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GREECE. 



difference which has sprung up between Greece and 

 Turkey, Greece cannot take part in it unless she as- 

 sists at it on the same footing as the other party. She 

 cannot accept a position of inferiority. 



If one of the contending parties is called to sit in 

 the Conference in virtue of her title of great power, 

 Greece, without wishing to lay any stress upon that 

 appreciation, cannot admit the doctrine that the 

 great powers only have the right of having, in con- 

 tests to which they are parties, a voice which is re- 

 fused to their adversaries. 



If it is because she signed the Treaty of Pans of 

 1856 that Turkey is admitted to the Conference, and 

 that Greece is excluded from it, I am bound to ob- 

 serve that the special incident to which the Confer- 

 ence proposes to limit its work has no connection 

 whatever with the stipulations of that treaty, which, 

 being taken for the basis of the Conference, presents 

 the serious inconvenience of making an unequal posi- 

 tion for the two parties equally concerned, and which 

 put forward mutual grievances. 



Whether the Conference has in view an act of arbi- 

 tration or a work of conciliation, in both cases Greece 

 must take part in it only on the same footing as 

 Turkey. 



I have the honor to hand the present remonstrance 

 to the members of the Conference, confiding in their 

 feelings of equity. In case the Conference should 

 not think proper to do justice to it, I am instructed to 

 withdraw and to take no part in its deliberations. 



In the ensuing note of Rangabe, explaining 

 the motives of his refusal to assist at the Con- 

 ference, he states the causes of the conflict, re- 

 plies to the Turkish ultimatum, and offers con- 

 ditionally certain measures of compromise on 

 the part of his Government. The following is 

 the text: 



1. Causes of the Conflict. The powers assembled 

 in conference having decided that they would confine 

 themselves to the consideration of the present differ- 

 ence only, without reference to its primary cause, it 

 is evident that the sole immediate cause to which the 

 rupture can be attributed is to be found in the very 

 strong notes and the ultimatum recently addressed by 

 the Ottoman Government to Greece. 'There has not 

 keen on the part of the latter any thing which could 

 be considered as a provocation. 



It cannot be said that the constant attitude of 

 Greece toward Turkey during the last three years 

 constitutes this provocation. This attitude is not a 

 new fact which could properly justify a sudden reso- 

 lution. It has been, moreover, on many occasions, 

 on the part of the Greek minister, the subject of free 

 explanations, the importance of which the Turkish 

 Government appeared to understand and to be satis- 

 fied with. After all, to go back to this distant cause 

 would be to overstep the limits fixed by the Confer- 

 ence, and Greece^would then have the right to claim 

 also an examination of the causes which led to her 

 conduct, and to seek to justify the liveliness of her 

 sympathies for the Cretans. 



But it has been said, it is just because the griev- 

 ances were old, that the cup was full of them, only 

 one drop was required to make it run over : this drop 

 was the insult given to the Turkish minister by the 

 volunteers, who, on their way to Crete, passed under 

 his windows, in full daylight, with their flag flying, 

 the Greek Government being unable or unwilling to 

 prevent them. 



This fact, deplorable as it would have been, even 

 supposing that its authors had only in view to brave 

 or to compromise the government, was, nevertheless, 

 of an order which, between governments careful or 

 the peace of the world, was capable of arrangement 

 by explanations or reparations demanded and re- 

 ceived in a spirit of conciliation. But the incident 

 , did not take place ; M. Delyannis, the Greek Minis- 

 ter of Foreign Affairs, in one of his answers to M. Pho- 



tiades Bey, expressly told him so. This denial , which 

 would have been impossible had it not been true, re- 

 mained without a reply. Action was, therefore, taken 

 at Constantinople with lamentable precipitancy, on 

 information too lightly received and communicated. 

 The rupture was provoked by an ultimatum which 

 was not justified by any new or immediate cause. 



2. Ultimatum. Let us pass to the ultimatum it- 

 self; let us examine its conditions, to see how far 

 they are practical or just, and to what point Greece 

 owed it to herself to reject them, or could conform 

 herself to them to serve the interests of peace. These 

 conditions are five in number : 



First Point. That Greece shall assume the express 

 obligation to conform herself for the future to exist- 

 ing treaties between herself and Turkey, and in gen- 

 eral to international laws. 



Second Point. To punish, in conformity to the 

 laws, those who have been guilty of attacks upon 

 Ottoman soldiers or citizens, and to indemnify the 

 victims of these crimes. 



Third Point. That the Cretan families should be 

 allowed freely to embark to return to their homes, and 

 that the Greek Government should effectually protect 

 their reentry into their own country. 



Fourth Point. That the ships the Enosis, the 

 Crebe, and the Panhellenium, be disarmed, or, at least, 

 that the Greek ports be closed against them. 



Fifth Point. That the bands of volunteers now 

 existing shall be broken up, and that the formation 

 of new ones shall be prevented. 



Having replied to each of these five points 

 severally, Rangab6 sums up as follows, and 

 shows the willingness of Greece to accept an 

 amicable arrangement : 



But the Porte did not content herself to send to 

 Greece an ultimatum so ill supported. It also ac- 

 companied it by violent measures, which have great- 

 ly aggravated the difficulties of the situation. _ One 

 of her naval officers gave chase with hostile inten- 

 tions, in the Greek Archipelago, to a merchant-ship 

 with the Greek flag, menaced violent measures, and 

 blocked up one of the ports of Greece. The Greek 

 subjects have been requested to leave Turkey in 

 a very short time, to the great injury of their ma- 

 terial interests, and the Turkish ports have been shut 

 up to the Greek ships, thereby inflicting on our trade 

 an incalculable loss. Greece has not had recourse to 

 reprisals. She deems it is a duty imposed upon her 

 by justice and humanity to lessen as much as possible 

 the disastrous effects of a conflict, and not to make in- 

 nocents suffer by them. She has declared that the 

 Ottoman subjects established on her territory would 

 continue to enjoy the protection of her laws. In con- 

 formity with the decision of the legal advisers of the 

 crown, a copy of which is hereby annexed, she recog- 

 nizes that the Turkish rear-admiral was entitled to 

 summon before the competent courts of justice the 

 captain of the Enosis, of whose conduct he complains. 

 Having shown such a spirit of moderation, Greece 

 has the right to insist that, before resuming her an- 

 cient relations of friendship with Turkey, Turkey 

 should authorize, on her own side, the indictment 

 of the Turkish rear-admiral on the charges brought 

 against him by the captain of the Enosis ; that she 

 should give reparation for the treatment she has irx- 

 flicted on Greece ; that she should indemnify Greece 

 for all the great losses she has suffered from the meas- 

 ures ordered by the Porte. Lastly, that she should 

 give real guarantees for henceforth behaving better 

 toward the Greeks, and treating them on the same 

 footing as the subjects of the other European nations. 



To sum up these considerations, we shall say that 

 Greece declines the responsibility of the immediate 

 cause of "the actual rupture, reserving to herself to 

 come back to the oldest causes, should the question 

 about them be raised. Of the five points of the ulti- 

 matum, the first two, as in the order enumerated in 



