MINDING THE BALKAN POT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23748, 30 August 1940, Page 8

MINDING THE BALKAN POT

Fearful lest the Balkan- pot boil over in spite of all their efforts to impose order in the witch's kitchen of Europe, the Foreign Ministers of Germany and Italy have hastened to Vienna in an endeavour to decide the questions at issue between Hungary and Rumania. The lovely land of Transylvania is the bone of contention, a prized province lost by Hungary to Rumania after the last war. The predominant element in a mixed population of about 5,000,000 is Rumanian, but Bucharest's strong ethnic claim is compromised by the long settlement in Transylvania of 1,500,000 Hungarians. , A further complication is introduced by German colonies numbering about 250,000, also of old establishment. The distribution of these minorities is so wide that no partition on purely racial grounds is possible, although a narrow fringe on the western boundary of the province might with justice be returned to Hungary. Such an award would not settle the future of a solid Hungarian bloc at the opposite end of the province, nor dispose of the German pockets scattered over the land. No doubt the distracting nature of the problem explains the deadlock that has arisen between Budapest and Bucharest, in spite of Axis orders to settle. So now Ribbentrop and Ciano have proceeded to Vienna to cut the gordian knot, a business they would have preferred to avoid because they are bound to offend at least one of the principals, and maybe both, and cannot hope to gain any credit. And wherever the new frontier is drawn, one minority problem can be relieved only by aggravating the other. Such questions of justice will certainly not trouble the Axis arbitrators, their immediate aim being to damp down Balkan fires, but for all their care they may yet be faced with a conflagration most inconvenient to them at this moment.