AFFAIRS IN THE BALKANS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLI, Issue 317, 6 December 1906, Page 1

AFFAIRS IN THE BALKANS

STATE OF UNEEST. A SENSATIONAL PROPHECY. The state of affairs in the Balkans when the last mail left was beginning to assume a very serious aspect, owing to the oppression of the Greeks by the Bulgarians. The position is very clearly and graphically put in a letter received by Mr Frank Dyer, ViceConsul for Greece in Wellington, from a Greek friend in the dried fruit trade, resident at Patras (Athens). The following is an extract from too letter in question : —

"We ire," says the writer, "in a condition of unrest here after the deliberate ' massacre of Greeks in the Bulgarian towns by the Bulgarians, assisted by their Government and the .soldiery. I refer to the towns of Anchialos, Varna, and Boutsouk, situated on the Black Sea, and mostly inhabited by Greeks. Through the anti-Hellenic demonstrations, rioting, and expelling of rich Greeks, there have been great losses by the latter in Bulgaria and Roumania. The cause is the Macedonian question. The decided progress of the highly-civilised Greek element in Macedonia has led to these two nationalities having no power to murder any more Greeks there. ■ Being overpowered they now turn for revenge to, and kill and destroy the property of, those poor helpless Greeks who live in their midstr.

"The great civilised Powers— they look en and say nothing. 'There is no Berlin Treat.yj.for the weak and feeble, but everything for the powerful. Our Government, with the will of the people, has decided to hurry up the mobilisation/of the army and navy, and no ■ona knows when the Macedonian question will be in a blaze. It is not far distant. Neatly all the Greek churchos, .schools, hospitals, and other buildings erected and owned by the Greek communities have been confiscated ' by the "Bulgarian Government, and given to the Bulgarian communities. Wa are now- in a broken diplomatic relationship with Roumania and Bulgaria, and very little is required to light the fire."

"I write thus," says Mr Dyer'a correspondent,in, conclusion, "in order to acquaint you ' with ' th"e cause of ' the trouble, and so that you may •c---quaint others of it."