THE SITUATION IN THE BALKANS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1649, 7 October 1903, Page 45

THE SITUATION IN THE BALKANS.

During the past seven or eight weeks our cablegrams have recorded a continuous series of atrocities perpetrated in the Balkans. Outrage, murder and general devastation have been rife in Macedonia. Racial and religious antipathies have fomented the strife. The Moslems in that region hate the Christ - Tans with a never-dying hatred; and tho Christians, who arc chiefly of the Bulgarian race, are by no means addicted to returning good for evil. Both parties have been aggressive, both have committed outrage and crime, and both are daily giving further manifestations of their capacity for the perpetration of ’ every form of enormity. Primarily the Turk is to blame. His misgoveniment in the Balkans has, incited discontent and rendered insurrection almost inevitable. The Macedonians have been oppressed by taxation and provoked by religious persecution. Turkey has been unequal to the task of governing a people who were ambitious to be as free as their friends and sympathisers, the Bulgarians ; ana the efforts made by “the Sick Man of Europe” to subdue the prevailing discontent have but succeeded in irulaming the populace to* riot. It could not be otherwise. The Sultan’s Government being weak was practically powerless to control the men sent to pacify the Macedonians, and the agents of Turkey but fanned the embers of insurrection into flame. The Christians of Macedonia were goaded on to rebellion by the oppression of their Moslem tax-gatherers; and in Sofia, tho capital of Bulgaria, a revolutionary committee lias been set up. What with outrage and intrigue, murder and massacre, the condition of Macedonia is alarming, and the situation is speedily approaching a state of general war. Half of the population of Macedonia is under arms, some seven hundred thousand Turkish soldiers are on the frontiers of Bulgaria., and the Sultan has just issued orders that all Bulgarians who are flocking to the assistance of the insurgents in Macedonia are to be shot if captured, with or without arms.

For the past six weeks the Turks have been gradually increasing the number of troops on the Bulgarian frontier, and while the atrocities have been continuing througnout Macedonia in all their cruelty, no serious attempt has been made to solve the difficult and complex problem. The political reasons for the non-interference, of the Powers are not expressed, and the diplomatists do.' not appear to be doing anything to abate the intensity of the hatred of both parties. Dynamite f° playing a powerful part in the hands of the Bulgarian insurgents, and both by fire and sword the Turks are devastating many Christian villages throughout the disaffected territory. Bulgaria has addressed the Powers m a memorandum setting forth that Turkey has closed schools and churches in Macedonia, terrorised and ruined the peasantry, tortured innocent people, collected taxes years' in advance, sent four thousand people to gaol and driven six thousand persons into Bulgaria. Since

this announcement was made, Moslem * f peasants have been murdered by Christians, insurgents have attacked and killed tho Turkish officials; bombs have been thrown into residences of private gentlemen, bridges and public buildings have been destroyed by dynamite; and the land is red with tho blood of thousands of Macedonians. Although there is no declared war, yet the number of slain in the innumerable conflicts is as great in a like period as the number killed in the South African war. The work of extermination by the Turks is proceeding apace, and tho Powers are evidently determined to permit Turkey to ‘‘settlei* Macedonia. The Russian and Austrian scheme for the peaceful government of the Balkans has failed, and while the Sultan would like the counsel and perhaps tho assurances of Western Europe that his efforts to restore peace in Macedonia would be supported, he is solicitous of Bulgarian neutrality. The Bulgarian Premier lias, however, intimated to tho Powers that unless Turkish excesses are restrained it will be difficult for Bulgaria t-o maintain a> neutral attitude in the face of popular indignation.

From the action of the Bulgarians it appears as if they wish Great Britain to interpose ner moral influence in the solution of the difficulty. During the requiem service at Sofia for the Macedonian dead, a procession numbering fifteen thousand persons stood for a moment in silence outside tho residence of tho British Agent to Bulgaria, and that token of respect is significant. Were so humane a minded man as the late Mr Gladstone in English politics to-day. Great Britain might ere this have interfered; but at the present time it is the conviction of the average Britisher that these petty States must settle their own differences, and it is not Britain's duty to act the part of a policeman in the Balkan States. Yet Great Britain cannot blink the possibilitv of a war between Russia and Turkey, with tho possible result of the former seizing possession of Constantinople. It does not require one trained in the diplomatic service to understand that Russia is ‘‘playing a game” of her own. While she is supplying the Macedonians with arms, she is robbing the Armenians in Asia Minor, plundering Thibet, and annexing territory in the Amur. It may be, therefore,, that the Russian Government is disturbing Eastern Europe in order to divert’attention from her depredations in the Far East. The astute Muscovite, in order to lessen the influence of Austria in the Balkan States, Bulgaria the go-between in the supply of munitions of war to Macedonians. Then the mobilisation of the Turkish army on the borders of Bulgaria is not viewed with equanimity, and it is possible that Bulgaria may throw, her entire forces, which are considerable, against the Sultan’s troops. A war between Turkey and Bulgaria,' the latter being aided by the Macedonians, might involve both Austria and Russia in the conflict; and then the other Powers would be compelled in their own interests to ultimately interfere. Jn the meantime the Powers are appealed to, to support the Austro-Russian proposals to mitigate the evils of Turkish rule in Macedonia. Bulgaria is massing her army, and the Premier, General Petroff, has declared that the hour will soon arrive when the people will imperatively demand war with Turkey. War maybe averted for the present, but unless the excesses of Turkish rule in the Balkans are abated and a larger measure of self-government granted to Macedonians, the revolutionary fires cannot be quenched. *