EUROPE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 8, 24 February 1909, Page 8

EUROPE.

A Hideous Crime. Thirty-one “Jack the Ripper” outrages upon women have now taken place in Berlin. The perpetrator of one outrage was caught in the act on Thursday.

An army of detectives is patrolling th* city, and 50 arrests have been made. AU have been released, however, on proving alibis. The police suggest that women and children should carry small parcels of flour to throw over their assailants to enable them to be quickly identified. They ascribe the outrages to a gang of criminals acting for- sport in mockery of the authorities. Turkish Army and Politics. Rifaat Pasha, Turkish Ambassador in London, at first declined, but later accepted the portfolio of Foreign Affairs in the new Cabinet. Nazin Bey refused to return to his former command or accept another post, objecting to the army’s participation in polities before Kiamil Pasha’s defeat. Army officers lobbied members while the resignation of the ex-Grand Vizier was pending. “In spite of the existence of a Turkish Parliament,” says “The Spectator,” In an article on the Committee of Union and Progress, “the veil is not yet lifted from before the mysterious committee which has directed one of the most romantic revolutions in history. A revolutionary transition from autocracy to constitutionalism postulates a period of nonlegality ; but when the transition is accomplished, one would expect that those who were the temporary and irregular depositories of power —very admirable depositories. as it happened, in this case—would regularise their position. It may be that the Committee of Union and Progress means to do this as soon as possible, and we should be the last to urge that, if there are serious obstacles in the way, constitutional theory in a country where constitutionalism is little understood should be made a fetish, and that both convenience and expediency should bow down to it. But the news from Turkey does not give a scrap of evidence as to what the function of the committee is to be in future; the committee remains all-powerful, and exists side by side with an elected Chamber, and yet no man outside its inner circles knows how it moves and has its being. This is a great mystery. While we acknowledge oiie excellent side to the picture (nobody can-accuse of personal ambition men who are content to work anonymously and subterraneously), there is also a great danger. The committee is at present thoroughly beneficent, and benaves with every manifestation of high-minded responsibility; but the membership may change, and may even change rapidly, and therefore every well-wisher of the new regime would desire to see the theory of tire committee defined, or, best and most logical of all, the committee merged in the Ministry. It did its work splendidly, but the era it strove to create has arrived; the short period of irregularity is over; the committee should take on a new function, compatible with the new circumstances, or should become an honourable memory. . . . We must confess that the deep, continued mystery which shrouds the committee stands, to our thinking, for the complexity of the task before the new Turkey.” Desperate Anarchist. A Russian anarchist named Seiliger shot and killed two police officers who endeavoured to arrest him at his lodgings in Ghent. Seiliger had manufactured a bomls which he intended to explode at the residence of the Belgian Minister for the Colonies, M. Renkin. Austria's Ultimatum. Unconfirmed reports have been received to the effect that Austria has presented an ultimatum to Servia concerning the annexation Of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Tho Russian Press and people are growing bellicose owing to Austria’s) action in the matter. The death occurred last week of the Grand Duke Vladmir (uncle of the Czar) from asthma, in his 62nd year. The Kaiser has sent the German Ambassador in Paris his warm thanks for concluding the Morocco Treaty, which, he states, rendered King Edward’s visit more cordial. A bill has been passed through the Reichstag increasing the North German Lloyd subsidy ty £13,500 on condition that the freight charges do not exceed 20 marks for the services to Australia, New Guinea, Hongkong, and Singapore*