BRITISH CABINET AND NEAR EAST CRISIS. GRAVE SITUATION. TURKS MASSING TROOPS.

FROM A DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT. The gravity of the situation in the Near East was evidenced by the fact that the Conference of Ministers and of experts representing the three fighting services held no fewer than three sittings yesterday, each of two hours’ duration. It may, indeed, be said that the issue of peace and war was – and is still – hanging by a thread, that thread being the patience displayed by the British authorities on the spot, as well as by the Imperial Government at home. Nothing could be more indicative of this restrained temper than the reply of general Sir Charles Harington to Mustapha Kemal Pasha’s Note on the subject of the Turkish incursions into the neutral zone. That the Kemalist leader should desire to discuss the Allied Note not only with M. Franklin-bouillon, whose semi-official mission was undertaken by him with our knowledge, although not upon our authority, but with the Grand Assembly as well, is not unnatural, and the delay thereby occasioned, although awkward, would not in itself be a matter for acute anxiety. But it is otherwise with the important and multiple troop movements which are being effected by the orders of Kemal’s Headquarters both into the Chanak neutral zone, and towards that established in front of the British lines athwart the Ismid peninsula and covering Constantinople. These movements, which have been detected from the outset, thanks to the excellence of our air service, must be read in conjunction with Kemal’s feigned ignorance as to the existence, let alone the recognition, of any neutral zones. They must also be read, in conjunction with the procrastinating and prevaricating nature of his arguments about the pursuit of phantom Greek troops or his complaint about the neutralisation or non-neuntralisation of the Sea of Marmora, and the demolition of certain works or huts on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles.