UNITED STATES AND ARMENIAN MANDATE

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE.

From Our Own Correspondent. New York, Tuesday.

In his Message to Congress urging the United States to accept the mandate for Armenia, President Wilson said that the statesmen at San Remo had declared that they had not “the smallest desire to evade any obligations which they might be expected to undertake, but the responsibilities which they are already obliged to bear in connection with the disposition of the former Ottoman Empire will strain their capacities to the uttermost, and they believe that the appearance on the scene of a Power emancipated from the prepossessions of the Old World will inspire wider confidence and afford a firmer guarantee for stability in the future than would the selection of any European Power.”

President Wilson says that early in the Conferences at Paris “it was recognised that certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognised, subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. It is in pursuance of this principle, and with the desire of affording Armenia such advice and assistance, that the statesmen conferring at San Remo have formally requested this Government to assume the duties of mandatory in Armenia.”

Mr. Wilson goes on to say that the same Conference resolved to request the President to undertake to arbitrate on the difficult question of the boundary between Turkey and Armenia, and the vilayets of Erzeroum, Trebizond, Van, and Bitlis, and it was agreed to accept his decision, as well as any stipulation he may prescribe as to access to the sea for the independent State of Armenia.

AN ELOQUENT APPEAL.

The President continues:

I have resolved to accept this difficult and delicate task. In response to the invitation of the Council at San Remo I urgently advise and request Congress to grant the executive power to accept for the United States a mandate over Armenia. I make this suggestion in the earnest belief that it will be the wish of the people of the United States that this should be done. The sympathy with Armenia has proceeded from no single portion of our people, but has come with extraordinary spontaneity and sincerity from the whole of the great body of Christian men and women in this country by whose freewill offerings Armenia has practically been saved at the most critical juncture of its existence.

At their hearts this great and generous people have made the cause of Armenia their own. It is to this people and to their Government that the hopes and earnest expectations of the struggling people of Armenia turn as they now emerge from a period of indescribable suffering and peril, and I hope Congress will think it wise to meet this hope and expectation with the utmost liberality. I know from the unmistakable evidence given by the responsible representatives of the many peoples struggling toward independence and peaceful life again that the Government of the United States is looked to with extraordinary trust and confidence, and I believe it would do nothing less than arrest the hopeful processes of civilisation if we were to refuse the request to become the helpful friends and advisers of such of these peoples as we may be authoritatively and formally requested to guide and assist.

I am conscious that I am urging upon Congress a very critical choice, but I make the suggestion in the confidence that I am speaking in the spirit and in accordance with the wishes of the greatest of the Christian peoples. The sympathy for Armenia among our people has sprung from untainted consciences, pure Christian faith, and an earnest desire to see Christian people everywhere succoured in their time of suffering and lifted from their abject subjection and distress, and enabled to stand upon their feet and take their place among the free nations of the world.

Our recognition of the independence of Armenia will mean genuine liberty and assured happiness for her people if we fearlessly undertake the duties of guidance and assistance involved in the functions of a mandatory. It is therefore with most earnest hopefulness, and with the feeling that I am giving advice from which Congress will not willingly turn away, that I urge acceptance of the invitation now formally and solemnly extended to us by the councils of San Remo, into whose hands has passed the difficult task of composing the many complexities and difficulties of Government in the one-time Ottoman Empire and the maintenance of order and tolerable conditions of life in those portions of that Empire which it is no longer possible, in the interest of civilisation, to leave under the government of the Turkish authorities themselves.

NO PROSPECT OF ACCEPTANCE.

The Washington representative of The Daily Telegraph wires me that there is no prospect of Congress accepting the mandate for Armenia for which the President so urgently pleads. The President’s proposal was received in silence by the legislators, and the general view indicated was decidedly unfavourable. There is nothing in the Constitution, apparently, to prevent Mr. Wilson fulfilling his pledge to arbitrate on the boundaries, but the legislators, including some Democrats, are decided that Mr. Wilson is mistaken in his views that Americans generally are willing to accept a responsibility involving so much money and so many men.

I learn that the American Armenian Committee, which comprises many eminent men of all classes, still cherishes the hope that Congress, by some miracle, will sanction the mandate, but why they cling to such an attitude in view of the unconcealed opposition it is difficult to understand. In turn they have besought the United States, England, and Canada, and now, for the second time, the United States, to come to the rescue of the stricken people.