SERBIAN KING IS MOST ABSOLUTE OF WORLD’S MONARCHS

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6806, 9 January 1929, Page 6

SERBIAN KING IS MOST ABSOLUTE OF WORLD’S MONARCHS

Fount Of All Power

DEMOCRATIC SERBS WILL RESENT COUP

EUT CROATS REJOICE

United Press Association —By Electrl* Telegraph—Copyright. Received Tuesday, 11.5 p.m. LONDON, Jan. 7.

The Times correspondent in Belgrade describes King Alexander I. as the most absolute of all monarehs.

By virtue of the decree announcing the new regime, he assumes complete and sole authority over every department of the .State, makes the laws, nominates officials and military officcis, commands all the armed forces, and is responsible for foreign affairs, declares war, makes peace, can give amnesties to criminals or can release them before trial. He fixes the amount of his own civil list and his person is inviolate and cannot be accused or held responsible for any act. He appoints the Ministers, who are responsible to him directly and cannot even plead that he instructed them. The King also nominates the judges of a special court for the trial of ministers and also nominates regents in the event of his dying before his heir attains the age of IS years. It can be said forthwith that the idea of an autocracy is unpopular in Serbia. The Serbs are temperamentally democratic and history shows that since the Turkish yoke was thrown off, there has .been a long struggle by the people against their rulers for supremacy. Their most unhappy memories are the earlier coups d’etats. Will there be less exasperation to-day because Parliament has brought the country to such a pass 1 The Serbians were discontented with the inefficient administration and also the political leaders’ failure to come to terms with the Croats. There was a widespread conviction that drastic events were imminent, only the King forestalling them. The Hapsburg provinces will be less disposed to question the King’s dictatorship, beeause they are accustomed to autocratic rule. The Croats will rejoice, because they are relieved of a hated constitution, which was the root of all their trouble.