NEW CONSTITUTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20970, 5 September 1931, Page 11

NEW CONSTITUTION.

KING ALEXANDER'S DECREE. PARLIAMENT FOR YUGOSLAVIA. BELGRADE, Sept. 3. King Alexander of Yugoslavia has promulgated a new Constitution which provides for the return to a Parliamentary regime. The Coalition Government under Father Koroshetz resigned in Decembex - , 1928, after much turmoil in Parliament, and on January 6 the King published a proclamation in which he said " the hour has come when there can no longer be any intermediary between the King and his people. The confidence of the nation in the Skupshtina (Parliament) has been undermined. I have therefore determined that the Constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes of June 28, 1921, is no longer in force. All the laws of the country will remain in force unless suppressed by my decree. New laws will be promulgated in the same manner." The King then appointed a Cabinet directly responsible to himself. The King, who appointed General Zhivkovitch as his principal Minister, announced his determination to exclude the political parties, which were based on national race differences, from the administration of the State. Ministers would be in the Government as individuals, not as representing any local political or religious groups. The policy of the new regime was eminently peaceable, and even toward Bulgaria it was conciliatory.