THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 1910. THE FIGHTING IN ALBANIA.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10025, 22 April 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 1910. THE FIGHTING IN ALBANIA.

The rebellion which has broken out in Albania against Turkish rule is a significant proof of the reality of a danger which has been predicted by many observers since Abdul Hamid's deposition. The Young Turks have devoted themselves in their constitu-(tion-making to the task of breaking down the religious and racial barriers between different sections of the population, and it was only to be expected that though this programme was undertaken in the interests of nation-building, it would be extremely distasteful to the Mohammedans of the old. bitter and zealous type who refused to tqlerate the idea 1 that the Christians in the Turkish i Empire could be as good Turkish citizens as themselves. Albania is the home of the bitterest and most irreconcilable of the Mohammedans n European Turkey. Out of a population of about 1,500,000 in Albania, over 1,000,000 are Mohammedans. Like the majority ot their coreligionists in Asiatic Turkey, they j regerd the Young Turks and the Parliamentarians, who deposed Abdui

Hamid, as being little batter than atheists. The Albanians warhke, I fanatical, distrustful of new fangied political ideas, and resentful at the granting of citizenship to the Christian population, have raised a formidable insurrection amid their rocky fastnesses, and already Shevket Pasha's troops who were despatched to crush the rebels have suffered severely. As the Albanians have 13,000 men in the field, and Shevket Paeha has despatched twelve additional batalions of Turkish troops to subdue them, it is clear that a formidable fight, and not a mere scrimmage, is in progress. In all probability Shevet Pasha will have no great difficulty in crushing the Albanians, but there must necessarily be a danger of ths movement spreading, not only through European Turkey, but through the Asiatic provinces, where the fanatical Mussulman population enormously preponderates over every other section. Further atrocities upon the unfortunate Christians in Asiatic Turkey would be a natural corollary of the Albanian trouble, and a general rising of the old Mohammedans against the

new regime is always a disquieting possibility. Such a rising might pro*vide an excuse tor foreign -intervention, which is the constant bugbear of the Turkish statesman.