VENIZELISTS IN GREECE.

Evening Star, Issue 22252, 1 February 1936, Page 14

VENIZELISTS IN GREECE.

For 20 years tho division between llepublicans and Monarchists has made distractions lor Greece. For 12 years tho llepublicans had their innings. Then, when they feared that they were losing it, the military and naval, revolt, to which M.Venizelos was a chief party, proved such a fiasco that it would have been natural to conclude that their sun would be set for evermore. As the result of a national plebiscite King George was brought back to a throne which he had occupied for about 35 months before being, for 12 years, an exile. The Greeks knew very little of him, but he did his best to win over foes by insisting on an amnesty, as complete as he could make it, for those who had resisted his return even to tho extreme of civil war. Venizclos, who had been condemned to death, notwithstanding his great earlier services to the State, was allowed to return to Greece, but not to resume his property, Venizelos has stated that, though he will make his home in Crete, he will have nothing more to do with politics. What is remarkable is the support still enjoyed by his party. In tho elections for a new Parliament, which have just been held, Venizelists obtained 142 seats and anti-Vonizclists 343. One pities the Prime Minister wlto will bo expected to form a Coalition Government to give unity to the nation under those conditions. And the bitterness of passions which exists between tho parties will not help him. General Kondylis, the past Minister of War, whoso

death is reported to-day, ascribed Venizelos’s part m last year’s rebellion to bis “ senile insanity.” That was not surprising. The Republicans’ idol is 71, and the swift failure of his insurrection favo it every appearance of madness. But the vehemence of Greek political feelings can bo something almost incredible to northern phlegm. Mr Compton Mackenzie, the British novelist, who has had much to do with Greece, recalls how in an earlier crisis the heads of the church published a fulmination which read as follows: “ Upon that mercenary Senegalese and he-goat traitor Venizelos wo have pronounced ex-communication, with the prayer that the following calamities may overtake him:—The sores of Job,, the fate of Jonah, the leprosy of Johava, the gloom of the dead, the agony of the dying, 'the thunders of bell, the curse of God and of men.” And against those who should vote for Venizelos was pronounced the same anathema, with a prayer added that their hands might wither and that they might become deaf and blind. When Mr Mackenzie’s house in Athens was attacked in December, 1916, there was a photograph of Mr Venizelos hanging on the wall of the sitting room. This the seekers tore to pieces with their teeth. The British writer comments that 11 perhtips it was the unassailable moral character of the man that inspired this madness of hate. There was hardly one of his political opponents who did not seem by comparison a corrupt adventurer.” Venizelos was undoubtedly a great man. He doubled the territory of Greece. His influence' dominated peace conferences. His one folly may bo attributed to the optimism which, when it meant faith in himself, was always before justified. King George IT. has been described as a “ well-intentioned, pleasant, seriousminded, artistic person of democratic preferences —anything but the ‘ Merry Widow’ type of Balkan- Prince.” He is a great-grandson of Queen Victoria. His crown will have thorns.