THE ALBANIAN QUESTION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 11883, 20 January 1914, Page 3

THE ALBANIAN QUESTION.

(Specially written for the Wairarapa Daily Times by John Zavitchauos, representative of the National Creek Society, Hellcnismos.)

Those who may think that the Balkan troubles lmye been ended, at present at least, are entirely mistaken. There are so many political and racial matters still unsettled which not only may create another war iii the Balkans at any moment, but may also drag some of the great European Powers into it. One of them is the knotty and unloosable Albanian question, which at present occupies Europe's attention. But according to Essad Pasha's (the gallant defender of Jauiua) own words while a prisoner of war in Athcus, of Greece: "independent Albania cannot exist." Albania is.a mountainous country with a coast of about three hundred' miles in the Southern Adriatic, and though only 'within a radius of two hundred miles from the civilised world, is as unknown to Europeans as the JNorth. Pole. Albania is populated by a peculiar semi-savage race, who claim to be the descendants of PyTos, the warrior who invaded Greece in tho fourth century B.C. Their chief occupation is war-making and looting. Albanians are bom warriors, living in a country where justice is an unknown word, and where everybody takes the law into his own hands. The stronger wins, and may remain the winner until the loser's descendants avenge themselves upon the former winners by sheddnig blood. Blood for blood. That is the Albanian unwritten law. All offences must be washed out by bloodshedding, and the .sacred will of the dying Albanian to his children is that the family's enemies must be wiped from tho face of the earth. Hence the everlasting guerilla warfare between families and villages.

Albanians belong to the Ottoman, Roman Catholic, and Greek Orthodox religions, speaking a language of their own, without grammar, and if there? is a letter written (which very .seldom happens) the writer has to use the Turkish, Latin, Greek or Slavic alphabet, according to his knowledge, while the receiver in ninety-nine cases out of one hundred travels back to the writer asking him to road the letter for him. Tho moral code in Albania is very strict. Even a smile from a man to a woman very often moans death. Marriages are almost always arranged by the parents of the concerned parties, and almost in every case the brido and bridegroom moot each other for the first time on their wedding day.

Albanians are very fond of their country, and seldom migrate. When they do they mostly go to Greece, where they are employed on the farms and tit bush-cutting. They do not like education, and tho progress of a Catholic mission there towards the object of educating the people was very slow. It is not safe to travel in Albania without a strong escort, for the mountains are full of brigands awaiting victims, while it would be a very foolish captain who would drop anchor in any isolated Albanian port. As a matter of fact, vessels traversing the Albanian coast within rille range of the shore have their sides and sails riddled with bullets "just for the fun of the thing."

It has been stated that an independent Albania is proposed. As a matter of fact the Albanians always were, and still are, independent. They never pay any taxes to the Turkish Government, and if they serve in the Turkish army they do so as paid volunteers. Many of them occupy the highest positions in the Turkish army and civil service, and the Sultan's bodyguard consists of picked Albanians. It is therefore ridiculous for the Powers to seriously think of granting independence to such a semi-savage country. It would be a thousand times better if the Powers would guide Albanians into civilisation (irst, which would require more than a hundred years from now, .and that under a masterful pan-Euro-pean Commission, with support from the Great Powers. But it is not Albania who is crying for independence. There is somebody else behind the curtain, and that is Austria, whose little game is to let independence lie granted to Albania for a few years, while Austrian money shall buy and corrupt some of the Albanian leaders. A revolution would then be started, ami Austrian protection asked and given, and thus Austria would make up in the Adriatic for what she lost in the Aegean Sea by the annexation of Salonica and the Macedonian coast by the Greeks.