M. VENEZELOS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17285, 28 September 1916, Page 8

M. VENEZELOS.

GREECE’S HOPE. HER PATRIOTIC STATESMAN. (By A. G. Gardiner.) M. Venezelos is the greatest .statesman in Europe to-day. That is a large claim, but history will ratify it-. His public career, so far as Europe is concerned, extends over only five years, but in that time he has revealed to tho world one of the most remarkable personalities in the political history of Europe. He has been compared to Cavour, to Gam-, bc-tta, to Bismarck. The-, fact is significant of the impression he creates. •Ycfii look for his parallel only in the ranks of the greatest. But the comparison with Bismarck, while true in regard to his relation to Greece, is monstrous in relation to tho man. Brutal force was the dominant note of Bismarck. There is force in Venezelos toOj a high courage that led him out into the mountains of Crete at the head of his rebels when Prince George of the High Commissioner, dared to play tho autocrat in that littlo island., ' “A COMPREHENSIVE HUMANITY.” But it is force governed by a spiritual motive and a humane wisdom that suggest the Lincolns and the Mazzinis rather than the Bismarcks. The move presence of the man is singularly assuring. I recall that famous dinner given to the Balkan delegates in Loudon in the midst of tbe first Balkan War when all cur hopes were so high, and I remember how the personality of tho.jnan stood out from the commonplace figures of his colleagues. And the impression was deepened by personal contact. He pervades the atmosphere with the sense pf high purposo and noble sympathies. It i 3 not his strength that you remember, but a certain illuminated and illuminating benevolence,,' a comprehensive humanity, a general friendliness of demeanour. He .is in temperament what one may call a positive—a man of. sympathies rather than antipathies, winning by the affections more than by diplomacy or cunning. He is singularly free from the small ingenuities and falsities of politics, and in all circumstances -exhibits a simple candour and directness so unusual' as to be almost incredible. But for the conviction that his personality conveys, you would believe that 6uch frankness was only the subtle disguise of an artful politician. ,It is instead the mark of a man great enough to bo himself, to declare his purposes, to live always in tho light, fearless of consequences. Whether liis opponent be king or people, ho will tell the truth, without bitterness but without hesitation, for he is neither demagogue nor ccrurtier. We have seen with what firmness of mind he can faco tho throne —that throne which ho'-lms done more than any man to make\secure. But he can face the people with equal firmness. Right at the threshold of his career in Greece ho showed this quality in circumstances of unusual difficulty. The lamentable condition of public affairs had reduced the country to despair. It seemed to have fallen among thieves.' Its public life was corrupt, its government a system of “ Rotativist ” plunder, its taxation crushing to the poor, its army (as the war • with Turkey in 1897 had. shown) a sham and its navy a shadow. The position culminated in the military coup d'etat of 1908, but the military League could not build the foundations of a new Greece, and the country cried out for a j man. But where was he to be found in tbe midst of the little nests of political intriguers who had brought Greece to chaos? SAVIOUR OF CRETE.

It was then that the mind of the country turned to Crete. In that island a remarkable figure had appeared in politics. He was a Cretan, but a Cretan of Athenian origin, whose grandfather had fled from Greece a hundred years or so ago to escape the tyranny of tho Turk. In the troubled events that led to tho liberation of Crete from tho Turk and its right of self-government under the suzerainty of the Sultan, this young barrister had been the leader of his people and he became the President of the new Cretan National Assembly. But tho advent of Prince George, the brother of the present King of Greece, as High Commissioner was followed by a serious conflict between him and his Minister. Prince George aimed at governing the island despotically, but Venezelos had not overthrown the despotism of tUo Turk in order to set up a new despotism from Greece. He resigned office, put ou his military uniform, and headed the insurrection of 1905 which led to the fall of Prince George and his disappearance to the seclusion of Paris, the refuge of all discredited potentates. Venezelos returned to power under a new High Commissioner, M. Znimis, but the magic of Iris personality and the fame of his exploits had fired new hopes iii Greece, ana in the confusion of 1909. when the throne was trembling au*d the very nation seemed in dissolution, the democracy of Greece appealed to the man who had saved Crete to come and be its saviour also. And the late King George, pocketing the outrage that had been ]Jut upon his son by this man, wisely joined in the appeal FOUND A LEADER.

He camo and Greece hailed him as its deliverer; but lid, had smooth words for the King nor for the people.

■—r-- —• —: —r"" • “We must tell the truth,” he 6aid. “to those above and those" below.” The Crown, he declared, had usurped too large a place in. tho. functions of. , Government And the democracy cried “ A Daniel, a Daniel.” But, when the populace sought to convert his . Revisionary Chamber into a Constituent Assembly which -the King could not dissolve he stood by hu bond. In front, of his hotel in Athens the crowfl corrected his word “ Revisionary ” by shouting "Constituent! Constituent!” but he simply , proceeded , with his speech, repeating Revisionary ” as though lie was deaf to'the storm of interruption. And at last the crowd, in sheer astonishment'at this rebuke from a popular orator, were silenced. They had found a leader, not a demagogue.

A GREAT EUROPEAN. That is the man.' More than any one in politics to-day, he seems to come into affairs with a large inspiration outside ail the petty considerations of parties and creeds, out> -- side even mere national considerations. He is not a Cretan only, nor a Greek only; he is first and foremost a great European. He has that detachment of mind that is the strength of Bir\ Edward Grey, but he fuses it with ait instructed idealism that adds the quality of the prophet to the wisdom of the statesman. In Greece he has wrought a miracle so swift, so convincing, that the popular reverence for him has something of idolatry mixed with it. He is regarded an tbe saviour, the regenerator, not of Greece only, but of the Hellenic idea. He found tbe country a by-word for the squalor •,$. of its public life and for . the vulgar Chauvinism of its politicians, i He has redeemed- its administration, I ennobled its spirit, doubled its area, j In two short years he gave it a new and stable constitution, set the throne on its feet, reformed the army and navy, swept away the iniquitous taxation of the poor, redressed the. miserable lot of the peasantry. THE BALKAN LEAGUE. But tho greatest gift he offered t<J ( ' the Greeks was a larger ' and nobler • . vision of their relations to their neighbours. The old bitter quarrel with Bulgaria yielded to his fine doctrine that ‘ ‘ we have not only to think of j our own rights, but of. the rights .of j ‘others.” He sought the regeneration u 1 not only of Greece, (but of the j and largely under his inspiration there j came to birth that Balkan League , which wrought the overthrow of the j; Turk, and seemed to have cleared the,., . clouds from South-Eastern Europefor- ' ever. The miserable collapse of that splendid enterprise was tho work of men like King Ferdinand and clumsy mock-Bismarcks like Daneff, his Prime Minister. How chivalrously Venezelos strove to avert the disaster is : known. He risked even liis authonty in Greece by the concessions which h® offered, for they included Kavala it- ; self; but his magnanimity was in' vain. Bulgaria had/- the Prussian idea, and it fell in its pursuit. And; it was its disappointment that kept>; the Balkan States out of the ranks or : the Allies when the greet war came. A PETTY REVENGE. But Venezelos very nearly repeated his miracle—very nearly rebuilt the Balkan League and threw its sword into the scale of the Allies. \Vby did ho fail? ' "Kings,” said a wise man who had known much of Courts *ar® alwaj r s the same. They nfever forget and they never'forgive. They , thin* of events only in tho light of their own dignity.” King Constantine is a popular monarch. He lias fought, two successful wars (with the army that Venezelos recreated), and he has many excellent .qualities. Rat he has no forgotten tho indignity that Yenezelos inflicted on his house, in turning his brother out of Crete. Hq owes his throne to the statesman; but he owes him a grudge also, and a gm.dge is alwavs more, enduring than gratitude. Moreover, his wife is a sister . of the Kaiser and his sympathies m the war are natu’rallv otwosed to those of nxs people. Did ho not, after the second Balkan war. flatter the Kaiser by sayino- that- Greece owed its military success to Germany? It was a grotesque fable, for it was the French whom Venezelos had called in, to reform the, nvmv just ns it was the English to whom he turned to reform the navy. ; But there was this meagre of truth in the flattery that the Green officers had graduated in the German military academies. And this fact brings us to another cause of the defeat of Y enezelos. The military leaders, unhko the people, aro pro-German. Fmaliy, there was ranged against Yenezelos all the old crowd of tricky politicians whom he had swept out of power. They did not care about the war, or - the Bal- / kans, or democratic ideas. All they wanted was revenge on the great man who had stopped their pilfering politics and regenerated Greece and tk« Greek name. : ' ' WHAT HE STANDS FOR. And now the littlo people who have temporarily triumphed' are delavmg the electiou to the last moment and gerrymandering the constituencies in the hope of finally extinguishing the great popular leader. They might as well try to extinguish the. suu, in the heavens. VVenezelos is mightier, in Greece at this moment than he has 1 ever been. His snri has.-'not.■ setvit is only momentarily eclipsed. There is hardly a constituency m tho land that would not rejoice to return him. He will be torn from lm retirement in spite of himself and he will come back with a nation behind lum. Tor Greece knows that in him she lias touched greatness, and,. That through him she lias caught a vision of a nobler destiny than has been hers since the Turk brought his blight upon the Balkans. Venezelos is for the Allies for no iqean thing. He is for them _ because he knows that with all their deficiencies they stand for freedom,; tor the moral law in the world against the law of Krupp, and that in their trinmp.h is the hope of liberty, of -democracy, and of the small nationality all, oyer tho world. And Greece is with him., It will be with him to-day more than ever, for there, is no country, not even Bulgaria, not even Italy, in which-the news of .the fall of a Gladstone m battle will echo with more thrilling power or where it will carry more convincinglv the assurance that flic cause for which he has fallen is the. cause of eternal justice and deathless liberty.