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The Review of Reviews. 



bound to do his utmost to sujiport the appeal of the Turks to an international trihunal. If we are silent and 

 ajjathetic at this supreme moment, we shall be like those men who b.cld the clothes of those who stoned 

 Stephen the First Martyr of the Christian Church. 



I am no partizan of the Turks. No living man has written more articles and published more pamphlets 

 drnoimcing the misdeeds of the late Turkish Government in Europe and in Asia. But even the Devil has a 

 right to fair play, and the Turks, even if anti-human, ought not to be treated as wild beasts. Three years 

 ago the Turks abolished their despot, established a parliament and manfully attempted to introduce a rdgime 

 of liberty and progress. Now, while still struggling with the enormous difficulties of their task, they are 

 waylaid by an international highwayman, whose avowed design is to wrest from them their African possessions. 

 However atrocious Abdul Hamid may have been, Italy has no right to annex the provinces of his successor. 



I append a condensed summary of the contents of a Manifesto which I published in French, Turkish, 

 and Arabic in Constantinople. It is a plain, straightforward statement of the Ottoman case against Italy, 

 of the Ottoman appeal to the peoples for justice and arbitration. If that appeal falls upon deaf ears. . . . 

 1'ut no, already throughout Europe the response is heard, a response which will rise ever louder and 

 louder until it reaches the deaf ears of the Downing Streets of the world, and Italy is compelled to disgorge 

 her ill-golten prey. 



Everything depends upon the prompt, energetic individual action of each one of us. I appeal to 

 you to follow my lead in this crisis; and I have confidence that I shall not appeal in vain. 



OrA'Ar 29, 1911. WILLIAM T. STEAD. 



The War in Tripoli and Arbitration. 



An Appeal from the Governments to the Peoples. 



THE MEANING OF MEDIATION. 



THE Italian Government has now been at war 

 for nearly a month, and we have hardly 

 wakened up to the fact that we are at war. 



I say we, because the Italian ultimatum heralded 

 an attack, not on 'I'ripoli only, but on you and me, 

 on Treaty Faith, on the Rights of Nations, on the 

 hope of Progress and the safeguards of civilisation. 



\Vhat are we going to do about it ? 



One thing is certain, whatever else is doubtful. 

 The Governments will do nothing to help us as 

 things are. They may, however be roused to a 

 sense of their duty by an a[)peal to the peoples, who 

 in tlie long run are the masters of the Governments. 



Left to themselves, the Governments will com- 

 promise and temporise, fumble and bungle ; in short, 

 they will do nothmg and everything but their duty. 



Meanwhile, not merely is the Ottoman Empire 

 slowly bleeding to death, but the forces hostile to 

 civilisation and to the great laws which bind nations 

 into one community are entrenching themselves in 

 an impregnable position. 



The time has come to rouse into action the 

 popular forces which as yetare only dimly conscious 

 of the significance of the blow which the Italian 

 Government has dealt against them. 



The Governments will do nothing more than proffer 

 their mediation, exchange their views, make represen- 

 tations solely with a view of arranging some compro- 

 mise by which the robber may be allowed to carry off 

 his booty. That in jilain I'jiglish is what Mediation 

 means. 



If the Ottoman peoples are content to see TriiJoli 



handed over to the Italian Government, then let them 

 sit still, and wait till the resources of diplomacy have 

 discovered some means of rendering acceptable the 

 results of brigandage. 



If, on the contrary, they are not content to submit 

 to this dismemberment of their Einpire, it is about 

 time they resorted to some more effective means of 

 resistance than plaintive appeals to Foreign Offices 

 whose occupants have only one thought, that is to 

 persuade the Ottomans to abandon Tripoli. 



Mediation of this one-sided kind has been going 

 on for a month. It will go on for another month, 

 and a great triumph will be claimed by the mediators 

 if after two months' mediatin;; they succeed in severing 

 Tripoli from the living body of the Ottoman Empire, 

 and in handing it over, coast-line and hinterland, 

 Ottomans and Arabs, stock, lock and barrel, to the 

 Italian Government. For the only god of diplomacy 

 is the " Fait .Vccompli," and the object of all media- 

 tion is to make all Ottomans bow down and worship 

 that. All the old gods are dethroned. On the ruins 

 of the temples which mankind once erected to the 

 great ideals of Justice, Right and Public Law, the 

 mediators have set up this bloody and savage false 

 god, the " Fait Accompli." 



F'or my own part I protest against the assumption 

 that when one government commits a crime all the 

 other governments are bound 10 endeavour to induce 

 the victim of that crime to sit still and say nothing 

 about it. 'J'hat is not the way in which civilisation 

 can be defended. It makes the Mediators accom- 

 plices of the Criminal. 



What the [)eo|-ile want is not Mediation but Justice 



