THE BULGARIAN FLAG.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 244, 12 October 1908, Page 5

THE BULGARIAN FLAG.

CONSTANTINOPLE, October 10. The forts in the Bosphorus yesterday, firing blank cartridge, stopped a Buljgarian steamer which waa flying the Buljjgarian Royal flap.

AUSTRIA AND THE SERBS. According to an estimate made at the end of last year, the Orthodox Serbs form 43 per cent of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their panSerb, or Greater Servia movement, aiming at emancipation from Austrian control, is Austria's abhorrence; but their demand for local autonomy Austria has for some time been' prepared to listen to, and in some measure to grant. Towards the end of last year Serb representatives held a congress in BosniaHerzegovina and demanded, in addition to many useful local reforms, complete autonomy for the occupied provinces, the election of a popular assembly on the b_>is of universal suffrage with secret ballot, and government by Parliamentary majority.' But the Serbs went farther. They declared Bosnia and Herzegovina to be "Serb countries" which "form an integral part of the Turkish Empire, ana are administered by Austria-Hun-gary in virtue ot a mandate received from the Great Powers." In February, Baron Burian, Austrian Minister of the Provinces, broadly outlined the Austrian programme for the political and economic- " regeneration of the two provinces, which he claimed had, _i._er Austrian control, made satisfactory development. He said that the fundamental principles of the programme were that the ties uniting the occupied provinces to the Monarchy must be indissoluble, and that their development must be in no way injurious to the existence of the structure of the Monarchy. The autonomy of the provinces would be organised by administrative stages. The first step would be the organisation of communes, and the second would be the organisation of district commissions. The introduction of- a Parliamentary regime would follow. He could not say when the ultimate development of the two provinces would be terminated, but there would be no delay. Subsequently, in April, at Banialuka, in Bosnia, eight Serbs were arrested on a charge of high treason in connection with an alleged pan-Serb propaganda in | She occupied provinces. The opinion was then expressed that this development would shake the position of Baron I Burian, in view of his conciliatory attitude towards the Southern Slavs. The i alleged pan-Serb agitation was at once I used in Austria-Hungary as an argument for annexation of the occupied provinces. In April, the Vienna correspondent lof "the Times" commented on the grave seriousness of this proposed step—now converted into actuality—and said:— ! "A local news agency raises the question whether, in view of the alleged panSerb agitation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria-Hungary would not be justified in proclaiming the annexation of the occupied provinces. It may safely be assumed, adds this agency, that in present circumstances no Power would protest against such a step, and even Russia could not oppose the intentions of Aus-iria-Hungary on account of the dangers | '.hat would be involved by a further extension of the Serb movement in Bosnia and Herzegovina. "This is a very large assumption. Russia declined to assent the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1897, when the Austro-Russian Agreement in regard to the Balkans was framed. It iias, moreover, always been understood that Russia also withheld her assent when the question was again tentatively raised by Austria-Hungary some two years ago. To say nothing of the Mussulmans, annexation would assuredly irritate the predominant Serb element in i-.osnia and Herzegovina, whose leaders, when sounded on the subject in the suniiutr of 1906, made no secret of their disapproval. To raise such a question at present juncture might be to start an avalanche that would devastate the Balkans."