THE COLONIST. Published Every Morning. Thursday, December 10, 1908. THE POSITION IN SOUTHERN EUROPE.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12421, 10 December 1908, Page 2

THE COLONIST. Published Every Morning. Thursday, December 10, 1908. THE POSITION IN SOUTHERN EUROPE.

■TfHE news, from the theatre of .the present disturbance in South; Eastern Europe is becoming less > reassuring. The bright prospects of ; a peaceful and lasting settlement of the differences between Austria and Turkey, with the many avenues of general disagreement they opened up, which caused a, . temporary quietening- a few weeks ago,.:are now fast.. fading, and the acirfce; phase -assumed^by the 'differences' between Austria and .Turkey make the- situation as unstable as it has been at any time throughout-the negotiations. And . while the relations of the several neighbouring ■;: and the interested ; Powers -have, riot become less strained by the, ? <3e2ayy the. chances of holding a sucrcessfnl :■ European ■ conference are be"coming less. '..' Austria from the first has been against, the project, and her .ally, Germany, has passively ■support■ed; her ' resistance, to the representations of Britain,''. France and Russia. It is evident that from a conference of the ,i Powers. to which Austria and (Jermany Were unwilling parties, very little could be hoped for in the way of a - permanent : peaceful settlement of the presenti.widespread complications. Inl the meantime is adopting -a -very hostile attitude towards Servia, and her parade of " "military strength in^- the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegoyina, despite warnings from abroad* has a very sinister' aspect. ? !A. well known Rus-i---\wsxi.."■'.;...publicist, M. V. E,. Savitoh gaye' a representative of the London "Daily Telegraph" recently an interesting review _of the long standing feud between Austria and Servia, and the leading part the ; provinces have played ~ in it. Austria's policy, he remarked, has always been to stop ithe federation of Servia and Bosnia-; Herzegovina and of the Serbs generally,; by snapping all .^^^ of friend^ ship and commerce between -them. Thoroughly: to. understand this, one -has -to look it the constituency of Austria-Hungary herself. Hungary

is opposed to Hungarians, Roumanians, Germans, Slovaks, Croatians, and Servians. Of the last named there aro over a million in Hungary alone. The Servian nation, in fact, consists of ten million souls, ruled by no less than eight different ■ political States. There are, that is to say, the two independent States of Servia and Montenegro. There are the Servians in Turkey, th« Servians in Bosnia and Herzegovina, those in South Hungary, those in Dalmatia, and finally, those, in Slavonia and Croatia. Among these people there has been going on for man yyears past a strong natural movement' towards unity. • The Duscan tradition has ""been awakened in the people. Nor is the impulse confined to those outside Austria-Hungary. It has to be remembered that ;the Servians within the. dominion- of, T the Emperor Francis Joseph are numerically only second in strength. They: are probably as affected as the rest. Servian autonomy is the object of all. The Austrian Emperor knows quite; well that the only way tq prevent this natural ' fusion and to maintain his status is to emphasise as much, as possible the existing political divisions. But his power over the various provinces and heterogeneous peoples has been, weakening for years. To maintain/. her hold.on Bosnia. and Herzegovina .since occupation of these territories under the Treaty of Berlin, Austria has had to keep up an; occupation army of 290^000 men. To prevent the conjunction of Servia and Stontenegro the ,r neutral strip ""of territory called the Sandjak of Novibazar has, . under the Berlin Treaty, been strongly garrisoned. A sense of insurrection possesses both the Bosnians, and r thejatHerzegoyinians, and it has more than once broken out into, open revolt, in recent years, while many Servian political leaders have been charged- with, and tried for, high treason. It is under these conditions and for "these reasons that the Austrian Emperor, has taken the step of formally annexing the provinces— to tighten his hold on them. Asked how many Servians there are in Bosnia and Herzegovina, M. Savitch said the population was to-day about 1,700,000 persons. Analysing this census by the customary religious test, of the total 750,000 ■were Orthodox — that was the same as Servians— sso,ooo were Mussulmans, and 350,000 Catholics. . But the Mussalmans were pure Servians, who adopted' the Mussulman religion in the fifteenth century. They spoke the purest Servian, they sang Servian songs, and were animated with Servian patriotism.