1941-04-18 — Page 4

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April 18, 1941.

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RUSSELL. Margaret Jane, passed peacefully away at "The Hermi- tage." Hongkong, at 3 nm.

April

18, 3011. The Funeral will take place at the Colonial Cemetery to-morrow, the corlege passing the Monument at 5 p.m.

The

Hongkong Telegraph.

Friday, April 18, 1941,

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Telephone: 20815

THE prefix "Special to the Telegraph i used by the "longkong Telegraph to indicate nows which is strictly copyright

under the provisions of the Telecommuni• cations Ordinanca, 1936. Such EWI AS

longkang on the date of publication by the United Frers Associations, who re- serve all rights and forbid republications, either wholly or in pars without previous Arrangement.

bears the Indication "UP" is received in

Concluding: HOW WILL HITLER FALL ?

THE new Europe will fail up-

T

less it solves the riddle of the Balkans.

It is true that in one sense the Balkans are not, and have never been, a part of Europe. They

| suffered in every great onslaught

of the Asiatic tribesmen.

ern,

RIDDLE

of the BALKANS

By GEORGE SLOCOMBE

den aggression of Mussolini if

In this Greco-Turk reconciliation may be found the gorm of a settle- iment of all the Balkan troubles, per- hops of all the troubles of Europe.

Yet one of these States was, ́· in theory, an autocratic State; and the other a State fluctuating painfully between periods of democracy and periods of semi-autocracy.

Evidently, democracy alone is not to be the fundamental basis of any immediate charter for the Balkans. Not, that is, democracy as the French know it, and as we used to under- stand it in Great Britain.

They were on that unhappy borderland where two civilisa- tions met, and although what we now call Western civilisation hnd its origins in the most

(The Famous Foreign Correspondent)

The truth would seem to be that southerly tip of the Balkans

democracy can only flourish at a cer-- peninsula, it was not the West-

the against Greece, as Germany and Italy tain stage of political development but the Eastern, spirit Greeks had not been led by the had against France.

and of political education. Super- ^. which eventually triumphed. It authoritarian Metaxaa?

If the Greek Press In November ficial culture alone does not encour- used to be said that Europe ends I discussed this question with the hud accepted bribes from Fascism as age its growth-as witness Germany, at Vienna. But that was before Greek Minister in London, M. Simo- the French Press did from Nazism the Germany of the Kaiser, of the poulos. The son of a famous Greck earlier, publle opinion might have welmar Republic, or of the Third the Nazis came.

schofer and the nephew of a famous been undermined and confused, and Reich, Minister of Finance, M. Simopoulos Mussolini might have enjoyed a is n veteran in diplomacy. He has walkover in Greece. served his country in many capitals He counted on this. But he did emerged from a long period of on- and under many, different Govern- not count on General Metaxas. In slavement to the Ottoman Empire, the eyes of the democrats in pre- and later subject to the domination

Since the middle of the nine- | teenth century the Balkans have been the jousting-ground of Big Power politics.

Russia and Austria, Germany and Italy used Serb and Bulgar, Greek and Turk as pawns in a vast, cynical and occasionally murderous game of grab.

To Germany the Balkan penin-

ments.

In the Balkans, a

peninsula of small agricultural States but recently

He was in London when the two Hitlerian Germany, and in pre-Pelain of one Great Power after another, most important events occurred in France, Metaxas would be considered pence, prosperity and orderly govern- recent history, before the war with a rank reactionary.

ment may have to be ensured for some years to come by a messure of Italy-the restoration of King George to the Greek throne-in 1935 and the advent of General Metaxas to power In 1930,

sula was the jumping-off place. Hour And The Man

for her long-contemplated march into Asia. Russia kept a covet- ous eye on Constantinople and the Straits.

Birth-Pangs

more

France and England tried to bribe the Sultan into submission with loans, while the astute Germans played the bolder card of revolution, and put the Young Turks in power, Greece and Bulgaria were the objects of Victorian England's sentimental admiration, but English Liberals did not protest when a descendant of the Bour- bons was crowned in Sofia as Tsar of the Bulgarians.

have witnessed the

Co-operation

But this reactionery, for all his ap- autocratle power. parent suppression of democracy in Greece, saved the liberty and inde- pendence of his country. He suc- ceeded in uniting and stabilising his country. In war as in peuer.

Tile protection of the big Powers -Russia or Great Britain-is no

1. Simopoulos explained to me the circumstances in which Metaxas was of the Greek Anthology: "He died,

And he deserves an epitaph worthy solution of the problem.

railed to office. The country was but his country lived."

When the Balkan peoples have divided into two almost equally

learned to depend solely upon them- Even powerful factions.

the pre-war record of selves. they will have learned the Metaxas compares favourably with

.'

years of illusory European reconcilia- tion and appeasement there were re- pented attemptą to organise the Bul- kan States Into an entente for mutuni

The elections held after King that of some of the so-called demus lesson of collective resistance against George's restoration, under conditions cratic statesmen in the Balkans and aggression from without. During the of freedom and order rarely wit- In other countries. nessed in Greece, divided the seats in Parliament between the two prin- elpal Parties, but gave the final power to the Communist minority, which with its 14 seats. could put either Party in office.

mertzis.

Metaxas's Work

He dealt drastically and success- protection, fully with urgent sacial problema, He introduced minimum wages, com-

But

always that entente Was

The King, therefore, decided the pulsory arbitration of labour dis- weakened by the abstention of a Issue by appealing to a Government putes, collective labour contracts, country, like Bulgarla, directly in- of non-party men, headed by a uni- accident and health insurance, old age fluenced or dominated by an aggres-- versity professor, the late M. Do- pensions,

sive Power, or the doubiful participa- tion of an Ile remitted 30 per cent of the Rumania, fearful of the designs of the unstable State ilke When this man died, his Vice- debts of the peasants, spent Govern- neighbours whose territory it had Premier, General Metaxas, succeeded ment money on child welfare, started acquired, him. Metaxas then governed Greece a national campaign against malaria with a mild, even-handed, but never- and tuberculosis, built hospitals, and theless autocratle hand.

reclaimed pestilential marshlands.

Federation?

Since the end of the war of 1914- 1918 the Balkans have become a blue-print of democracy in its birth pangs. They

· Let us not.blink the fact. The And all this in a small country This war may clarify that, always coming and the going of all varieties of parliamentary government.

valiant Greece of to-day, the Greece which since the last war had had to disquieting condition of things. If one man against find land and employment und homes only it removes the Balkana from two Balkan countries with the least Italians across the frontier, which quarter of its population, the refugee If only it persundes the Balkan States In Jugoslavia and Rumania, the Mussolini, which threw back the for a million and half people, the Great Powers' sphere of influence, homogeneous population; Parliament pursued on immensely superior army Inheritance of the

war to persist in the way of federation. has never been more than a fiction, into Albania, which is still indicting with the Turks. It has served as the stage for mutual defeat after defeat on Mussolini's

which rosc

STIFF UPPER LIP

THERE is no doubt that many English people are now remembering with pride that their gallant leader promised them blood, tears, toil and sweat along the first arduous laps to' victory. The reversals in Libyn and the Balkans, superficial as they may prove to be, are a timely reminder that the Nazi lund forces are a most formid-recriminations and revolver-duels mechanised and highly-disciplined Disastrous, but in the long run lave contained the germs of Great nble fighting machine-not at all

between rival parties and national army, is not, according to our British beneficial. Because out of this war Power disputes.

ideas, a democracy,

came the reconciliation between two to be compared with the Italian groups, but it has never ruled.

hereditary enemies, the end of an War in Europe was narrowly Not even in the time of the Liberal But they were united against out- age-long feud.

averted in 1912 as a result of the Bratianus could it be said that the side enemies.

Balkan wars. In 1914, the long- Rumanians enjoyed parliamentary

There is nothing in the history of threatened conflagration was touched representation. And since then....

Europe so remarkable as the settle- off by a Balkan incident. ment of the dispute between the

army.

Bulgaria, under the

་

stout and

Miscalculations

disastrous

For a hundred years the Balkans

Greeks and the Turks. It was enter- It may be that in this long-disputed the ed into voluntarily; each side matte region of Europe the basis will be

bulisky, had a short experience of weapons swarthy peasant Premier, Stam- Italy had for years exerted democracy, But Stambulisky was political corruption and Press bribery kept the contract made.

of economic penetration, concessions; each side has honestly found of a larger European federa- murdered by his political opponents.

There is little doubt but that the war is going on for a long time yet and the peoples assem- bled together under the Union Jack against Germany and Italy are prepared grimly to suffer whatever reverses the. future may hold for them on land, sen and in the air. It is gratifying power, and after him a long series The dictator, Tankoff, came into to reflect that whatever casual- of more or less arbitrary statesmen. ties we sustain, the enemy pays Only the mild, moderating influence generally threefold and what- of King Boris saved the country ever territory he

from Internal revolution. gains always adds to his overheads and pays no dividends. On the other hand the democracies' strength increases by leaps and bounds; time, which we should have taken by the forelock a few, years ago, has not deserted us.

Factually the situation calls for clear thinking and quick action on our part to nullify entirely

Turkey's Path

Under the late Kemal Ataturk, and

CORFU

To place has suffered more

Nat the Duce's hands than

under his successor Incunu, Turkey Corfu. Day after day, raids on has enjoyed a kind of benevolent and patriarchal autocracy, grafted on to this beautiful town and island a society essentially democratic in have been proudly recorded character.

in Mussolini's communiques.

Kemal was unlike other autocrats

the in this, that he sincerely encouraged There is no need to look far for enemy gains in North Africa and to the growth of democracy and parlia- the reason. Corfu is close to check his headlong course in the south of Yugo-Slavia towards the

imentary government in Turkey, even | Italy-and" it is undefended. to the point of creating an official The Italian airmen have there- heart of Greece. General Wavell opposition, when the rule of a single fore been able to crucify its in- took ૉ

great gamble with his Army national party seemed to be stifling of the Nile. He had to. Using his, political thought and criticism.

habitants in perfect safety.

forces liko

SANTI QURMA

Lopader

CORFU

Ringlades

Miles

ALBANIA

tion, a more permanent Europe peace.

WAITS FOR SETTLING DAY

Parga

their responsibility for the mur. ders was not proved.

*

The Italian departed. The Prefect set to work to inform the foreign Consuls. A few minutes after the British Consul had been notified, the Italian. warships began to bombard the town.

The Italian gunnery was shocking In Its inaccuracy. Of thirteen shells alnied at the fort, twelve fell short and hit gendarmerie school. a hammer he struck blow

With their casualties mounting after blow swiftly along the whole Like other autoernts, however, to many hundreds, the citizens

Several ploughed their way through Libyan coast and then, having tem-

m- Kemal refused to remove himself

a crowd of orphan boys, bathing in the sea. Others fell among the re- porarily quashed ali opposition he from the seat of power and see what of Corfu have shown that they turned it on Abyssinia and crushed would happen under conditions of too can "take it" and wait but rejected others. They de fugees, about whose Presence and few complete freedom. If he had done with patience and hope for the clared, with good reason, that had been warned. Of twenty people that clayey-footed Empire in

whereabouts the Italian commander history-making weeks. At the same so, we may wonder if Turkey would day of reckoning which now time Wavell denuded his strength in be resisting the Axis to-day.

found dead when the shelling sub- seems not so far away. weekening

sided, 16. • него chilldren. The The proportion to the enemy's

For what is freedom? "Liberty is

wounded could be counted in dozens.. resistance send reinforcementa to Greece while he had also to keep in recently, "but it is not easy to de- double account to settle with the a noble den," said a Greek to me The people of "Corfu have a

Corfu, which had gone to its siesta under a peaceful mediterranean sky. mind the threat that might yet

awoke to the sounds and sights of from

fine it. And it is still less easy to Duce. For it was to them, on emerge

Tripoll where the

the battlefield. The now Roman humillated enemy was being given say where one man's liberty ceases a beautiful day in August 17 MARLY in the afternoon of Emperor had won his first victory. backbone by a German armoured

red and another's begins."

years ago, that Mussolint first August 31 an Italian fleet division and Infantry shipped and A nation only knows what liberty showed the blackness of his

After the bombardment, the Ita- flown across from Italy with can- is when it hos lost it. But which heart. siderable casualties on route.

came Balling into Corfu har- lian commander made light of the is more important, Individual liberty

bour. The Wavell's gamble has been justified.

commander was crime. "You know this is not war," an American, Colonel Abyssinia hns

And could fallen

or national liberty?

It all began with some mur- takon ashore and unceremoni he said to In time for us Greece have saved its national liberty ders on the Santi Quaranta ously called upon the Prefect to flon! If what I saw was peace,

Lowe. This is to release for service on the Libyan and its independence against the sud-read. An Italian General named surrender the island. The Pre--suld

is a peaceful occupa front those victorious troops who

the Colonel. "I don't know raced through Abyssinia. There is no doubt that they will eliminate the

Tellini and some Italian officers fect said he must get in touch what you call war." Later he de- German

spear-head. The Italians be brought to break this spring or were engaged on frontier de with Athens. He pointed out clared that the

been entirely unnecessary, as "one wili

not risk moving a strong army

my whether the British can bring in limitation work when they were that in any case it was unneces- omficer with a handful of men could out of Tripoli in a "do or die" effort reinforcements that will release these attacked by Assassine and sary to use force as Corfu was have accomplished the occupation to crush the British and hold the pent-up forces to join with resurgent killed. The Duce, spolling to in no position to realat. Of its without firing a single gun." German gains unless they are certain

tain elements in Yugo-Slavia, Bulgaria assort the now authority of two forts, the older had been of success:. and they are not certain, and Rumania in resistance.

In Greece the enemy have com-

bombardment has

The islanders, nursing the wounds

It would be foolish to attempt to Fascism, demanded satisfaction diamantled In 1804 and now of 1940, have not forgotten the pressed

our lines back upon a power prophesy what will happen; it is from the Greek Government. A housed refugees and an orphan wounds of 1033. Bravely, grimly, ful spring whose embarbed face however, safe to say that a German harsh ultimatum was delivered age. There was no gun in the they are waiting for settling day. covers the country from the forlan success in, this Balkan struggle will in Athens. The Greeks ac- town capable of firing a lethal... to the Aegean Sea. The question not help her one wit to a victory in cepted some of its conditions, shot.

Paul Winterton remains whether enemy pressure can World War No. 2.