BULGARIAN RULERS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1551, 16 May 1916, Page 4

BULGARIAN RULERS.

In mi article explaining the power <it' King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Mr Alfred Stead says : —“ln Bulgaria (here was, 'from tin* beginning, and is now, only one element to he considered, and that (he Bulgarian King, Ferdinand of Cobm'g, who had gradually ga(Tiered into his hands all the national life-cords. There was nobody else who counted, no minister or individual. ITe was supremely absolute, and his people know it well. The successive Bulgarian Ministers were so many puppets, and had as much say in their actions as (hi l dolls in ;r marionette show, it was not only that they were afraid of (heir foreign ruler, whose ability to think ((nicker than they earned an unloving respect, but Ferdinand had taken every precaution to ensure their obedience. It would be difficult to find a prominent Bulgarian politician who could not bo forced to confess that Ferdinand possesses documents or proofs destructive to his career and imperilling his life. And the possession ot these proofs of unsavoury transactions, financial principally, but occasionally worse, made it easy lor the King of Bulgaria to call his Ministers to heel. Daneff, Radoslavoft, Gueshoff, Ghenadieff, none of these had any real say in the making of war or the determining of policy. They were more impotent than the Peace Party in Constantinople before Turkey made war on Russia. They (muld grow rich while in office, to live in uneasv affluence afterwards, but they have never been other than political eunuchs. The Bulgarian people, a Tartar race, with their nomadic instincts not yet eradicated, ■.had inherited from (he Turkish domination an atmosphere of petty mistrust of each other, which made the handling of them by Ferdinand and his tools an easv matter.”