THE NEO-BALKANS?

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 227, 23 August 1940, Page 8

THE NEO-BALKANS?

(By “Lucio” in the. Manchester Guardian.) ■ The Italian paper Quadrivio suggests as one. feature of the future Europe “a Celtic. Confederation of Ireland Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Cornwall, .and French Brittany” with the remains of England “reduced to its smallest compass” as a sort of penal settlement in the midst of a “Balkanised” British Isles. The fog of war is somewhat dense, th« future far from certain, But if one may attempt to peer beyond time’s present curtain One may extract a smile from ... Musso,, sweeping like a falcon, .-' r To reconstruct the British Isles as something new and Balkan. ’Tis odd to think of Lowland Scots , with Cornishmen united . A": To hold the conquered English' down and see them sore afrighted; \ Add Irish, Welsh and Manx (on whom this project also hinges), i And so von get an England lost'behind its Celtic fringes. An England duly “Balkanised,” a thing of bits and pieces, ■- w Wherein the Saxon dwells as serf while, Celtic strength increases— Which seems a little odd,; since history surely sees it written That all such various strains have long dwelt side by side as Bri--. tain. And long will they cohere, one feels,”" within their island border — One does not see them now dissolve at Mussolini’s order. We left our Balkan stages many centuries behind u 9 And timber far too tough to split the Fascist axe will find ns.