THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 1914. THE SARAJEVO MURDERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 156, 30 June 1914, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 1914. THE SARAJEVO MURDERS.

' Wherever Law is held in light regard and liberty is only another name for license killing is often thought no murder and political i murders are the unblushing aim of I organised and conspiring bands. In , Northern Europe, where the constitutional monarchies are an integral and inseparable part of the general political and soeial progress of free and democratic -nations, political crimes have almost vanished with the advance of civilisation and the growing general security of life and property. In England we have to go back to the black days of Richard 111. before we sec the murder of a legitimate sovereign or of an heir to the throne; in Scotland nearly as far. Since the union of the two kingdoms no member of a British royal dynasty has fallen to the assassin, for Charles I. was tried, condemned and publicly executed, illegally, it may be, but at least decently and in order. The Duke of York needed no guard jn the streets of Auckland and, as King, can walk freely among his people with no greater risk than arises from the pertinacity of the suffragettes. In Scandinavia, in Holland, in Germany, the same proof of tho national sentiment has been given for almost as many generations. Holland, indeed, ranks among her great heroes and martyrs the famous prince who was assassinated because he served her well. It is only when ivc leave the true North European lands and the British dominions that we enter territories where murder is asserted as a virtue and the assassination of rulers regarded as meritorious by any section of public opinion. From Portugal to Russia, in a great sweeping curve that includes Spain, France, Italy, Southern Austria, and the Balkans, is a zone where rulers carry their lives in their hands and the assassin is encouraged by a degenerate population. This is the zone of anarchy, the breeding-ground of the syndicalist movement , which holds exactly the same relationship to industrial organisation as anarchy holds to politics. In Portugal and Spain, in France and in Italy, in Servia, in Turkey and in Russia, anarchism has inspired political murders upon a scale never known in Northern Europe even during its most lawless times. In tho United States, where alien immigration has weakened the original racial harmony of the Republic, the political assassin has been similarly in evidence. ~ Briefly, wherever there is anarchism there is

a grievous weakening of the progressive fcroes of democracy and a reliance . upon murder and violence which estranges the sympathies, of all good citizens. -^

The unfortunate House of Austria, which has lost its heir-apparent and his wife at Bosnian Sarajevo, occupies a peculiar position among the dynasties of Europe. The British, Scandinavian, Dutch, and German monarchies bear constitutional rule over nations and peoples by who-n tho monarchical principle has been evolved, and whoso conception of progress and natural view of freedom and orderliness is based upon a general recognition of the advantage of hereditary chieftainship. The House of Austria, on the other hand, upholds the essentially Teutonic character of western civilisation among a horde of nations, peoples, principalities and tribes who are intensely anti-Teutonic in race and conceptions, Tho strength, of tho Hapsburg rule lies;in Austria, to which is politically combined under a common kingship that Hungary, which is so largely populated by Magyars of Asiatic origin. Austrian Poland in tho north-east and a dozen more or less nondescript states to the south make up the Austrian Empire, which with all its faults and mistakes has done and still does a very great work for Europe. In its enforcement of law and order upon lawless and disorderly peoples Austria has earned no more gratitude than British authority has earned in India. The unhappy wife of Francis Joseph, a sad and inoffensive lady, was assassinated in pursuance of the terroristic -policy of anarchism. Now we have tho Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife ruthlessly shot down in the Bosnian city, as a result of some plot which, whatever, may bo its ultimate aim, is similarly anarchistic in its methods. This is but part of the price paid by tho Hapsburgs for their leadership of tho dominant Teutonic element in the ancient empire. Even in tho heat of international rivalries and jealousies, we need not forget that Germans and British are antagonistic only because they desire the same thing and because our German cousins seek to oust us from the position. in the world we inherit from our fathors. Otherwise, the Anglo-Teutonic peoples arc almost identical in ideals and aspirations, western civilisation and modern democracy having its European strongholds wherever are spoken the various dialects of the High and Law Dutch, of whieh great parentspeech English is tho most notable dffshoot. We have much more in common with the Germans and with the German-Austrians than we have with the Russians, and have had enough experience of the" burden of Empire to understand and sympathise with the positiorr-of Austria in Central and Southern Europe. If the map of. Europe is examined it will be seen that Austria, led for many centuries by tho royal dynasty of the Hapsburgs, has raised between the civilised west and the barbaric east a great and hard-won barrier. If it had not been for Austria the Turk would have reached tho Rhino and tho Russian have reached the Adriatic, while even to-day nothing stems the westward movement of the Muscovite autocracy but the guarded frontiers of the Austrian Empire. Germany can look to herself. She is strong with tho strength of 65,000,000, mainly Teutonic, and is far more likely to advance eastward upon Russia than to lose German soil to the Tsar. The states over whom Austria has extended her sway are, on the contrary, weak and barbaric. Divided they cannot stand; united under Austrian rule they are at least far better governed than they could govern themselves and have been formed into a "buffer" between East and West. The seizure of Bosnia a few years ago did no injury to the Bosnians however much it may have incensed other European Powers and the murders at Sarajevo, if a retaliation for that seizure, only afford evidence that strong l government is needed in the Balkans. It is not necessary to approve all the tortuous moves to which Austria has been driven by the exigencies of her situation in order to sympathise with her unreservedly in the loss of her prince and princess.