CITY RISES FROM ITS ASHES

Taranaki Daily News, 14 January 1931, Page 9

CITY RISES FROM ITS ASHES

VALUE OF REFUGEE LABOUR. WEALTH TO SALONIKA. Salonika dominated its battle-line during the war as no other town ever did. Places like Arras and Verdun never gave a name to anything, more than a sector. Salonika was different. Parts of its front were Doiran or vaguely Balkan; but it took, its name from the base, writes a special correspondent of the Daily Express. As elsewhere the trim cemeteries hold almost the only remains, of war days. Houses have been Rebuilt, land brought back into cultivation, even the malarial swamps are being conquered by modern science. -Salonika, however, still bears a scar. It is not due to any bombardment, but to the terrible fire which destroyed the centre of the town m I®l7. ■ . „ ’ The causes remain mysterious. Buolic opinion ascribes the destruction, to the French, but whatever, the beginning, no doubt remains of this fire’s disastrous effect. From the hills to the sea, Salonika burned, as fiercely as . Cork or Smyrna was to burn a few years New hotels and business premises have now 'been rebuilt; but smaller.enterprises are poor in Greece, so that waste ground and scrap iron blotch even the main street from the front to the Government building above the city. Riches and poverty jostle each otheu more than in most places. On. the one hand, there are the villas and offices of the new great Greece, near by are the houses hastily built for the refugees who fled from Asia Minor before a vic-: torious Turkish army. They are poor enough, these refugees. But up and down Macedonia they are growing tobacco and making carpets, which are not only enriching themselves, but are making Greece a wealthier country than it has ever been before. Turkey’s monopoly in age-long methods has shifted across the sea with these refugees, and Greece stands to gain, as Ulster did from the. Huguenot linen-workers 'whom the bigotry of a French king lost to France. Meanwhile, all round life goes - on much as it must have done in the times of Alexander. Horses wear, blue beads to protect them from the evil eye; Jews wear their own dress to distinguish them from Christians. All the minarets but one have been pulled down, and the mosques converted again to churches. In that of the Twelve Apostles the figures of Christ and His saints lack eyes; they were mutilated by the Moslems. Over the west door of St. Sophia black letters mark the date when it passed into Turkish hands; gold when the Greeks brought redemption. But there is no fanaticism here, for Greece alone among Balkan countries has no minority problem. The Turks have been sent into Thrace and Asia Minor to take the place of Greek refugees. The Jews, too, have for the most part gone, as the newcomers have even better heads for money than themselves. Pure-blooded inhabitants, however, will not save Salonika from a medley appearance. The old and the new are confused. In the middle of the main streets the modern Greek policeman stands on a raised platform. State prisoners are housed in a feudal castle; horse-cabs appear to outnumber taxi-cabs on the ranks; but Billie Dove is on the movies, and electric signs make it clear that every important hotel has an American bar.