THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1910. TH POWERS AND CRETE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10076, 23 June 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 1910. TH POWERS AND CRETE.

The decision of the Powers to send their warships to Suda Bay before the opening of the Cretan'Legislative Assembly, because the few Christians in the island of Crete decline to allow political rights to the handful of Moslems shows the extreme fineness of the point on which the European balance is poised. As far as the work to be done there is concerned, one cruiser from one nation would probably be quite sufficient, [ yet all must have a hand, the usual procedure being to place the GovernI ment of the troublesome little place i under a dictatorship of foreign admirals. This was done a few years ago, and the Cretans amused themselves firing with obsolete guns at the fleets of the world whenever thej chanced within range, while every nationality present was too watchful[of every other for any of them to. take the necassary measures for stopping the practice. It was fortunate that the gunners could not hit anything, and the projectiles

would have been more or leas harm- J less even if tbey could. .Neverihe- j less the farcial proceedings went on 1 fpr a considerable time, and now j appa»ently the Powers are considering a repetition of it. Of course, i it is not on the Cretans' account that all the trouble is taken. The fear j is that a spark lit on the island might extend to the Continental mainland where a collision between Moslems and Christians might set all Europe and 1 possibly Asia and Africa ablaze Already there are sinister rumours of German and Austrian influence being at work with the view of making the Cretan trouble a pietext for arousing Mohammedan suspicion agaiust England, by representing the proposal to send British warships to keep the peace between Moslems and Christians as a blind for aggression. The Kaiser, who liad the famous picture of "The Yellow Peril" painted for the edification of Eutope, should be the last under the existing circumstances, in both the Near, Middle, and Par East, tu inflame Mohammedan feeling against Britain, but diplomacy is a desperate game, and there is not much that some of its players will stick at. The Russian proposal for a prov'nional Government under the Powers in the meantime appears to have i been viewed with a good deal of favour, even by Germany, so that the situation would seem to be improving. We may therefore hope that the Cretan trouble will blow over again as harmlessly as it has done more than once before when acufe symptoms appeared about to develop, though with so many big fingers in such a very small pie the danger ot serious friction is never to be despised.