Greek Imperialism and Sir Basil Zaharoff

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 293, 11 October 1922, Page 1

Greek Imperialism and Sir Basil Zaharoff

The following article by J. T. Walton Newbold appeared in the. " Labour Monthly " for September—some weeks before the threat of an anti-Turkish war. Mr. Newbold quotes from an House of Commons speech by Lieut.-Colonel Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., July 17, 1922, as follows: "The result of the Greek policy has been that the whole of the East is in chaos, and that Great Britain has made enemies throughout the entire East. Sir Basil Zaharoff is reputed to have paid £4,000,000 sterling out of his own pocket for the upkeep of the Greek invading force in Asia Minor." -Mr. Newbold says: During the last few weeks tiiere have been three interesting disclosures, two in the financial Press and the other in Parliament, concerning valuable concessions in the Near East granted to British capitalists. The first of these concerned an important concession for industrial developments in Rumania recently secured by the Paris reppresentative of .Messrs. Viekers, viz., Sir Basil Zaharoff. The second was relative to a very valuable concession granted to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.to exploit petroleum wells in Greek Macedonia. The third was -brought to light by Mr. C. L'E. Malone, jHvho drew "'from the Under-Secretary for (Foreign Affairs," Mr.-Harniawoi'tb, the ad- ; mission that, some time ago, the great firm of public works contractors, Sir Robert ■"Mac Alpine and Sons, had obtained a concession to erect extensive harbour works at the Piraeus. Mr. Malone w 7 as not equally successful in getting confirmation of what is, however, generally credited throughout the East,, viz., that the same firm has received even more valuable favours from King Constantine's Governjiuent in and around the "free" town of I Smyrna. [ Now, at the present time, the Standard I Oil Company is the only petroleum vending firm to have a jetty for bunkering purposes and oil tanks of any size or consequence in Near Eastern waters , , and these are situated in the neighbourhood of Smyrna. It is evident that the Anglo-Persian Company, which, in the Near East, operates, at any rate on the distributive side, hi conjunction with Sir Basil Zaharoff, Is preparing to dispute with its American rival the market which the latter at present controls. . Sir Robert Mac Alpine and Sous have regularly been contractors on works for either the Anglo-Persian Oil Company or for the subsidiaries and associates of Yickers, Ltd., These three concerns, together with the Marconi interests, form a group generally to be found acting in conjunction. Hence what we" are witnessing on the economic plane is another vigorous offensive which, appropriately, has its counterpart in the realms of Greek imperialism and, of British diplomacy'We say, advisedly, another vigorous (offeusive r because scarcely had the armistice become effective in the Near East •than two, British capitalist institutions made their way—the one to' Constaniople and the other to The British Trade Corporation, a State constituted and chartered bank, took over the National Bank of Turkey and established tlie Levant" Company to develop trade throughout the Near East. The Federation of. British Industries (which had fathered the British Trade Corporation on the Government) appointed its first trade commissioner, significantly enough, to Athens, where his address was given, as c/o H.M. Embassy. The Federation of British. Industries in its initiation very largely the Nation of Vickers, Ltd. * Now, during &c war, there came more and. nior-e into % foreground . ; - A GREAT MAGNATE. ,f.(?reat. entrepreneur, emerging, mysteriously out of nowhere in particular, or, at nowhere, tha? anyonejje»iil«| ae-^

curately divine, viz., the Paris representative of Vickers, Ltd. The world of high finance and of high politics became •conscious of the all-powerful influence of Sir Basil Zaharoff. Sir Basil Zaharoff was..a Greek. There is doubt as to whether he had always been ■'•of Greek nationality. Some reports make him out to have been a Russian; others an Armenian. Finally, everyone agrees, he became a Greek, and to-day he is resident in France and holds an English title. Most people think of him. as being the man behind "Vickers, Ltd. They think of him as the master of millions. But adventurers, like Zaharoff, however distinguished and however accomplished, do not accumulate such vast credits and such immeasurable resources as he has brought to the service of Vickers and their associates. Zaharoff is operating with an immense fortune. It is not, however, or at any rate was not, Zaharoff's fortune. It was the fortune of a great mercantile family of Greek extraction, for whom Zahsrofx has been the nominee and the agent. Zaharoff, in this the heyday of Greek mercantile capitalist achievement, is merely [the visible, but not too visible, operator lon behalf of interests which through i many decades have been moulding in. secret the diplomacy o.f the Powers, with a view to their own enthronement as the unquestioned masters of the whole of the Near and Middle East. During a whole century there has been passing through its various stages ef development a nationalist movement which, beginning as an agitation for the emancipation of the Greeks from the domination of the Ottoman Empire, has now culminated in a formidable endeavour by the organised expression of the Greek Bourgeoisie to bring into complete economic subjection all the peoples of the former Ottoman Empire. The problem of the Near East, which has been becoming ever more acute, has been one of reconciling the old order of .the Ottoman State and the new and ever more ambitious Greek capitalist, class which has, now in one way and. again in another, been striving to assert its liberty of action and, in the last resort, its own absolute dominion. Through many vicissitudes and the most tortuous mazes of DIPLOMACY AND OF AVAR, the Greek capitalists have employed their ever-increasing- economic power to obtain for themselves, if not under their own - flag then under that of Russia, France or Britain, the privileges which they have coveted. To-day, on the morrow of the world war, they see -them-, selves, thanks to the collapse of Tsardom and the conflicting ambitions of Britain and France, about to enter into the fulness of their imperial heritage. ''From the middle of.the eighteenth to' the beginning of the ninetenth centuries, ,s says Joannes Gennadius, in "Hel- j leiiism in England," "the commerce, enterprise, and general education of the Greek race took ari extraordinary development.' Greek ships,. necessarily flying the Turkish flag, but owned and manned by Greeks, practically monopolised the trade of the Black Sea,, the Aegean, and most of the Mediterranean. Odessa grew oiit of an originally humble establishment of Greek grain traders, and Trieste was brought into commercial prominence by Greek merchants'." Until the close of the Napoleonic wars, the Greeks, "organised in trading and shipping associations at Chios, Psara, Odessa, and other centres, were careful to remain Turkish subjects, under occasional, and when expedient, Russian patronage. When, however, they, no longer required to avail themselves o£ Turlush neutrality, and. had, moreover, accumulated - IMMENSE PROFITS

merchants permitted the peasantry to bring the gathering revolt to a head. Before this occurred, however, the Rallis had betaken themselves to Leghorn aqd to London, and the Argentis to Marseilles, where, of course, they secured the protection of the Austrian, British, and French flags, and so became immune from loss v by reason of the revolution or the ensuing war or wars between Greece and Turkey. - The trade and shipping of Italy . was largely in Greek hands, and they had huge investments in Austrian loans. The great source of their revenues, however, increasingly was their virtual monopoly of the grain trade between the Black Sea and the growing industrial centres of Britain. : The Rallis, for instance, organised and secured complete control of the grain trade between Odessa and Liverpool. It is a noticeable fact that the greatest champion of Greek nationalism in the nineteenth century was Gladstone, himself the son of one of the greatest dealers in Baltic and Black Sea corn. Cobden, like Rieardo and others before him, frankly avowed and availed himself of the material "basis of his phil-Hellenic and pro-Russian sympathies, i.c-, the exchange of calico for corn. The Liberals, the cotton'exporters-and corn importers of the middle nineteenth century," were the staunehest champions of Greek nationalism, and never rested until they had imposed an English constitution on Greece and given her a king to govern her in the interests of the Baltic Corn Exchange, i.e., a scion of the Danish royal family. Greece, from 1863 onwards, was ruled in the interest of Gladstones of Liverpool, the Hambros of Copenhagen, and the Rallis of Chios—all of them in the corn trade. During the American Civil War the Greek merchants went heavily into cotton, in Egypt, and the Behachis, the Rallis, and the Rodoeanachis began, and with success, to vie with the French for the . MORTGAGE, INVESTMENT, and trading opportunities of the Nile Valley. Sir Ernest C&ssel was a mere creature of the Greek cotton kings as Cromer was a mere tool of Cassel. The Greek com and cot-toil merchants more generally operated from London Liverpool, Antwerp, Frankfurt, and Marseilles. They seldom appeared in the picture as financiers, but extended their enormous credits through such firms as Bisehoffc'sheims, the Sociefe; Generale de Paris, the Banque de Paris, Fruhling and Goschen, the. Oppenheims, the d'Erlangei*s, and, later, Sir Ernest Cassel and his National Bank of Egypt. In the "middle 'eighties" the Greek traders, as cotton merchants, were concentrating on Egypt and, to some extent, on. India; as corn merchants they were extremely heavily involved hi India and in the Argentine. These were also the years when Greece again se.cured admission to the charmed circle of the Powers who might borrow money on the Bourses. They were the years when she was represented simultaneously at London, the Hague,. and Washington by J. Gennadius, who had reecived his financial education from, and ever retained the closest relations with, Ralli Brothers. They were the years, when not only was Gennadius the most intimate friend of Edward. Prince of Wales, but when the wife of .the Master of the Ceremonies at the English Court" was a daughter of the Rallis. There were two great financiers, also intimates of the Prince of Wales, great .friends of the Rallis, Sir Ernest Cassel and.Baron Beaumont d 'Erlanger. Cassel was the creditor of Egypt; d'Erlanger was the creditor of Greece. The money power of the Greek mercli'gSiSij&YSß 9&M.95& resident ia.%sJ siatur^

alised in London and Marseilles, was not,? however, comparable as yet with that of, the older generation of merchants" and bankers who controlled the IMPERIAL OTTOMAN BANK | and wiio belonged to the great mercantile ' and railway oligarchies of France, Hoi- { land and Britain. They could not as yet' come out from under the banners of those three protecting Powers (Britain, France and Russia) who guaranteed "the independent monarchical" and constitutional state' 7 of the Hellenes and, avowedly,: pursue then* aims under the flag of Greece. Economically and politically they realised their limitations during the Cretan revolt and the Turkish War in the' " 'nineties-, Greece became more than ever ja vassal to the lords of West European capitalism. For a time the Greek bourgeoisie had to content itself with-making sure of the great estate of Egypt, where, under British auspices and under British guise, they, became the real rulers. They helped, fat , more than has yet been realised, to create the Entente Cordiale. They participated to an enormous extent in the capitalisation of Russian resources and in the loans to the Tsardom which' followed upon the "1905 revolution. It was they who helped to■..M'in.g together Britain and Russia. It was they who were the interested partiel scheming to possess and to enjoy, under one flag, or another and, after.new. wars, under their own flag, the territories of the Ottoman Empire. It was no coincidence, but in the nature of things, that Venizelos, the hero of Crete and the f fiend of Zaharoff, himself the creature of the COTTON AND CORN KINGS, came to power in Greece in 1910, and thereby initiated a policy that led up to the Balkan Wars, the Great War, and to the long foreseen and eventual mutual annihilation of the "protecting Powers' , in a war for the East. Amongst the first acts of Venizelos was to create a Ministry of Agriculture, Commerce,, and National Economy, and to instal therein Emmanuel Benachi, direetoi of the National Bank of Egypt and the greatest cotton merchant in-Alexandria. Venixelos, thanks to his Balkan League, added Macedonia and a part of Thrace to the kingdom of Greece, thereby doubling its area. In 1915 and 1916 he laboured to bring Greece into the Great War, having been offered by Grey territories behind Smyrna that would again double the area of the kingdom. True, Greece would have to cede a part of Macedonia to Bulgaria, but the latter was to buy out all. Greek property therein. Venizelos was dismissed by his king, to depart for Crete and to. reappear at Salonika, there to be welcomed by General Sarrail. : . Venezilos was the protagonist of a jjjreek entente raid alliance with France.'He has gone. Constantino has returned. The Francophile advocate of a bourgeois republic lias made way for the cousin of the King of England. Schneider-Creusot and the Banque de I'Union Parisenne have received a check. Vickers, Ltd., the .British Trade Corporation, and the Federation of British Industries arc in the ascendant. France, the holder : of 70 per cent, of the Turkish debts, is- supporting the Turks and in touch with the Government at Angora. Britain favours the Greeks in their occupation-, of Smyrna and their • advance into the hinterland to emancipate the peoples of Asia Minor, "the granary, of the Old World." If the British come out on top, the Benachis, Rallis, and Rodocanachis in London will be none the worse off.; If the French come out triumphant, the. Argen--tis, Ro&oeanachis, and Rallis of Marseilles will not lament. If the French and British mutually an* , nihilate-.each other, theiv indeed, may the A