14 JULY 1923, Page 2

It would be idle to pretend that the Treaty of

Lausann‘ is not a sad anti-climax after the Treaty of Sevres, which seemed to offer new prospects of well-being both to Thrace and to Western Asia Minor and to terminate the age-long controversy about the Straits. Allied disunion, flagrant and avowed, has blighted these hopes, destroyed or exiled the Greek population of these pro- vinces, and brought the Turk once more into Eastern Europe. Our only consolation must be that we shall have, for a time at least, a sort of peace rather than a sort of war in the Near East, and it is 'conceivable that the Turks, after eleven years of almost uninterrupted conflict, may be glad to settle down.