Page 6 Advertisements Column 3

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6807, 10 January 1929, Page 6

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Another Democracy Goes

r THE epidemic of dictatorships continues in Europe, and another 4 Constitution has been tom up. Whatever there was of democracy in Jugo-Slavia has gone the way of popular government in Italy, Spain and the rest. The King has suspended the Constitution and dissolved Parliament, and will apparently himself be the Mussolini of the turbulent State which ever since it was recreated after the war has been stricken with internal strife and threatened wih external quarrels.

The King, in his apology for the desperate measure he has taken, declares that politics in Jugo-Slavia have become more, and more negative, and Parliamentary life has been so abused that this ideal becomes “an obstacle to all profitable working. The curse that seems to hang over the Balkans —the cockpit of Europe has blighted what promised to be one of the most successful of the new post-wai nations, Croats and Serbs have split Parliament into factions, and instead of uniting for the common good have continued a series of bitter feuds which culminated in the assassination of Raditch, the leader .of the Croatian party, and some of his followers.

Raditch appeared to have had great qualities of leadership, and \Vas certainly a more broad-minded man than most of his enemies and many of his followers. The latter were living under the fear that the Serbs were gaining the ascendant and the greater part of Ihe political power was for a time in their hands. But Raditch, with a true desire to serve the whole State, studied,political conditions both in England and Russia, and led his Peasant Party into power. He refused to form a coalition because lie could obtain no warranty that his plans to suppress corruption would be carried into effect. With'his death there was disorder in Zabreb, the principal town in Crotia, and the rioting has continued ever since. It is the intense political dissatisfaction in that part of the combined State that has caused much of the old government’s impotence, and the king, seeing that it was impossible to hope for restoration of order under present conditions, has taken the stern course that has resulted in the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies.

Historically, the passing of popular government in Jugo-Slavia is of the greatest interest because taken in conjunction with similar movements in other countries it constitutes the most significant event in post-war conditions in Euroupe. It is a great experiment charged with revolutionary consequences. Altogether nine or ten States at the present time are governed by some system of dictatorship. The two outstanding instances, of course, are Italy and Spain. In the former, a civilian who expressed his determination “to trample on the prostrate corpse of liberty” rules through a Grand Council of his own creation. Parliament has ceased to function as an authoritative body, and local government, for the most pari, has been abolished. In Spain, on the other hand, the leading figure has been an army officer of high rank, whose immediate supporters have been drawn from the military caste.

In Poland, Marshal Pilsudski became dictator largely with the support of the army, while in Albania and in Persia the military heads of the nation have gone a stage further and have made themselves ruling monarchs. Then, not long ago, the Egyptian Parliament was dissolved, and the King now rules through a body of Ministers who were unable to command a majority among the elected representatives.

Nominally, Turkey has constitutional government, but those in close touch with Angora have made it plain that in everything bui name Ghazi Mustapha Kemal is a dictator. Greece has had a troubled political career in modern times, and more than one attempt to establish a dictatorship has failed; and in Rumania, recently, the peasants succeeded in defeating what has often been referred to as the Bratianu dicatorship.

The majority of these revolutionary alterations in the method of government, it should be noted, have occurred in Southern Europe, and competent writers have stressed this fact as indicating that these countries lack that stability of temperament that makes democratic government possible and workable in Northern Europe. In many of these countries, now governed by dictators in various guises, there have never been strong traditions of self-government, and it must be remembered that as a result of the war, in some instances, peoples have been amalgamated as nations but have for centuries been bitterly opposed one to another. The process of welding these antagonistic elements into a nation must be long and difficult, and the drastic sieps that have been taken probably have been designed to ensure some measure of authority until time has taken the edge off racial animosities and antagonisms.