THE TROUBLE IN TURKEY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9168, 17 August 1908, Page 5

THE TROUBLE IN TURKEY.

CABLE NEWS.

nif.ed Press Association—By Electric Telegtaph Copyright.

IMPRISONED MINISTERS SET AT LIBERTY. CONSTANTINOPLE, August 14. Mehemet Riza Pasha, arid Zekki Pasha, ex-ministers of Turkey, have been liberated on agreeing to refund .£200,000 and £6,000 respectively, wrongly acquired during their tenure of office. REMARKABLE SCENES IN BEYROUT. CONSTANTINOPLE, August 14. Remarkable scenes have occurred at Beyrout, an important seaport in Syria, Christians and Moslems jointly celebrating the new regime. There are frequent reiterations of the sentiment of brotherhood between Moslems and Christians, who will henceforward live together in peace. CRIMINALS RELEASED. PUBLIC OFFICERS DEGRADED. Received August 16, 4.15 p.m. CONSTANTINOPLE, August 15. Turkish troops at Smyrna have released all the criminals a-id warned them that they would be promptly hanged if they committed fresh crimes.

By order of the League and Union of Progress, General Tewfik and other prominent officers accused of treason, have betn publicly degraded at Symrna. The Young Turkish Party is finding great difficulty in restraining the antagonists of Greeks and Bulgarians at Monastir.

Stevedores a l- . Constantinople endeavoured to compel workmen to join the strike, but the Young Turks Committee promptly overawed them with infantry. Riza Pasha, having refunded £200.000, has bean allowed to return home.

AFFAIRS IN MACEDONIA

TACTICS OF REACTIONISTS.

CONSTANTINOPLE, August 14. There are no present fears of trouble in Macedonia, but reactionists are constantly encouraging strikes of cigarette-makers and porters.

The Government is acting energetically, and is arresting the leaders of the cigarette strikers.

"There is no distinct Macedonian race " says,Mr Foster Fraser in a receiit article. "The people there are mostly Bulgarians, thuugh the Greeks run them close, and there are also a good many Servians, f.nd some Roumanians and some Turks. But in broad description it may be said that Macedonia is occupied by Bulgarians on the Bulgarians side, and by Greeks on the Greclc side. They .are Christian race?, but; belong to different; churches, and hats oach other with more bitterness than the I'fotestants and' Catholics in Ireland.

The Turks treated Greek Christians and Bulgarian t'htistians very badly; and in the beginning Greek bands came over front the south and Bui ■ garian bands from t,he north possibly with the honest intention of protecting their respective Christian cornpatriots from the Mussulman. But ,«oon motives of territorial aggrandisement entered into the Bulgarians as well as the Greek calculations, and they began to quarrel with each other as to their respective shares of the prospective (and still prospective) prey. And the Turk speedily saw the wisdom of encouraging Bulgarian against Greek and Greek against Bulgarian , so that they should not combine against himself. Bulgaria proceeded to stake out what would be her portion—a very large slice, especiaiy as the majority of the people were Bulgarians. Greek villages, spreading up from the south, were in the Bulgarian area, and many of them belonged to the Bulgarian Church. 'We count you as Bulgarian-villages,' said thfe Bulgars . . . Greece proceeded to stake out her section —and it considerably overlapped the staled area of Bulgaria. Besides there were Bulgarian villages within the Greek sphere, but belonging to the Greek Church. 'You are Greeks,' proclaimed the Hellenes. When the two countries, with the aid of officially unauthorised 'bands,' to capture each other's villages on ground of religion, the fat was in the fire. The Bulgarians insisted that Bulgarianspeaking villages were Bulgarian, whatever their religion might be, but that Greek-speaking villages, being Bulgarian in religion, were, of course, Bulgarian! 'No,' said the Greeks, Greek villages are really Greek never mind their* religion,

bnt Bulgarian villages, which have adopted the Greek faith, must be reckoned Greeks! So rival 'bands' went out to convert and reconvert villager And there is always the possibility that the Bulgarians, to precipitate matters, believing the end justifies the means, will deliberately provoke the Turks to a tremendous massacre of Bulgar-Mace-donian Christians, and'force Europe to intervene and add most of Macedonia to Bulgaria. That is the internal mess."