THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 1910. THE YOKE OF THE TURK.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10041, 11 May 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 1910. THE YOKE OF THE TURK.

Is it not strange that anxiety is felt in Constantinople owing to the successes of the Albanian insurgents, who have defeated the Turkish regulars at Katchanik, and now I threaten the railway which forms the line of communication with their base at Salonika. Formidable alike in numbers and in their warlike qualities, the Albanians have rushed to arms with an enthusiasm that is ominous of "regrettable incidents" for Shefket Pasha's regulars. But for the watching world this uprising ; of the hardy mountaineers in the west of the Balkan Peninsula has something more than merely local interest. It is a grave symptom of the extraordinary condition which has been produced in the Turkish Empire by the sudden introduction of the new regime. That regime was established in a day by the bayonets of Shefket Pasha's battalions, but when Abdul Hamid was deposed and exiled to Salonika Mahomedan sentiment throughout Turkey sustained a severe shock, and it is the Mahomedan Albanians who are now endeavouring to free themselves from the yoke of a

Government which deposed the "Sha- : dow of God" and set up such a west- . ernised nonentity as Mohammed V. to be the new Caliph—a mere puppet in the handa of the reformers. The fact that the Albanians have no racial kinship with the Ottoman 'lurks, and that they only adopted Mahomedanism under the compulsion of conquest, is a complicating element in the political aspect of the situation, but it does not affect the military aspect. Ottoman Turkish troops are being employed to crush professing Mahomedans in Albania. That is a fact which is full of significance. It is probable that outraged religious feeling has little or nothing to do in reality with the insurrection of the Albanians, whose Mahomedanism is notoriously of the easy-uoing kind, and that the deaire to wrench their independence from Turkey is uppermost in their minds. They have made at least ten attempts within the last hundred years to free themselves from the Turkish yoke, and the present insurrection is doubtless due to the same cause as its predecessors. But it is unfortunate for the Government at Constantinople that the religious cry can be raised at all, because it is one that may awaken a dangerous response in other parts of the Turkish Empire, and especially in Asiatic Turkey, which is the chief stronghold of the reactionaries. Any rising against the Turkißh Government, no matter what the cause may be, must play into the hands of the extensive reactionary element in Turkey itself, and must also cbime with the desires of those international neighbours who find their opportunity in Turkey's adversity. If there is one plank more clear than another in the platform of the Young Turks, who now control the Government at Constantinople, it is the maintenance of the territorial integrity of the Turkish Empire. The annexation of Bos- ' nia-Heizegovina by Austria, and the declaration of Bulgarian independence which followed Count Aehrenthal's audacious move, cut the slender threads that still connected those former provinces of Turkey with the Sublime Porte. The most reassuring fact, as far as the general peace is concerned, is the professed unanimity on the part not only of Italy and Russia, but also of Austria, which recently made friendly overtures to Russia, as to the mainten- , ance of the "status quo" in the Balkan Peninsula. The interests of Austria and ber chief partner in the "Triplice" demand that peace should be unbroken—for the present. That is the best guarantee that there will be no explosion in the Near East just yet, though there may be many alarms.