THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. MONDAY, 15th DECEMBER, 1902. THE TROUBLES IN MACEDONIA.

Southland Times, Issue 18019, 15 December 1902, Page 2

THE Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. MONDAY, 15th DECEMBER, 1902. THE TROUBLES IN MACEDONIA.

There is much turbulence in Macedonia at the present time, and it seems also to be on the increase. Deeds of violence and atrocities are rife, for which we need look for no other cause than the chronic misrule and inhumanity of the Turk. The intensity of the excitement is sufficiently perceptible, though no definite information can be obtained as to the extent of the sufferings and slaughters and misdeeds that are being perpetrated throughout the land. Whatever the extent, there can be no doubt that they are being enacted, and on a considerable scale. The Macedonians have been long yearning for the same freedom that has been accorded to those of the same religion and race with them in Bulgaria. They are striving to get rid of the incubus of the Turkish yoke, and have been cherishing the hope that, with the Bulgarians to help, if they made a strong effort in this direction the Czar of Russia would not suffer them to be trampled back again under the foot of the merciless followers of the Prophet. The Czar is the father of the Greek church, and the great Chief of the Slavonic rase. To him the Bulgarians owe their freedom, and if the Czar had had his way all the Slavs in the Peninsula would have been freed from Turkish rule in 1876, when he could have dictated terms to the Sultan, if the Berlin Conference had let him. The Bulgarians would like, well that Macedonia were joined with them, and a considerable party of them have been concerting measures and encouraging their southern neighbours in then conspiracy against the domination of the Sultan. There have been numerous collisions and outbreaks. The Turkish soldiers are on the watch in every corner, and the gaols are filled throughout the whole of Macedonia with Christian subjects of the Porte, and treated with all the savagery the Turks know how to use. The gaols are in many cases fresh editions of the Black Hole of Calcutta. Men, women and children are huddled together under some unproved charges of conspiracy and subjected to the most infamous barbarity, torture in all horrible forms of it being applied to make them confess. One woman who was encienis died under the treatment. It is said some lawless bands of Bulgarians have been making matters worse by making raids across the Turkish frontier for the mere sake of plunder. For this the Turks find excuse for making sanguinary retaliations. The latest telegrams give us an illustration of the methods the gentle Turk can adopt. A priest in whose house they said there had been a meeting of conspirators was seized, his beard and hair were plucked out, after whjch he was tortured to death with red-hot irons. They seem still as destitute of the better feelings of our nature as their ancestors were hundreds of years ago, when a notable leader of them could boast of having reared a pyramid of 70,000 human seulls, no age or sex being spared. The unhappy Christian subjects of the Sultan are ruled as it may I please the officials and subordinates of the Sultan, judges, magistrates, etc., who are all Mohammedans, and Mohammedans regard the whole brood of Christans as the hateful children of Satanas whom Allah has consigned to perdition. All Macedonia and Albania are in a state of disaffection and rebelliousness which the Sultan’s methods of supression are not calculated to change ’for the better. The effect, as might be expected, is of the very opposite kind. Russia is naturally very much dissatisfied, though she cannot take any overt action without exciting the jealousy of all Europe. She has got Austria to join her in pressing on the Sultan a reform - of his administration. Germany, too, has at length joined in, though she looked on and stood aloof for a long time, the Kaiser apparently being unwilling to do anything that might be irritating to his friend, the Sultan, within whose dominions in Asia he hopes to realise substantial benefits to the Fatherland. What the intercession of these three potentates may effect remains to be seen. Any reform the Sultan may pledge himself to accomplish will at best be but a small instalment in the form of promise of the reformation required, and is scarcely likely to allay the agitation. The present move may end perhaps'in disaffeoteiJ

district under the terms of the Berlin Treaty. The Kaiser has evidently been apprehensive of either the Emperor Joseph or the Czar getting an undue advantage, and has come along to be in at whatever settlement may finally be found practicable. Austria would like well to stretch down to the sea in that direction, while the Czar would desire a union with Bulgaria and .his own influence in the Peninsula extended. It seems a pitiful matter that such a huge social gangrene as Turkish rule should be allowed to continue at this time of day and be as villainous as of old both in Europe and Asia, and all Europe looking on, afraid seemingly lest in touching it they should fall foul of one another and bring bigger disasters. With this menace in front of them they deferred .from one generation to another to deal with the Turkish situation on its merits, and so the dismal anachronism of Moslem rule continues unbridled and free, and with results that make the world shudder at intervals. Nothing comes of this shuddering, however, except it be the smile of the Moslem over bis pipe of peace. One would imagine that the welfare of the peoples under the unfortunate sway of the Turk might and should be considered apart from the supposed interest and obtrusive pretentions of neighbouring States, and that the ■Hague Court of Arbitration might be a fitting tribunal to which a settlement might be referred—a tribunal that would take Turkish rights into account and from whose decision the Turk should have no appeal. It is to be hoped that the growing sense of justice and mercy will ere long put an end to Turkish atrocities, even if that cannot be done without making an end of the Turk.