ALBANIA A NEW NATION.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17692, 19 February 1923, Page 3

ALBANIA A NEW NATION.

Though still crude in many ways, Albania, aspires to becoma a modem State. Before the war there were no motor-cars in the country; now there are about a hundred and fifty. Contrasts are plentiful. Wooden ploughs are still used, and in many homes the grain for the household flour ia ground between stones; but an aeroplane mail is being provided in one eeotion of the country, and Albanians are studying aviation in Prance. Two American writers, Viola Paradise Helen Campbell, tell in "Scribner's" of Albanian ambitions. It wa« proudly announced by one young man that there was electric light in Scutari now, and plumbing. In Korcha, he said, nearlv everybody dressed in European clothes. "We're not civilised yet, but we're started. We have a national Parliament." The Turkish occupation of Albania lasted for 500 years, till 1912. Then followed Balkan complications and boundary disputes, but a League of Nations decision hae brought a comparatively seUled feeling. Invited experts from several countries are advising on the use of the forests, a new legal code, banking and finance, and other matters which have been very primitive. An uninvited guest from America vainly sought to obtain for nothing a monopoly of moving picture entertainment. Seventy-one per cent, of the people , are Moslem. 19 per cent. A'banian Orthodox (independent of the Greek Orthodox Church, in whioh the sect originated), and 10 per cent. Roman Catholic. Marriage cu°toms aro Oriental. Girls and boy=_ are betrothed by their parents in early childhood, and do not pee one another till marriage. "But nil this is changing," the visitors were told. A youth who had been to America said: "In five years you won't find many young men marrying girls they've never seen."