GREECE UNDER DEFEAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10430, 30 April 1897, Page 4

GREECE UNDER DEFEAT.

Those who have sympathetically watched the heroic struggle of th« Greeks against overwhelming odds, will experience a sense of relief In thl ititihdatldh that the Powers are concert a forcible intervention to arrest tlie heedless destruction of hiibidii life The j)b'sslbliity of Greece turning baci jietide of war tliat is sweeping onward i {lie capital lias passed, and though te Turks appear to be actuated by a D Mwoltted clemency »nd moderation i Q dttling with the vanquklied.no purpoe ciih be served by further prolong in* die agony. The inost pitiful phse of tlie whole struggle is now praented in the violencft shown by the Grtjian mob to the King; whd had beei driven by the popular clamour ratler than by his own judgment or des»Ves, to Undertake the heroic but dangerous task of confrontino Eti'ope in arms, and challenge furkey to mortal combat. The hjdra-headed inonsteHs as irrational in its movements, and as ungrateful as it has been in every land and under fill i circumstance's since time began To bn sure the Athenian mob which Z lately sobbing in the streets as the bad ne m ?\u cm ' mg ,! n must consist mainly of th» cowardly stay-at-homes, who Had preferred to save their own ' skuis and from a safe distance to watch their more patriotic countrymen doing and daring at the front But that popular niiptijse s \ m \& iv j )ee] round and attack the monarch in dafeat, whom it had cheered on to battle ill its frfih2y, IS so cliaMcteristlc of the mob that we may take it as mirroring tlie general state of the pobuiar feeling Indeed, from the King so far nTognising it as to propose his own abdication we tnay conclude that he has read the popular will; and a King who for three and thirty years had safely piloted a rickety State through precarious surroundings nnd done so muoh to raise it to the cornitj of nations, must bow to the instincts of a brutal rabble ( as blind in its impulses as the irrational forces of Nature. King George may have erred m the excess of his patriotic zeal, but it rtiay be ventured to say, that his removal from the rulership at this juncture will not particularly tend to smooth the pat|i for Greece in the settlement of affairs over the conflict with Turkey. His personality counted ipr a good deal in the sympathy evoked throughout the world by his defence ol Cretan independence, and his dariiig defiance of the,old oppressor and enemy of Greece; and it remains to be seeo whether that sympathy will be as marked when Greece is represented by a rabble that had shown itself so craven in defeat, and so .ungrateful and insensate towards its King.