he
Crown. We are constantly being reminded that King George V. is the
greatest Mohammedan ruler in the world, that some seventy millions of
his subjects in India are Moslems, and that the inhabitants of Egypt are
also, for the most part, followers of the Prophet of Arabia. It is not
infrequently maintained that it is a duty incumbent on Great Britain to
defend the interests and to secure the welfare of Moslems all over the
world because a very large number of their co-religionists are British
subjects and reside in British territory. It is not at all surprising
that this claim should be advanced, but it is manifestly one which
cannot be admitted without very great and important qualifications.
Moreover, it is one which, from a European point of view, represents a
somewhat belated order of ideas. It is true that community of religion
constitutes the main bond of union between Russia and the population of
the Balkan Peninsula, but apart from the fact that no such community of
religious thought exists between Christian England and Moslem or Hindu
India, it is to be noted that, generally speaking, the tie of a common
creed, which played so important a part in European politics and
diplomacy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, has now been
greatly weakened, even if it has not disappeared altogether. It has been
supplanted almost everywhere by the bond of nationality. No practical
politician would now argue that, if the Protestants of Holland or Sweden
had any special causes for complaint, a direct responsibility rested on
their co-religionists in Germany or England to see that those grievances
were redressed. No Roman Catholic nation would now advance a claim to
interfere in the affairs of Ireland on the ground that the majority of
the population of that country are Roman Catholics.

This transformation of political thought and action has not yet taken
place in the East. It may be, as some competent observers are disposed
to think, that the principle of nationality is gaining ground in Eastern
countries, but it has certainly not as yet taken firm root. The bond
which holds Moslem societies together is still religious rather than
patriotic. Its binding strength has been greatly enhanced by two
circumstances. One is that Mecca is to the Moslem far more than
Jerusalem is to the Christian or to the Jew. From Delhi to Zanzibar,
from Constantinople to Java, every devout Moslem turns when he prays to
what Mr. Stanley La