Mr. Candler has favoured me with an open letter on this question of questions.  The letter has already appeared in the Press.  I can appreciate Mr. Candler’s position as I would like him and 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 speech which I presume Mr. Candler wants me to read together with the one already quoted:—­

“While we do not challenge the maintenance of the Turkish Empire in the home-land of the Turkish race with its capital at Constantinople, the passage between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea being inter-nationalised, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine are in our judgment entitled to a recognition of their separate national condition.”

Did that mean entire removal of Turkish influence, extinction of Turkish suzerainty and the introduction of European-Christian influence under the guise of Mandates?  Have the Moslems of Arabia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine been committed, or is the new arrangement being superimposed upon them by Powers conscious of their own brute-strength rather than of justice of their action?  I for one would nurse by every legitimate means the spirit of independence in the brave Arabs, but I shudder to think what will happen to them under the schemes of exploitation of their country by the greedy capitalists protected as they will be by the mandatory Powers.  If the pledge is to be fulfilled, let these places have full self-government with suzerainty to be retained with Turkey as has been suggested by the Times of India.  Let there be all the necessary guarantees taken from Turkey about the internal independence of the Arabs.