POCKET REPUBLICS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume L, Issue 2647, 10 November 1919, Page 7

POCKET REPUBLICS.

There are three tiny republics which never figure in the news ; mapmakers usually ignore them. The first of these, St. Goust, is barely one square mile in area, being the smallest independent state.

It is situated in such an inaccessible part ( of the Basses-Pyrenees that it has never been worth the j trouble of the surrounding Powers to interfere, so its population of 130 govern themselves, as they have done for the past 2,000 years, by a “council of elders" numbering twelve—the President of which acts as judge, as* sessor, and tax collector. Large by comparison is the republic of Andorra, which boasts of 7,000 inhabitants, and is situated in a remote section of the Eastern Pyrenees. Its people are pleasant-tempered, thrifty, and hospitable, occupying themselves with farming, cattle-rais-ing, the sale of wool, and smuggling. They are proud of their independence which was declared by Charlemagne in the ninth century, and maintain an army of over 1,000 to defend it. They are governed by a council of twenty-four, which elects a President every four years. Larger than St. Goust, but with only seventy inhabitants, is the island republic of Tavolara, a narrow strip of land five miles long and half a mile wide, situated off the north coast of Sardinia. In spite of its size, it is a free and self-gcverning state.