West Coast Times. TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1906. TOPICS OF THE DAY.

West Coast Times, Issue 13856, 26 June 1906, Page 2

West Coast Times. TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1906. TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Mr John Foster Fraser, who ie well known bb a capable writer and a the BALKAN keen observer, haa pubCUAOB. lisheda book on the situation in the Near East, ontilled * Pictures from tho Balkans." Mr Foster Fraser has travelled through the troubled countries of tbe Bulhaaß,

and hih views of the pJstblou are decidedly itiloreting. He object* at odcb to the provalenfc Delief tbat the horrifying missacres recorded again and again are always or even generally tbe work of the Turks. "Most of the murdering now going on 13 by Christians of Christians," he says. '•The fact is, the whole of the Balkans ifl infested with rival Christian bands, which terrorise villages and convert them from j the Greek Church, to tbe Bulgarian Cburch, or from the Bulgarian Church to the Greek Church, at the dagger's point. The Turkish soldiers occasionally hunt these bands, and when they catch oue there is Borne quick killing. If^one must balance criminality, the weight of borrora now rests with the Graeks." The Turk, it has been said, is "thfi only gentleman in tbe Balkans," and Mr Frastr i Bno more blind to his good qualities than was the late vioorge Steevens. But the Turk lacks the faculty of ruling, and individually he is "colo^Hally corrupt." Mr Frasftr's predictions for the future are particularly inter. Pting. "That Bulgaria will, before loog, pick a quarrel with Turkey, there is no doubt," he says. "Greece will throw in her lot with Turkey and Servla will probably come to an arrangement with Bulgaria. The influence of France and England will succeed, possibly, in keeping off the interference oE tbe other Great Power?, though Turkey will assuredly have a financial ally in Germany. To imagine tbat Bulgaria— admirably, even supeibly equipped as she is — will march through Turkey is, in my opinion, a huge niistage. I cannot resist the con vie* ion, however, that in the end Bulgarian arms will prevail." Mr Fraaer ventures the further suggestion that it will be when Bulgaria requires the full fruits of her victory that a grave crisis for the peace of the whole of Europe will occur. Romania and the smaller States, like Montenegro, with no greater political ambition than to be left alone, will not remain silent onlookers, because they knoff that their ultimate fate will be absorption. They will naturally make a bid for supremacy, and so the whole Balkan Peninsula will be ablate.

A correspondent of the "Times of India"

who is travelling in Tibet TEAVBiLiNa gives an interesting acin tibet. count of bis experiences

in the high altitudes in March, before the winter bad passedLife at an elevation of 15.000 ft at such a season, he says, has its obvious drawbacks since at night the temperature is always below zero. The freezing point of water would have felt warm The Indian Government has arranged for tbe construction of shelter houses along tbe trade route to Gyangtse, and the correspondent and his three companions made use ef one which was in the course of construe* tion. The fireplace, according to the approved Tibetan fashion, had been built about the width of a boot sole, so that when the travellers wanted to thaw their feet they had to put one foot on top of another, and by this arrangement one man could warm bis two feet while a second thawed one of his. For fuel they had "argDl," a Mongolian word signifying yak dung. This substance occupies a very important place in the domestic economy of a Tibetan house, since withoub it the people could neither cook their food nor warm their dwellings. Argol, we are told, makes an excellent fire, red hot at its climax, but desperately smoky in the initial stages. The Tibetan is used to the smoke and breathes ib as appreciatingly as a cobbler takes snuff. But tbe European, before admitting to his room or tent the earthenware vessel or perforated bucket in which a fire is usually made, must allow it to stand in the wind nntil glowing, when all smoke ceases and considerable warmth is radiated. The currency Bystem in Tibet, says the correspondent, is greatly simplified by the fact that several of the commonest commodities are acoepted as legal tender for the settlement of accounts. Brick tea of standard qualities has a well recognised value, as has the frozen carcase of a sheep, a skinful of rancid butter, a roll of smelly cloth, ani a few other things. Prominent among these "other things," is argol, which is worth the equivalent of twenty shillings a ton. A countryman paying rent to his monastic proprietors, concludes the na rrative, thus arrives "Jaden with a collection of odorifics which in more sophisticated regions would procure him a month in goal."