The Evening Star MONDAY, MAY 21, 1934. INFLAMMABLE BALKANS.

Evening Star, Issue 21725, 21 May 1934, Page 8

The Evening Star MONDAY, MAY 21, 1934. INFLAMMABLE BALKANS.

Tkouble is never far from J, ie Balkan States. To-day’s messages report a plague of death-dealing flies in Yugoslavia and tho dramatic overthrow of the Government in Bulgaria. The Prime Minister, wakened from his sleep in Sofia, was told that he held the office no longer. That is the way they do things in South-eastern Europe. Judging from events that have happened in the past in the Balkans, M, Mushanoff may consider himself fortunate that he has not lost more than his position as head of tho Government. It is stated that a National Cabinet, supported by the army, has been established, King Boris apparently having little choice in the matter. Economic conditions seem to be the chief cause of th. upheaval. The Government that has been deposed was a coalition. It seems to have worked ill, for it is declared in a manifesto issued after the coup that acute party differences were hindering the work of the Administration and delaying a settlement of economic problems. The new Ministry is euphemistically described in tho manifesto as a national non-party Government, but evidently it is a military dictatorship. The programme that it has issued refers mainly to economic matters. Reference is made to the re-establishment of relations with the Soviet, which is rather curious, seeing -that the new Administration is described as being one of the extreme Right. In the natural order of things people with this political leaning have no dealings with the Reds of Moscow, but it may be that the country’s domestic necessities overrule political doctrines.

Bulgaria is an agricultural State. The peasant proprietors number fivesevenths of the population, while the other two-sevenths are chiefly handicraftsmen engaged in weaving, knitting, and tobacco manufacturing. The country is naturally rich in agricultural products, but it has been greatly handicapped by the general depression and by the tariff barriers raised against it by its former customers, M. Guitchev, who was Minister of'lndustry and Commerce in the Cabinet just dissolved, was one of the Agrarian Party’s representatives in it. He recently declared that his party was demoralised, disillusioned, and well-nigh powerless. The exigencies of the economic crisis had made it impossible for the Government to carry out the reforms expected of it, and the difficulties were further anbanced by parly differences, or. in other words, by the absence of “ team work.”

M. Guitcliov indicated that the elements among which the bitterest dissatisfaction existed were the peasants—a- most important element, too, seeing that Bulgaria is pre-eminently a peasant country. Ho advocated a “ controlled democracy,” or “ authoritarian government,” on the ground that the masses had not proved able to create a peasant Government capable of managing the affairs of the country successfully. That is clearly the view of the group that is at the back of the present development, hence the creation of a military dictatorship and the arrest of Communists and other individuals with Left sympathies. Wars in the Balkans have been common in the last half-century, but, though the international atmosphere is so disturbed at the moment, the Balkan peoples seem to have a desire to walk the path of peace. It is reported that sentiment in Yugoslavia welcomes tho Zveno group’s accession to power in Bulgaria, as it will facilitate the efforts to establish some sort of pact between the two countries. For years the Balkan States have been pawns in the diplomatic activities of greater Powers, but now. there seems to be a disposition to form a group that shall be independent of the chancellories of France, Italy, and Germany. A conference held in Salonika in the dying hours of last year drafted and adopted a plan for economic co-operation based on a system of preferential tariffs, declared for a general scheme of non-aggression pacts, and issued a message to the Balkan peoples affirming that the year 1933 had been characterised by a strengthen-, ing of the spirit of solidarity and cooperation among tho Balkan nations, and even going so far as to assert that the diversity of views which ’still revealed itself was only a weak echo of old situations and disputes. Coincident with this gathering, there was an interchange of visits among Balkan monarchs as well as their more important Ministers. If the storm clouds that are sweeping over the western sky at the moment are dissipated it is not unreasonable to expect that some soj’t of Balkan confederation will shortly arise.