ALBANIAN OUTLOOK

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 73, 16 September 1911, Page 9

ALBANIAN OUTLOOK

"The Albanian outlook is again very disquieting," writes the Times Vienna correspondent. '"Under cover of what Europe has been led to regard as an anil esty and armistice, Torgut Shevket Pasha's troops are preparing to deal a crushing blow at the Albanian insurgents. A telegram dated from Constantinople to the semi-official Wiener AHgemeine Zeitung, states that, while the Vali of Skutari reports a pacific attitude on the port of the Malissori, Torgut Sihevket has violated the armistice five days after its proclamation in order to assume the offensive. In no case, adds the telegram, will Montenegro tolerate pursuit of the Malissori on Montenegro territory. "A Constantinople telegram from a German source states that in case of a Malissori attack, Torgut Shevket has been ordered to adopt the severest •measures and to pursue the Malissori even across the Montenegrin frontier. TURKISH VILLANY. "Even more serious than these reports are two telegrams from Podgoritßa to the Catholic Vaterland. They state that the Turks are devastating the Malissori country, cutting down every fruit tree and vine, destroying every house and such crops as have been sown, a.nd killing all sheep and cattle with the object of compelling the Malissori after the conclusion of peace to emigrate or to die of hunger. The amnesty proclaimed a few days ago and framed so as not to impede Torgut Shevket's action, has been neutralised by his bombardment of the insurgents, near Broja. His tactics are to drive the Malissori proper into Montenegro while their country is being devastated. All the Malissori employed in Skutari have been expelled, and those who with their flocks and cattle had wintered as usual near the coast have been forbidden to return to the hills. The cattle will thus perish for lack of fodder and their owners of malaria. When the Malissori country has thus been depopulated the Turks intend to colonise it with emigrant Mussulmans. "This intelligence moves the Vaterland to an indignant protest, entitled '■Once again—make order!' It says:—

"'Had such methods as these been ■adopted by a despotic Sultan, a storm of wrath would have shaken the civilised world. The great Powers are aware of all the Young Turkish abominations and brutalities. The air of the Balkans smells of powder. Yet Russian representations have been ignored and AustroHungarian advice is being 'considered' while the Malissori country is being devastated and the inhabitants driven to choose between emigration and starvation. Is not such conduct the purest mockery of Austro-Hungarian advice? Is our Government not aware that Turkish tactics aim at destroying one tribe after another in order cunningly to crush at last the Catholic Mirdites who are under Austrian protection. Why, then, does it shrink from further plain talk with the vandals of Stamboul?' WHAT TURKEY IS AT.

"There is, unfortunately, no reason to consider the Vaterland's interpretation,of Turkish intentions to be exaggerated. Strong as its language may sound, it is not stronger than the situation warrants. The systematic destruction of Christian faces and 1 the substitution for them of Mussulman immigrants from Bosnia, the Caucusus, and Turkestan was debated, and as the British Government well knows, was deliberately resolved upon at the secret congress of the Salonika Committee last October. If the Powers do not intervene promptly a,nd efficaciously now to save the Malissori and the Mirdites, they will be compelled to intervene far more drastically in the not distant future, when Macedonia will once more ..ave been turned into a shambles. Prompt action at this moment may not only save the Christian Albanians, but may, by compelling the Young Turks to pause, avert or at least indefinitely postpone the threatening Balkan conflagration."