ALBANIA'S GRIEVANCES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1091, 1 April 1911, Page 5

ALBANIA'S GRIEVANCES.

TURKISH FLOGGINGS AND TOKTURU. The conduct of the disarmament operations in some parts of Albania aud Macedonia last summer and autumn has created among most of the Bulgars, to somo extent among tlie Greeks, and wholly among the Albanians, an almost desperate state of mind, and a thirst for revenge. What theso methods were was recently described by Sir. William Hamsay in the "Manchester Guardian." The old methods of torture and beating were still, ho-said, being employed in Albania and Macedonia. The disarming of the nativo papulation had been ordered by the Government, and it had to be carried out by the same soldiers and tho same police as of old. They had only on® way of doing their work:— "Information reaches them in one way or another that A has six or ten rfile9 concealed. The Zaptiehs arrest A, and demand the rifles and tho ammunition. A declares that he has none, and invokes Allah or the Virgin and all tho Saints, according to his own particular religion and faith, to attest his innocence. Tho officer in command orders his men to givo A twenty strokes in order to induce him to tell the truth. After twenty strokes A still protests that he is innocent. Other twenty; and so on. Perhaps at forty, perhaps at sixty strokes, A confesses, and .shows where two rifles are concealed. These are seized, but the information is that A possesses six or ten. Tho same process goes on until they are all delivered up, and that takes place only when the limit of A's endurance is reached. It is a hideous method; but it is the accepted method in Eastern administration. Neither soldiers nor peasantry understand any other. Next comes B. Information that he has rifles has been received. He does not confess at sixty, nor yet at eighty strokes. Is he innocent, with nothing to confess, or is ho only more, stubborn and enduring than A? It is hard to say. Perhaps he solves the question by confessing at a hundred strokes. Perhaps he still reveals nothing, and the beating goes on until he dies. It is an accident; such was tho will of God."

"The Times" correspondent, in rovievr,iiiK",tli6'.isitiiatioir in Turkey recently, said that the best judges of Ottoman affairs are persuaded that the establishment of the military dictatorship is only a question of time, possibly of a very short time,' and belitvc that such an eventuality would clarify the outlook, in many respects., The real position in Turkey is that the Army is supreme, and tho only question is whether its supremacy shall stand revealed to the world, or continuo to bo masked by tho Committee regime. Practically the issue between Mahmud Shevket and the Committee leaders is whether the Army shall obey its chiefs alone, or whether it shall, serve primarily the interests of nonmilitary politicians. The quarrel, if quarrel it be, is one rather of means than of ends, for as would be seen if a veracious account of tho proceedings at the recent Salonika Congress of tho Committee were published, the Committee itself subordinates all its paper programme of reform to the paramount consideration of: strengthening tho Army, so as to enable Turkey eventually to exact from the Balkan States, and even from the Kuropean Powers, acquiescence in her demands. • Europe as a whole can but gain if the real terms of the Ottoman problem are clearly recognised.-