We have always hoped that Crete would ultimately be annexed
to Greece, for both convenience and geographical propriety suggest that course. But if Turkey decides per- manently to stand by her rights of suzerainty, it will be out of the question to coerce her. We think that in accepting a permanent responsibility for Crete, where she has long lost the substance of power, she will be only hampering herself; but that is her own affair, and there is no doubt that any Turkish Government which proposed voluntarily to abandon Crete, even in return for a money payment, would have to face a considerable rising of national feeling. We hope, however, it will be understood by both Greek and Cretan politicians before it is too late that the ambitions of the Cretans, if per- sisted in, might well be disastrous to Greece. There is no reason to suppose that a war between Turkey and Greece would end differently from the thirty days' war of 1897, and Greece certainly could not count once more on being rescued so comfortably from her humiliations.
