KING ONLY A PRIVATE PERSON

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23278, 14 August 1945, Page 6

KING ONLY A PRIVATE PERSON

Broz-Tito’s Claim (Rec. 7.30 p.m.) BELGRADE. Aug. 12. Marshal Broz-Tito told the Press that King Peter’s statement criticising the Government was not important. He described King Peter as only a private person with no right to relieve the Regents of their duties. He who tills the land should own it, is the basic principle of the agrarian reform law wnich tne Legislative Committee of the Yugoslav Parliament accepted to-day, says Renter's Belgrade correspondent. No farmer under this draft will be allowed to own more than 220 acres. Absentee landlords will be deprived without compensation of all but 12 acres. The State will retain certain land for experimental farms and for the improvement of bloodstock and the cultivation of seeds. In his statement referred m by Marshal Broz-Tito, King Peter claimed that in Yugoslavia existed a full-scale dictatorship of the Tito regime. He added: "I consider that the Regents have not been allowed to perform my constitutional duties. They have overlooked the oaths and obligation given to men. and I hereby proclaim that they can no longer represent me or work In my name. I therefore have decided to withdraw the authority I have given them I cannot give personal sanction to State affairs abhorrent to me. The duty of defending the people's constitutional rights reverts to me from now."