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good acts, like all other acts of faith. Only we must take care that
acts of charity do not take the form of political acts which are
likely to thwart our German policy.”
In issue four, the AECA returns to the theme of Armenia in an essay by the
Rev. Harold Buxton about Armenian Christianity. During the course of the
article, he naturally turns to recent events, and particularly the plight of the
survivors of the Genocide:
The situation at this moment is cruel in the extreme. Many
months after the Armistice the remnant of these people is still
being decimated by famine, disease, and massacre. In Adana, in
Tarsus, and Mersina I have been a recent witness of these things.
I have seen the vast camps of homeless refugees spread out for
miles on the Cilician plain. Dirt and squalor, hunger and fear, lack
of employment or the decencies of home are making rapid in-
roads into the life, moral and physical, of these people. What will
happen? In Russian Armenia – i.e., in the Armenian Republic at
the foot of Mount Ararat – surely there, at least, they have secu-
rity and provision for their elementary needs? No; for recent re-
ports from British agents there tell the same tale – they are wait-
ing for help which, often promised, never arrives. Whatever hap-
pens, however, one cannot help feeling that in some condition
Armenia will survive. Armenia has seen the rise and fall of count-
less “Powers”; who knows, perhaps she will survive the present
Great Powers of Europe and America also?
There is a theory that the Armenians are all usurers, and resemble
the baser type of Jew. There are usurers among them, but those of
us who have travelled in Turkish Armenia are well aware that
these constitute but a fraction of the people. In Turkish Armenia
before the war 65 per cent. of the Armenians were smallholders.
The rest were mostly skilled labourers and craftsmen managing
their home industries of weaving, boot making, smith's work,
carpet-making, etc. Commercial and professional elements were
stronger than among the Turks, but did not amount to over 10
per cent. of the total.
There is another theory that the Armenian is a coward. It is high
time that this theory was exploded. It is an ignorant and a mali-
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