DANGER FROM GREECE.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 October 1922, Page 5

DANGER FROM GREECE.

A DISTURBING FACTOR. MENACE FROM THRACE. TURKS THERE MAY RISE, By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Oct. 2, 12.20 a.m. London, Sept. 30. It would seem the Greek position has made matters in the Near East crisis worse. According to the Observer the stumbling block is Greece, which now hopes to save Thrace. M. Venizelos confirms the report that he has been entrusted with the conduct of Greek interests abroad. It is reported M. Venizelos visits Rome after London. Statements from Athens declare the Greeks assert they are endangered by a Turk rising in Thrace. On the other hand the Turk representative at Paris, Ferid Bey, accuses the Greeks of preparing to attack Thrace behind the Allied barrier. That Thrace is a danger point is evident, because the Allied High Commissioners at Constantinople have sent a mission to Thrace to study the situation in an endeavor to exert a calming influence on both sides.—United Service. A TEMPORARY CABINET. REBEL LEADERS CHEERED. Received October 2, 12.20 a.m. Athens, Sept. 30. Alexandre Oarapanos has established a temporary Cabinet, to act until Zaimis can be recalled from Vienna to assume office. Members of the revolutionary committee have arrived. They were cheered through the streets by crowds delirious with ex citement. The governor of the National Bank and the deputy of police at Athens have beer, arrested. A POSSIBLE LEADER. STRONG REPUBLIC VIEWS. I INTENTIONS OF M. VENIZELOS. Received Oct. 1, 5.5 p.m. Paris, Sept. 59. The Petit Parisien states M. Pangalos is known to have a strong antidynastic leaning, and if he is supported it is not impossible the revolutionaries may effect a change in the constitution in the direction of a republic. ■ M. Venizelos arrived incognito. Interviewed, he said: “I shall not return to Greece until the present' trouble is over, so that nobody may say I had a hand in it/’—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. ARREST OF EX-MINISTERS. Received Sept. 30, 5.5 p.m. London, Sept. 29. The Foreign Office has been advised from Athens that five ex-Ministers, MM. Gounaris, Stratos, Protopadakis, Goudas and Treotokis, have been arrested and charged with being responsible for the defeat in Asia Minor. OFFICIAL OPINIONS. AIM OF BRITISH POLICY. London, Sept. 29. Official circles in London are of opinion that the British forces now at Chanak are sufficiently strong to hold on whatever happens. Nevertheless the whole aim of the British policy is to do the utmost possible to prevent a conflict. There is no ground for believing that the Turks are anywhere inside our positions. A hopeful view is taken from the fact that both in his communications with General Harington and France Kemal tdkes for granted that a conference will be held, but the massing of considerable forces immediately outside British positions leads to the presumption that if eventually the Kemalists decide to fight they would seek to provoke us into firing the first shot in order to be able to tell the Moslem world that they were forced into war by Christians.

The reported abdication of the Sultan is still unconfirmed.

With reference to the suggestion that the Turks should be allowed to enter Thrace before the conference, the official British view is that this is utterly impossible because it goes beyond the programme laid down at Paris, where the Allies definitely decided that the Turks uhould not be allowed into Tharce except by decision of a conference. If the Turks were allowed to cross the Sea of Marmora prior to the conference it would probably re-open the Greco-Turk - isli war, involving grave danger of warfare spreading to Europe. The Doily Telegraph’s Constantinople correspondent states that the Greek revolutionary declaration to strengthen the Thracian front is considered likely to stiffen Kemal’s attitude, since he may consider Greece will not accept any Allied decision about the retrocession of Thrace.

French opinion in Constantinople tends to the belief that one of the reasons for the hostility shown to the Allied proposals is that they do not refer to the abolition of capitulations, which the extremists think can now be achieved. If it is done it will mean the destruction of foreign capital and trade in Constantinople, which aspect of the question will hit hardest the whole French policy in Turkey. French sources aver that Kemal informed General Pelle that the strictest orders have been given to Kemalist troops not to fire a shot. Nevertheless the Turks continue pacifically dosing in on the British possessions.

MR. HUGHES’ VIEWS. Melbourne. Sept. 30. In the House of Representatives Mr. Hughes, in a statement on the Near East, said the position was changing every moment, it now pointed towards peace, now towards war. He suggested that Parliament should not be prorogued if war was probable.