not in question, nor their enthusiasm for education. On the contrary, both factors make it the more probable that they could continue to hold their own within the Turkish State. Indeed, the special gifts of the Greeks generally make them particularly successful as colonists. The probability is that they would lose on the whole rather than gain, in being completely set off from Turkey. In spite of the violent antagonisms of recent years, Ramsey may well be right in saying: "The Turks and the Greeks will united make a happier country than either race could by itself." The two races supplement each other.

(4) There is to be added, that the apparent purpose of the Turks to ask for a mandate, and of the Peace Conference to appoint such a mandate, gives promise of a new Turkey, in which the rights of the Greeks would be fully guarded at least for the terms of the mandate.

A trial certainly should be made by the Greeks of life in the Turkish State under the new conditions, before further independence should be sought. The constitution of a new Turkey on modern lines, the steady watchers and influence of the Mandatory, and the supervision of the League of Nations and the right of appeal to it-all combine to give the Greeks every assurance of fair treatment and equality of opportunity, at least during the term of the mandate. It will be the business, too, of the Mandatory to do all possible to develop the whole people into capacity for self-government. The help of a national system of education, too, would do much to assure that the abuses of the old time would not return, and the term of the mandate would naturally continue until there was good promise of Turkey's success as a modem state. Even after the mandate had expired, the League of Nations could still act, upon necessity to prevent all gross invasions of the rights of minorities.

In the light of all these considerations it could seem best not to set off any independent Greek territory for the present, in the belief that in the long run the better good both of the Greeks and of the Turks is to be found in their union in one cosmopolitan state.