A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 223, 17 June 1936, Page 9

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Little Entente The military stalls of the Little Entente countries (Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) are holding conversations with a view to arranging a common line of action in the event of becoming involved in a war with other countries in Europe. The Little Entente was formed as a protection against Magyar aggression, as a defence against Bolshevism should the Soviet armies cross the Russian frontier, and to promote trade on the Danube. It is estimated that Yugoslavia has a standing army of 1-10,000 men, 150,000 reserves, and SSO aeroplanes ; Czechoslovakia, 150,000, 240,000 and 087 respectively; Rumania, ISO,OOO, 200,000 and 820 respectively. One of the things the Little Entente fears is the restoration of the monarchy to Austria and to Hungary, which event it is believed, would be the first step in an endeavour by Austria and Hungary to regain the territory taken from the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the Great War and incorporated in the countries forming the Little Entente. George Rogers Clark.

President Roosevelt addressed 30,000 people at Vincennes, Indiana, when a memorial to George Rogers Clark, a revolutionary hero, was unveiled. In 1776, at the height of the War of Independence, a young settler named George Rogers Clark was elected by the settlers in the region west of the Louisa River to represent them in the Virginia legislature, and to request that, their settlement be made a county, to be called Kentucky. The request was granted. The following year Clark began to plan excursions further north to the French-settled villages of Illinois and the Wabash. Patrick Henry, then Governor of Virginia, approved the plan, and Clark, in the summer of 1778. collected a party of 150 adventurers to attack the villages, which were under British rule. He captured Kaskiaska on July 4, 1778, without bloodshed, and Vincennes surrendered soon afterward. Vincennes was temporarily recaptured by Hamilton, the British governor, in December; but at a moment when the latter had weakened himself by the dispatch of large bodies of his Indian allies to other points. Clark, with 130 men, surprised the place on February 23, 1779, took Hamilton and his garrison prisoners, and captured large supplies which were coming to thejn down the river. The county of Illinois was secured to the States. This conquest gave the United States a claim to the north-west which was of the utmost importance when'the question of boundaries was settled at the close of the war. Flanders.

It is stated that Flemish Nationalists are aiming to separate Flanders from the rest of Belgium and incorporate it with Holland in a new Netherland State extending from Dunkirk to the Frisian Islands. Flanders is bounded roughly by the lower reaches of the Schelde, the Lys valley, and the coast from Calais to the Schelde estuary. The political frontiers of Flanders have varied considerably, but most of this territory now lies in Belgium. The people, mainly of peasant Flemish stock, differ greatly in character from the people in the rest of Belgium. They speak their own Flemish tongue, a Teutonic language closely akin to Dutch. The area is about 1400 square miles, and the population about 2.000.000. The principal towns are Bruges, Courtrai. Ostend, Ypres, Dixmude, Ghent. The possession of a tongue and literature of its own has given the Flemish national movement considerable strength. It has won recognition of Flemish rights, linguistic anil educational, and is to-day an important factor in Belgian politics. A strong body of feeling has long favoured Flemish autonomy, and during the Great War the Germans tried unsuccessfully to exploit this against Belgian unity by establishing the socalled Council of Flanders, at Ghent, in 1917. Dunkirk.

Dunkirk, one of the chief ports of France, stands on the Strait of Dover, near the Belgian boundary. The flat district around it is called the WaterIngues. It is still rather a Flemish than a French town. Its harbour facilities are excellent and it exports the coal of Belgium and North-East-ern France, the manufactures of the industrial region therein, and the agricultural produce of the adjacent areas. Wool is the main import. Dunkirk means “the church in the Dunes.” puring the Great War, Dunkirk was heavily bombed from the air, and bombarded from sea and land. The population is about 35,000. The Germans made Dunkirk an objective in the Great War, but their advance was stopped 20 miles from it

Nazis in Danzig. Herr Foerster, the Nazi leader, and the virtual political dictator of Danzig says he won’t “permit Germans in Danzig to be stirred by these corrupters [the opposition leaders] of the people.” The National Socialists (Nazis) in Danzig, dominated by the German Nazi movement under Herr Hitler, captured the new Volkstag (Lower House of the Danzig Parliament) on May 28, 1933, winning 38 of the 72 seats. This chamber was dissolved on February 21, 1935, and that elected on April 17, 1935, returned 43 Nazis and 29 Opposition. While the Nazis gained five seats, they were five short of the two-thirds majority needed to revise the constitution. Nazis of Germany, headed by General Goering, made a vigorous campaign to secure dominance. The Senate is Nazi Sinking of the Maine.

A paragraph in “25 Years Ago” in yesterday’s “Dominion” referred to tee sinking of the United States warship Maine. In February, 1898, the Maine made a visit, which was officially declared to be friendly, to Cuban waters. On the night of February 15, while the Maine was lying in the harbour of Havana, an explosion occurred which utterly wrecked her and killed her officers and 258 of her crew. An examination by a board of naval officers resulted in a decision that the vessel had been destroyed by the explosion of a submarine mine, but the board was unable to fix the responsibility upon any person or persons. The people of hhe United States believed that Spain, under whose rule Cuba then was, was responsible for the destruction of the •hip, and there was a strong demand for war. The incident, though not the cause of the Spanish-American War, brought the differences between the two countries bo a head. Spain was quickly defeated in the ensuing war. and Cuba was annexed to the Unite! States. Many years afterward it was proved that the explosion had come from inside the vessel herself