AFFAIRS IN MACEDONIA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9142, 18 July 1908, Page 5

AFFAIRS IN MACEDONIA.

EXTRAORDINARY UNREST. Received July 17, 9.7 p.m. CONSTANTINOPLE, July 17._ There it; extraordinary unrest in Macedonia. Major Marzibey, and many other officers of the Young Turkey Party have quitted their posts at Resna, and have recruited armed adherents at Okhrida and Fiorina. They have demanded a national assembly. Several garrisons, owing to not having received their discharges upon the expiry of their terms of service, have mutinied. A battalion which recently assassinated General Shemsi, refused to march against their Resna comrades after General Shemsi's death. The Albanians, many of whom also demand the constitution, are being expelled by Turkish authorities from the Liuma, Ferigovito and Egristina districts. An Albanian shot and wounded General Tadik Pasha in the neck aboard the Messageries steamer Sidon, on the voyage to Salonika. When passing the Dardanelles he was arrested arid handed over to the Turkish authorities. ♦ ST. PETERSBURG, July 17. According to the newspaper "Novoe Vremya," the Sultan, fearing that Great Biitain's aim is the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, is negotiating for entry into the Iriple Alliance.

It is when we turn to ths general condition of Macedonia that the outlook is dark indeed, writes the London "Times." Consul-General Lamb declares that, if the work of the L Financial Commission and of the Gendarmerie be put aside, a report on Macedonia for 1907 must be little 'more than a record cf outrage and assassinntinn, of armed conflicts between the troops and the population, or between various sections of the population itself.' It is lamentable that the monthly reports for January, February, and March of the present year prove that this 1 terrible picture is becoming blacker. The number of murdevs is far hierher for the firs'", three months of 19C8 even than for the first three in.mills of 1907. The statistics of systematic assassination which these papers contain are appalling. In 1907 no fewer than 1763 persons lost their lives through viok nee, and most of them through murder. The Bulgarians killed 521 persons, of whom 120 were their brother tJukarians, and 184 Greeks, and Patriarchists. The Patriarchists killed 392 person?, of whom 320 were Bulgaria-is, an J the troops killed 417 armed insurgents, of who 236 were Bulgarians and eighty-nine Greeks. In the earlier months of last year the Gretk bands were the most active in butchery. In May they were credited with murdering 45 persons, of whom 35 were Bulgarians and seven Vlachs. It as not until June that the Bulgarians began to surpass their rivals. Then the Turkish authorities seem to have made up their minds that they had allowed their Christian subjects to slaughter eoch v other sufficiently for the time being. They intervened, and intervened with impartiality, and with effect, shooting down Greeks, j Bulgarians, and Servians, without distinction. Things improved forthwith. .In the next two months the Greeks committed only eighteen murders, and Mr Lamb is of opinion that had the Turks continued to act in August as they had acted ir. July the evil of the bands might have been effectually stayed for some time.