THE CRETAN QUESTION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2593, 30 August 1909, Page 2

THE CRETAN QUESTION.

THE GRECO-CRE7AN INFATUATION. TURKISH INFLUENCE DEAD. Last year the Cretan Chamber voted immediate union with Greece, and trouble seemed to be certain. It was averted, however, by the fact that Greece, acting under the advice of the Powers, neither accepted nor rejected the Cre-* tans’ offer. She held her hand, and with equal magnanimity and discretion did nothing to add to the difficulties of the Young Turks. But the question can hardly he shelved for ever. The four protecting Powers —Great Britain, Russia, France, and Italy—have withdrawn,their forces from Crete, and any trouble in the island might lead to serious consequences. TURKISH FIRMNESS. According to “Britannicus” ini a London paper, Turkey will not surrender Crete. The Turks “have lost Bosnia and Herzegovina; they have lost their last titular hold over Bulgaria; they cannot afford to lose Crete also. If a union with Greece were declared at Candia and accepted in Athens they would resist the blow to their prestige; if necessary, with force of arms. On Mat point'all that is vocal in Turkey is also unanimous. . . . She (Turkey) will not treat with Greece; she apparently rejects altogether the idea of financial compensation. Yet a solution which proved adequate in the far more delicate cases of Bosnia and Herzegovina ought not to be ruled out of court in the case of Crete.”

How utterly Greek the Cretans are may be judged from the following: “Crete has been under Turkish rule for two hundred and forty j-ears. Its inhabitants are all Greeks-—probably the purest Greek stock to be found in the Levant. Even the native converts to the Moslem faith, roughly speaking onetenth of the population, some 30,000 of 300,000, though they side with Turkey and regard themselves as Turks—Crete being; one •of the many spots on this inexplicable earth of ours where nationality is determined by religion—are really Greeks, and indistinguishable in race and language from their fellow islanders’.

“The Christian majority have never acquiesced in the Ottoman dominion. They have risen in desperate rebellion against it time and again. Their one political desire is union with Greece. They are a simple; tenacious, inflammable folk, with a sense of racial nationality that has become at once an instinct, an ideal, and a disease. Hellenism means more to them than' anythin jr else under the sun. It is one of those deep-seated, primitive, unreasoning passions that in the long run break through all the barriers and artifices of diplomacy. They know that Greece is a chaos of faction and corruption; that her finances are wholly disorganised, her army worthless, and filer future precarious. They know that union with her entails conscription and heavy taxation. Nevertheless, to be part of the .Greek kingdom and under the Greek flag is the sum of all their hopes. “And Greece reciprocates their longing. To obtain Crete the Greeks have defied Europe and fought Turkey; and would probably do so again. They have won all but the final victory. Crete today is free in nearly everything but the name. After the Greco-Turkish War of twelve .years -ago, the Powers expelled" the Turkish troops from the island and took over its administration themselves, garrisoning its ports and controlling its external affairs. ONLY A CRESCENT LEFT. “Nothing to-day remains of Turkish authority except a single crescent ensign floating side by side with the flags of Great Britain, Russia, France, and Italy von an uninhabited rock in Suda Bay. There are no Turkish officials in the island. , The Cretans pay no tribute to their pseudo-suzerain. For the past eleven years they' have been "governed, with the sanction and under the supervision of the four Powers, first by a prince of the Royal House of Greece, and, secondly, by an ex-Prime Minister of the kingdom. Greek is the official languagethe legal code has been remodelled in conformity with that of the Hellenic kingdom: the,Cretan flag is composed of the white and blue of Greece; the Cretan militia and gen-, darmerie are under Greek officers ; the very postage stamps used by the islanders are those of Greece. ' “Except that Crete, like Cyprus, still suffers financially from having been once a part of the Ottoman system, and cannot, for instance, alter its* import dues without the assent of European bondholders, and except that onetenth of its population is still Mussulman, there is little or nothing to show that it had ever come under Turkish rule.’’