mic.

This war arises, as the past wars against the Turkish conqueror have
arisen, by the desire of the Christian peoples on whom he lives to shake
off this burden. "To live upon their subjects is the Turks' only means
of livelihood," says one authority. The Turk is an economic parasite,
and the economic organism must end of rejecting him.

For the management of society, simple and primitive even as that of the
Balkan mountains, needs some effort and work and capacity for
administration, or even rudimentary economic life cannot be carried on.
And the Turkish system, founded on the sword and nothing else ("the
finest soldier in Europe"), cannot give that small modicum, of energy or
administrative capacity. The one thing he knows is brute force; but it
is not by the strength of his muscles that an engineer runs a machine,
but by knowing how. The Turk cannot build a road, or make a bridge, or
administer a post office, or found a court of law. And these things are
necessary. And he will not let them be done by the Christian, who,
because he did not belong to the conquering class, has had to work, and
has consequently become the class which possesses whatever capacity for
work and administration the country can show, because to do so would be
to threaten the Turk's only trade. If the Turk granted the Christians
equal political rights they would inevitably "run the country," And yet
the Turk himself cannot do it; and he will not let others do it, because
to do so would be to threaten his supremacy.

And the more the use of force fails, the more, of course, does he resort
to it, and that is why many of us who do not believe in force, and
desire to see it disappear in the relationship not merely of religious
but of political groups, might conceivably welcome this war of the
Balkan Christians, in so far as it is an attempt to resist the use of
force in those relationships. Of course, I do not try to estimate the
"balance of criminality." Right is not all on one side--it never is. But
the broad issue is clear and plain. And only those concerned with the
name rather than the thing, with nominal and verbal consistency rather
than realities, will see anything paradoxical or contradictory in
Pacifist approval of Christian resistance to the use of Turkish force.

It is the one fact which stands out incontrovertibly from the whole
weary muddle. It is quite clear that the inability to act in common
arises from the fact that in the in