OLD LEGAL FEUD.

Shannon News, 11 April 1924, Page 4

OLD LEGAL FEUD.

KING OF BOSNIA’S GIFT OFPASTURE LAND. In onk of the dales of .tlic mountainous caujifry of Herzegovina, close on the Dalmatian frontier, lies the small vilage of Scenica. All around the village the. rocks start to rise towards the only a_ few patches of pasture where the inhabrEantsTcaiTseird' their goats and pigs to graze. For centuries it has been a very poor village, and because of the poverty of Scenica a Bosnian king in the, fourteenth ceni. tury gave them some pasture-land and forests close to the Dalmatian villages! of Gromaca, Klishewo, Maginska, and Mraviljeyak. In the fourteenth century the Government of the Ragusan Republic—the town of Ragusa was in those days one of (lie most prosperous cities on the Adriatic —granted to the inhabitants oh the four Dalmatian villages the riglit to.use the pasture and forests. The Herzegovians then appealed to KingiOstoja of Bosnia,, and a legal process started, the Scenican peasants claiming the sole right to use the land bestowed upon them by the King of Bosnia. The villagers of the two districts hsjve ever since then been con. testing the possession of this pasture. During ihc Turkish rule the Mutessariffs (local governors) gave as to the right of grazing according to the bribe offered by the opposing paitfies. The process went on even when Herzegovina and Dalmatia became possessions. L Now,* after the lapse of 600 years,

the Belgrade Home Office (since the conclusion of peace, both-Bosnia-Her-zegovina and Dalmatia passed into Jugo-Slav possession) have given a de. cisiori iii favour of the inhabitants of Scenica. The reasons for this judgment are interesting. The present Jugo-Slavia is the revival in a new form of the ancient empire of Tsar Stephan Dusan in the fourteenth century, when the banus or king or greatwojwod of Bosnia was a vassal of the mighty emperor. By recognising the ' historical rights, the Home Office found that the King of Bosnia, and not the Government of Ragusa —a town which Stephan Dusan was never able to conquer was entitled to present the pasture land and forest to the inhabi. tants o,f Scenica.