The Star MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 1916. BULGARIA'S AIMS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXXI, 10 January 1916, Page 4

The Star

MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 1916. BULGARIA'S AIMS.

Delivered every evening by 5 o'olook in, Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Awatuna, Optmake. Otakeho, Manutahi, Alton, Hurleyville. Patea. Waverley.

In writing in the Contemporary Review with respect to conditions and prospects connected with the war in the Balkans, Dr. Seton-Watson says: "Last September Serbia, under pressure from the Allies, consented to sacrifice the whole of Serbian Macedonia between Egri Palanka and the Lake of Prespa, including not merely Istip and; Veles, but Monastir itself;, in other words, all that is valuable in the so-called 'uneontested zone.' Ochrida alone was to be. retained, in order to preserve a land connection between Serbia and Greece. TSiat Bulgaria should not merely have regarded this offer as inadequate, but should almost immediately afterwards have plunged into war against the Entente, proves Beyond dispute that her King and statesmen aim at something far bigger than the recovery of Macedonia. Not even the wildest fanatic would declare war merely in order to add Ochrida to Monastir. King Ferdinand has a treble aim, and

irom his own standpoint it is perfectly logical. He has always hated. Russia and. the Czar, and he wishes to prevent Constantinople from ever becoming Russian. He fears Serbia, and is determined to prevent the achievement of Jugoslav unity under any save Bulgarian auspices. He ; sympathises with the present regime in Hungary both because he desires to preserve his vast Hungarian estates, and also because Magyar racial tyranny and his own selfish dynastic interests entirely coincide. In a word, his aim is to keep Russia from the and to supersede the dream of Jugoslavia under Alexander Karageorgevitch by the ' reality of a big Bulgaria, touching the three seas of Bulgarian political phantasy^ (Black, Mge&n. and Adriatic), under. Boris of Coburg. Serbia's solemn warning of the approaching Bulgarian mobilisation was. disregarded by the Allies; her desperate but wholly justifiable and feasible plan of answering that mobilisation by the occupation of Sofia before adequate resistance could be «made, was met by a stern veto which was meaningless save on the assumption that prompt military '. aid would be pushed up from the south if Serbia's misgivings should prove correct. The Serbs were even assured on high•..authority, almost on the eve of invasion, that they need not fear any serious attack. If Serbia to-day is in danger of extinction, then it is, above all, he fault of inertia and want of foresight on the part of the Entente." At the same time Dr Seton-Watson expressed' the opinion that inaction or hesitation on England's part "would shake the very foundations of our alliance with France and Russia, and force us to choose between the *ingominious peace of which some men are already dreaming, and the attempt to retrieve, under definitely less favorable circusmtanecs,' a- situation which can still be saved by a last determined effort." It is this effort that is now being made Tby England and her Allies in the Balkans; v .