ALBANIA AS NATION

Taranaki Daily News, 11 February 1933, Page 9

ALBANIA AS NATION

TWENTY YEARS’ FREEDOM. ■■ . : / A NEW REVOLUTION. Albania, Europe’s youngest and smallest kingdom, is celebrating 29 years* freedom. The monarchic Government of King Zog is not nearly that old, but it was 20 years ago, on the afternoon of November 28, 1912, that Albania declared its independence of Turkey, says the San Francisco Chronicle.

That was during the first Balkan war. Since then, Albania has been through a World? War and half a dozen revolutions. In those sarqe 20 years the country has been successively a principality, a republic apd a kingdom, while its leading personality, Boz, Jias functioned successively as Minister of the Interior, Prime Minister, Commander in Chief, President of the Republic, and King. Settled conditions have existed for hardly seven years, and most of the constructive work done in the new Albania has been accomplished since 1927. To-day another revolution, noisy hut none the less peaceful, is afoot. Armed with the clattering implements of construction, the “sons of the eaglfe”— aS citizens of this mountainous land call themselves—are transforming their country from a purely picturesque region into a modem State.

Anyone’• coming from countries where building seems to have ceased is be» wildered by the number of new public and private structures. And the racket of building has a volume that makes “building boom” sound like a weak phrase. • ’ ' . New schools, new hospitals, new barracks, new Government buildings, new business blocks-, new factories, new harbour facilities, new homes, new- highways, new bridges, new pavements, new foreign legations, new residential subdivisions,’ new everything. > 1 Many an American municipality would be glad to have Tirana’s new 250-bed hospital, with operating rooms, and Xray department that are the last word . from Berlin. * More than one State would be glad to have the model agricultural school that the Near East Foundation 1 is building’at Kavaia. ■•Even where -buildings are newest, of course, one .sees glaring contrasts between the modernity of the architecture and the tenacity of old babits and customs. For instance, the shiny front of. a new school, and nearby a girl of kindergarten age struggling along undent,a! , heavy load of wood. But the Albanians themselves are the first to say: “Only a beginning has been made. Give us time.”