ir revolutions just when the world was entering that profound
_malaise_ which culminated in the Great War. Neither Turkey nor Persia
were allowed time to attempt the difficult process of political
transformation. Lynx-eyed Western chancelleries noted every blunder and,
in the inevitable weakness of transition, pounced upon them to their
undoing. The Great War merely completed a process of Western aggression
and intervention which had begun some years before.

This virtual absence of specific fact-data renders largely academic any
discussion of the much-debated question whether or not the peoples of
the Near and Middle East are capable of "self-government"; that is, of
establishing and maintaining ordered, constitutional political life.
Opinions on this point are at absolute variance. Personally, I have not
been able to make up my mind on the matter, so I shall content myself
with stating the various arguments without attempting to draw any
general conclusion. Before stating these contrasted view-points,
however, I would draw attention to the distinction which should be made
between the Mohammedan peoples and the non-Mohammedan Hindus of India.
Moslems everywhere possess the democratic political example of Arabia as
well as a religion which, as regards its own followers at least,
contains many liberal tendencies. The Hindus have nothing like this.
Their political tradition has been practically that of unrelieved
Oriental despotism, the only exceptions being a few primitive
self-governing communities in very early times, which never exerted any
widespread influence and quickly faded away. As for Brahminism, the
Hindu religion, it is perhaps the most illiberal cult which ever
afflicted mankind, dividing society as it does into an infinity of rigid
castes between which no real intercourse is possible; each caste
regarding all those of lesser rank as unclean, polluting creatures,
scarcely to be distinguished from animals. It is obvious that with such
handicaps the establishment of true self-government will be apt to be
more difficult for Hindus than for Mohammedans, and the reader should
keep this point in mind in the discussion which follows.

Considering first the attitude of those who do not believe the peoples
of the Near and Middle East capable of real self-government in the
Western sense either now or in the immediate future, we find this
thesis both ably and emphatically stated by Lord Cromer. Lord Cromer
believed th