GREECE'S DILEMMA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10428, 28 April 1897, Page 4

GREECE'S DILEMMA.

Ordinaky folk are sometimes apt to believe that Royalty basks perpetually in the sunshine of happiness and prosperity; but who is there, no matter how humble his lot, that would exchange places with the terror-haunted Czar of all the Russias, or at the present moment with the King of the Greeks? There is not a home in all Australasia in which there is more sorrow, more anxious care, more terrible anxiety than are to be found to-day in the Royal Household of the Hellenic Kingdom. One can only faintly imagine what the feelings of its members must be as hour by hour, by day and night, the fatal telegrams from the front come pouriug in, each with its tale of disaster, of wasted blood and treasure, of death and defeat, of towns abandoned to the enemy, and wounded Greeks left to the tender mercies of the victorious Turks. No wonder the streets of Athens are filled with the sounds of lamentation and woe. The Greek army is evidently in full retreat; thousands of helpless women and ohildreu are flying before the advancing soldiers of the Sultan : there is confusion everywhere. All this, of course, was foreseen by those who were not carried away by blind prejudice, and who refused to egg on the Greeks in their mad folly. But it is none the less pitiful. While condemning the Greeks for embarking upon the rash and insane enterprise which has landed them in financial ruin and national humiliation, it is impossible to remain untouched by the pathos and tragedy of their position. What the end will be is clear enough. The Powers make no sign of coming to the aid of Greece. They are leaving her, to use the somewhat brutal phrase, to stew in her own juice. Unless a miracle happen, Greece will have to sue for peace.