WITHOUT A RULER

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20728, 11 February 1939, Page 5

WITHOUT A RULER

UNREST IN TIBET THREAT OF CIVIL WAR Tibet, the mysterious “Land of Lamas,” is without a ruler, spiritual or temporal, and the possibilities of civil war are threatening, states the Shanghai correspondent of the London Evening Standard. The two religious heads, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, have been dead for a long time and no "reincarnation” has yet appeared to take their place. At present there are said to be three main parties struggling for supremacy in Tibet. These are: The “Young Party,” or progressive* nationalists, who want to develop the country's rich mineral resources, open Tibet, to the rest of the world on a trade basis, while preserving its exclusive national character; the “DieHards,” mainly composed of the wealthy heads of the big Lamaseries, J who believe in the old Tibetian ways, | as they were under the Dalai Lama, which means the. continuation of their! own power and wealth; the “Panchen I Group.” consisting mainly of politicalscheming ‘ gentry." who fled from ' Tibet when their attempts to secure political doniinaPon for themselves through the late Panchen Lama were foiled and all were exiled.