The Hokitika Guardian SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18th., 1922. THE WEEK.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 February 1922, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18th., 1922. THE WEEK.

We have been hearing a good deal lately about conditions in post-war Europe, but the picture drawn by Mr Stephen Graham in “.Europe—Whither Bound?” is, remarks a reviewer, at once moro comprehensive and more up to date than any that has yet readied the Southern Hemisphere. In the course of 1921 Mr. Graham visited practically every exbelligerent country on the Continent and sojourned for a while in its capital. This book is the record of his observations. No doubt there is always the possibility that in a (hurried pilgrimage he may have generalised from inadequate material, and lie is perhaps a. little prone to rely too exclusively on exparte evidence. There are usually two sides to a question, a fact which he sometimes, as in his treatment of French policy, forgets. But his impressions are extraordinarily interesting and make us realise most vividly the devastating ecects of war upon vanquished and victors alike. Travel on the Continent lias become a formidable undertaking. Gone are the luxurious expresses and cheap hotels. In most countries the trains crawl along at a snail’s pace. A journey now takes as many days as it once did hours. The carriages .are in a deplorable condition, and destitute of any comfort, and are invariably overcrowded. Accommodation is extremely difficult to obtain, and despite the favourable rate of exchange, expensive. All Englishmen are ex hypothesi rich, and the hotelkeeper welcomes an opportunity to spoil the Egyptians. Worst of all is the passport system, which hafhper the travellers at every turn, and becomes an intolerable nuisance. He must have a permit to enter a country, even if he is going riwht through it without leaving his train; he must have a permit to depart. Ho must- get his pass vised by a dozen authorities, none of w'hom can ever >

be found at is office at tile first few attempts, and each of whom when eventually run to earth levies his. fee. The passport system, with the delays arid the. heavy impositions t 0 which it subjects the traveller is a factor in the stagnation which is so noticeable in most of the great cities of the Continent. Freedom of movement has disappeared. ‘‘Europe was more of a. unity in the days when we were an ‘ai'iiied camp*. We have broken the power of militarism. . . . Since then there

lias been great work clearing away barbed wire entanglements along the old front. But it seems ty be a nightmare task. Entanglements multiply upon us faster than we can clear the old ones away. You cannot get across Europe because of the obstructions; von cannot circulate.’ 1

Mr Graham began hi» pilgrimage with Athens, and does not seem to have been very profoundly impressed by tile Greeks. With Byron, bo laments their unlike ness to their ancestors. They are materialists. “It is perhaps, strange that to-day the city which was the cradle of the ideal is a oity where there are no ideals at all, old or new, where Plato now means nothing, where even Bolshevism is not heard of.” The attitude of Greece to the Allies during much of the war was distinctly equivocal, and even after intervention the part played by her was not very great. But her gains were in comparison, enormous. By virtue of her territorial accessions in Thrace and Asia Minor she is now almost an empire. Nor is she inclined to forego anything that the Treaty of Sevres gave her. Venizelos is the author of her prosperity. Thanks to him she won such a goodly measure of booty thanks to him the cost of living is low and the value of the drachma high. But though the Greeks know this they have never forgiven him for his share in the revolution instigated by France. The national pride of Greece has been offended, and all her mortification has been vented 011 him.

From Athens Mr Graham went on to Constantinople, a strange cosmopolitan city, where the members of the Allied Garrison rub shoulders with German commercial travellers and adventurers from every corner of Europe, Constantinople has five times as many people us it can house, a city now of appalling unhappiness and misery, and of a concomitant luxury and waste.” Who are the new comers? Chiefly refugees from Bolshevik Russia. “The Russians have got Constantinople at last. It is an irony of fate. There are a hundred thousand of them there, the best blood of Russia and the most charming and' delightful people in Europe themselves though now almost entirely destitute of means.” How do they live? Some of them have set up in trade, others teach. T.he girl who waits on you in a cafe may be a daughter of the aristocracy. The dancing halls of Pena have received many recruits of high degree. Many have gone under altogether. Down near Gallipoli Mr Graham visited General Wrangel’s army, which after its unsuccessful venture against, the Bollieviks was given an asylum here. What is to be done with it? There was talk of shipping it off to Brazil, but nothing came of the project. Some Russians have settled in Jugo-Sluvia, others in Bulgaria others in Czecho-Slovakia but the mass of the refugees are “unplaced”, and how to dispose of them is a difficult problem. Incidentally Mr Graham declares that Constantinople is n 0 longer the capital of Turkey. “The vital capital of Turkey has become Angora. The Kemalists are the force of Turkey and they are asiatic. In fact Turkey has now been turned, bag and baggage out of Europe and the Turks are playing a new role in politics and international life.”

From Turkey to Bulgaria, whore conditions were unexpectedly stable, Bulgaria presents the curious anomaly of peasant communists in political power along with a king on the throne It is a monarchy plus a. sort of milk and watery Bolshevism. Bulgaria is an agrarian State, and has suffered comparatively little through the war. Food is cheap and abundant, the rate of exchange is high. She lias ostensibly renounced ambition, and her prospects are good, although Mr Graham notes that the 'peasant communist Government is rather dull and lacking in interest in cultural matters. He believes that it would he to the advantage of all concerned if Bulgaria wore merged in Jugo-Slavia. But the traditional enmity that exists between Bulgaria and Serbia is an obstacle not easily to be surmounted. Serbia, which he visited next, is a pitiful spectacle. No nation was harder hit by the war; no nation has ever had so many orphans The fields are untilled for want of labour. Belgrade conveys the impression of a mutilated body. “It is a oneeyed city, a city of one legged men, a city of men with beetling brows and contracted eyes, a city of unrelenting cobblestones and 'broken houses.” The atmosphere of Budapest suggests that Hungary is by no means resigned to her fate, and the “little entente” keeps a jealous watch. The true inwardness of Vienna’s plight lies in the fact that she is the capital of a very badly governed country. “Much could obviously be dope in Little Austria by an honest, intelligent, and inefustrjou's administrative staff. But j

they prefer to stand in the way and beg, the giant Vienna and the dwarf Austria, staggering the imagination of pilgrims and winning for aims to pas-sers-by.” Mi' Graham thinks that Austria’s distress has been exaggerated. The expression ‘starving Austria’ i s a propaganda phrase. She may starve. She probably will, but the time is not yet.” The chief sufferers are the intelligentsia, the professional classes, who do not parade their misery.

Czecho-Slovakia delights the wayfarei. 1 Hore is an oasis of order and industry , in a desert of restlessness. Here at j least is a new State which has settled ( down to work, and is on the high road to prosperity. Czecho-Slovakia was the most encouraging thing Mr Graham saw on his travels. Ebullient Poland is less satisfactory. Warsaw is full of aspirant Napoleons; there is a great deal of intolerance and chauvinism, and currency is almost incredibly depredated. Notes of the lower denomina- J tions are actually not worth the paper on which they are printed. In tciis con- j nection Mr Graham gives us a little | lecture on exchange. Much is heard of | the advantage which the rate gives to | tie Englishman on the Continent. But | I that is only if he remains in the one 1 place. If he moves about much he j ■ loses. To take a concrete illustration . ( from the vicissitudes of £lO. In Franc e J they brought 450 francs, which in Italy | j were exchanged for 600 lire. In Servia I 1 the lira became 900 dinars, and the j ! dinars 6000 Hungarian crowns. In j Vienna the latter were exchanged for i I 15,000 Austrian crowns—and these in j turn brought 1000 Czech crowns—and these in turn brought 10,000 Polish marks. For these, in Roumania, he obtained 500 lei but when he went back to Poland could only get 8000 marks at the re-exchange. At Berlin they looked disparagingly at the Polish money, and offered him 280 German marks for the lot. These he changed tfor 11 florins in Amsterdam, for which, when lie reached Antwerp, he got 40 Belgian francs. “The £lO lingered tentatively over the abyss of nothing.” The further Mr Graham travelled, the more was he convinced of the interdependence of modern nations. No country is euffii eierrt unto itself; if one- is sick none can Pie entirely hale, and he belifeves that Europe’s troubles have in the main a spiritual origin. They are due to the passions which have not) yet been cooled, the distrust which has not yet been allayed, the fears which have not yet been quieted. Europe’s plight is serious, but not hopeless. If she could but free herself from the suspicion, jealousy, fireed, and hatred which the war has left in its wake, h*r recovery would bo assured.