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Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18435, 15 June 1920, Page 6

lb is regrettable, at a time when the South Island has to fight so strenuously for the barest measures of justice at the hands of an Administration whose political strength lies mostly in the north that dissensions should arise between the southern provinces. In condemning the Canterbury Progress League as " parochial," " narrow-mind-ed " and " selfish," the South Island Main Trunk League seems to have been acting on a quite distorted and incorrect version of the facts, and to have

been inspired by a desire to help neither Canterbury nor Marlborough. The suggestion of the vice-president of the Progress League that while tho hand is tho hand of Marlborough the voice is tho voice of Wellington is probably the best explanation that can be offered of an amazing incident. The good people of Marlborough, however, must be more gullible than wo take them to be if they harbour for v)ery long tho delusion that they can gain more by echoing the north than by remaining loyal to the south. It is| to be hoped that explanations will ensue, and that tho misunderstanding that seems to have been so sedulously engineered will be removed and buried.

The assassination of Essad Pasha, adds another violent episode to the brief history of independent Albania, and cuts .short tho chequered career of a great adventurer. When Albania was granted independence in 1912, the Prince of Wiod. was assignged by the Powers as hereditary ruler of tho new kingdom. Tho Prince took up his duties in .March, 1914, but in September, owing to complications brought about by l-iio European war, he found it necessary to resign. Before doing so ho condemned to perpetual exile General Essad Pasha, his Minister of War, on charges of treason. A month after the Prince had gone back to Prussia, Essad descended upon Durazzo with a motley band of Albanians and Turks recruited in Serbia with the connivance of the Serbian. Government. He set up what he called the " Government of Central . Albania," but the Albanians bated him and attacked him. Ho was besieged in Durazzo, which he held only with the assistance of the Italian Navy, until Serbia and Montenegro sent troops to his assistance. The German-Bulgarian campaign drove the Serbians and Montenegrins out of Albania, and Essad took refuge at Salonika, 'where he posed aa a dispossessed lulor. He had continued ever since to press his claims to be considered Dictator of Albania, though tho Albanians always detested him. His ambitions are now finally disposed of.

Tho emergence of Senator Warren G. Harding, of Ohio, as the Republican nominee for the Presidency of the United States is a quite unexpected development. A few weeks ago it was confidently anticipated that Mr Hoover would secure nomination from either party whose platform ho cared to adopt. Outside Mr Hoover, who did not until the eleventh hour declare his political sympathies, General Wood and Senator Johnson wore regarded as among tho strongest of Republican candidates for nomination. Mr C. E. Hughes, who held the Republican nomination at last election, was expected to offer himself again, but did not do so. Mr Harding was never regarded as a serious possibility, and it is noteworthy that his name is not even mentioned in a cablegram dated Saturday announcing additional nominations. Obviously he is a compromise candidate, and quite as obviously tho Republican party has selected its man with both eyes on President Wilson's League of Nations campaign.. Mr Harding will be able to talk about tho blessings of world-peace while at the same time retaining a__ tight grasp on the Monroe Doctrine and opposing Article Ten. He has been a member of the Senate since 1915, and was a candidate for Governor in Ohio in 1910, when he was defeated. As far as can be judged at this distance his nomination does not improve the Republicans' chances of the Presidency.