settlement, fourteen villages occupied by Greeks and hitherto under Greek administration; and the Government promised the Chamber to protest, and, if necessary, to appeal to the League of Nations. On July 26 a somewhat serious "frontier incident" took place in Macedonia, seventeen Bulgarians being bound and killed in cold blood by a party of Asia Minor Greeks. A League of Nations Commission which investigated the affair found that the local Greek authorities were responsible and entirely exonerated the Greek Government; but the affair did not improve Bulgarian relations with Greece.

In April the Byron centenary was celebrated at Athens, the British Government being officially represented by Sir Rennell Rodd, the British Ambassador at Rome.

ALBANIA.

In the Parliamentary elections which were held at the beginning of the year, the head of the Government, Ahmed Zogu, failed to secure a majority, and his position became precarious. On February 23 he was shot at and slightly wounded by a young Albanian student in the corridor of the Parliament House. On March 3 a new Ministry was formed by Shevket Verlaci. On May 22 the young Liberal deputy, Avni Rustem, was assassinated at Tirana, and Ahmed Zogu was accused of instigating the murder. Great demonstrations took place at the funeral, and discontent with the Government became more and more marked. Towards the end of May, Shevket Verlaci resigned and was replaced by Ilias Vrioni.

This change failed to appease the democratic and Liberal elements. The army of the South and the garrison of Scodra declared against the Government, and troops marched on Tirana. After a slight resistance Ahmed Zogu and a few of his partisans fled to Belgrade. A number of deputies who supported him took refuge in Italy and in Corfu.

On June 16, Monsignor Fan Noli, the leader of the Democratic and Liberal Party, formed a Government. He issued a proclamation, stating that the revolution was a protest against the illegalities and corruption of the previous régime, and its attempt to perpetuate the feudal privileges of the nobility and large landowners. The Chamber of Deputies was dissolved, but no steps were taken to hold new elections. Also three members of the "Council of Regency" (which holds the place of the Monarchy in the Albanian constitution) had been deposed, while the fourth considered himself under notice; consequently the new Government was never properly legalised, and was therefore insecure from the beginning.

In December, before the election which had at length been proclaimed could take place, an insurrectionary movement broke out in the North-East of Albania. It had been organised and set on foot from Belgrade by Ahmed Zogu, who entered Tirana

on December 24. Fan Noli, with his Government, immediately fled to Italy.

In addition to her internal political troubles, Albania has had to endure cruel blows from without owing to the exchange of the Greek and Turkish populations stipulated by the Treaty of Lausanne. It had been understood that Albanians on either side should not be affected, but Greece in spite of this insisted on expelling from her territory Albanian Moslems from Epirus and Macedonia, and confiscating their goods. Albania appealed to the League of Nations, which considered the matter on three occasions, and charged the Mixed Commission which supervised the exchange to see that the Albanians should not be included. In spite of this, more than 20,000 Albanian Moslems have been forced to leave their homes and abandon their property in Greece.

BULGARIA.

The year 1924 passed in Bulgaria in comparative calm, in spite of the continued presence and activity of turbulent elements.

The extremists-Communists and Agrarians-were not in a position to organise a serious movement for the overthrow of the Tzankoff Cabinet, and in different parts of the country they formed bands of brigands for terrorising the population, and more particularly the officials of the Government. In April the Government was informed of the intention of the Third International to provoke trouble in the Balkans. The Bolshevik propaganda finds favourable soil among the Communists and the Agrarians in Bulgaria, not on account of the social conditions in the country, or because Bolshevik doctrines appeal to the masses, but simply in consequence of the events of last year, when many members of these parties perished in the struggle against the Government of M. Tzankoff. The Cabinet was somewhat alarmed, and prepared itself for all eventualities. The Allies also, to assist its efforts, gave their consent for raising about 3,000 volunteers above the number fixed by the Treaties. While it is a fact that Moscow was doing all in its power to incite a rising in Bulgaria, the peril was highly exaggerated in Bulgaria as well as abroad for reasons of internal and external policy. In any event, Bulgaria passed the autumn without any internal commotion.

The only regrettable incident caused by the Bolshevik activity was the murder, on August 31, of the famous leader of the Macedonian Internal Revolutionary Organisation, Todor Alexandroff, organised and executed by the Federalist Fraction of the same revolutionary organisation, but inspired by the agents of the Soviets. In reprisal, the murder of Alexandroff was followed by the murder of several Federalist and Communist leaders, ending with that of Tchaouleff at Milan.

In external affairs the Government adhered to its policy of

seeking peace and rapprochement with all Powers, and particularly with its neighbours, and undertaking the sincere execution of the obligations imposed by the Treaties. Nevertheless, the Cabinets of Belgrade and Athens accused Bulgaria of allowing various organisations to make great preparations on her territory for revolutionary action in Macedonia in the spring. To allay this suspicion, the Government, at the beginning of March, arrested several hundreds of Macedonians from the frontier towns, and interned them in the interior of the country, liberating them, however, after a certain time.

As a proof of the desire of Bulgaria to live in peace and on friendly terms with her neighbours, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Kalfoff, signed at Geneva with M. Politis, the representative of Athens, a protocol for the protection of the minorities in their respective countries. It was expected in Bulgaria that by the conclusion of such an agreement the relations between Bulgaria and Greece would be sensibly improved, and that the exodus of the Bulgarian population from Western Thrace and the portion of Macedonia under the rule of Greece would be stopped. For Bulgaria this emigration is not merely a matter of political importance, but also an economic question, as the hundreds of wretched families which are still arriving daily constitute a heavy burden on the meagre Budget of the State. Unfortunately the execution by Greece of the protocol seems doubtful, on account of the strong national opposition against it. The Government of Athens will probably be obliged to denounce the protocol, or at least to ask for its revision.

The efforts of the Cabinet of M. Tzankoff have been appreciated by the Allies, and Bulgaria has obtained some concessions from them. The expenses of the Inter-Allied Commission of Reparations, which constituted a heavy charge for Bulgaria, have been reduced to 12,000l., and the Military Commission of Liquidation will be soon abolished, and in its place the military control will be assumed by the League of Nations.

Towards the end of the year M. Tzankoff paid visits to Belgrade and Bucharest in order to form a personal acquaintance with the leading statesmen of Yugoslavia and Rumania, to come to a better understanding with the neighbouring countries, and to organise a joint effort against the common danger of Bolshevism.

The economic situation has not changed greatly during the year. Though commerce and industry are steadily improving and many legislative measures have been taken for the amelioration of the conditions of life, the cost of living has gone up considerably. One of the reasons for this is the bad harvest of the year. Bulgaria, though an agricultural country which used always to export cereals, is now obliged to import wheat and flour from abroad for the feeding of the population of the

towns.

CHAPTER VI.

LESSER STATES OF WESTERN AND NORTHERN EUROPE: BELGIUM -NETHERLANDS-SWITZERLAND—SPAIN ·

PORTUGAL-DEN

MARK-SWEDEN-NORWAY.

BELGIUM.

THROUGHOUT 1924 M. Theunis remained the dominant personality in Belgian politics. He played a prominent part in bringing about the agreement on reparations reached at the London Conference in August, and in internal affairs succeeded in balancing the Budget. But he struggled unavailingly to reduce the ever-growing cost of living, and in consequence of this failure his position as Premier at the end of the year had become highly precarious.

In the course of the year it was found necessary, owing to the depreciation of the franc and the rise in prices, to introduce supplementary estimates. At the same time, owing to unusual traffic, the transport service had become accidentally disorganised, and, although left in the hands of the Government officials, it was placed under a special control. The critical economic situation gave rise to an attack on the eight hours day from the side of the big employers. This was translated into political action by a Bill introduced by M. Devèze, leader of the Liberal Party, to allow time lost through stoppage to be made up by extra hours. The Minister of Labour, M. Moyersoen, brought in an alternative plan which increased working hours by 5 per cent. The members of his own party, the Christian-Democrats, declined to follow him in this step and instead united with the Socialists to defeat both projects by large majorities. This was the first sign of the existence in the Chamber of a democratic majority, and the first symptom of the break up of the Coalition of Liberals and Catholics on which the Government rested.

The overthrow of the Government was not long delayed. It came on the Franco-Belgian Convention for supplementing the new customs tariff, which was brought up for ratification in February. This was attacked on various grounds. The metallurgic and textile interests demanded for their products advantages analogous to those accorded to French luxury products. Some politicians desired a closer union between the two countries along with a system of preference. Others, including the Flemish Nationalists, feared what the Socialist leader M. Vandervelde called "the Portugalisation of Belgium by France," and recalled the indifference shown by M. Poincaré to the Belgian technical inquiries in the Ruhr. Some Flemish Nationalist deputies went so far as to speak of the French grip" on the maritime works of Bruges. The Catholic Minister, M. Renkin, and his followers criticised as merely apparent the French concessions, and vehemently denounced Article 7 which imposed prohibitive tariffs on Germany. The

Socialists objected also to the proposed surtaxes on German imports, and found themselves at one with the Flemish Nationalists in an opposition to the occupation of the Ruhr. Outside of Parliament the campaign was carried on by the Nationalist group whose chief spokesmen, MM. Neuray and Nothomb in their influential organ La Nation Belge, skilfully utilised certain admissions of M. Jaspar, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to create prejudice against the agreement. The Press, too, echoed the protests of M. Renkin against the highly protectionist French tariff, and as a result, public opinion became distinctly unfavourable to the proposed Convention.

After having tried to secure a majority by promising certain concessions to the Flemish Nationalists, the Government solicited the Chamber's confidence, and M. Theunis carried the discussion on to the field of the general situation. All the Liberals except one voted in favour of the Convention; nevertheless it was rejected. A Cabinet crisis followed which lasted a fortnight. M. Theunis sought to characterise the rejection of the Convention as a blow to France and a triumph for Germany.

The King fearing for the Ruhr enterprise, avoided an appeal to the people, and ignoring the democratic majority, which certainly was highly composite, and which the Socialists would not have joined in any case to form a Ministry, entrusted M. Theunis with the task of forming a new administration (March 10). He produced a motley combination containing more Flemish Nationalist elements than the previous Cabinet, and destitute of any programme save a hopeless struggle against the high cost of living. The Catholic, M. Jaspar, was replaced at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by the Liberal M. Paul Hymans, who had resigned from the same office three years earlier, and in compensation the Liberal M. Louis Franck was replaced by the Catholic M. Henri Carton as Minister of the Colonies. The Ministerial declaration of policy dealt only with the cost of living and with the value of the franc, and its weakness was strongly criticised by the Opposition. M. Theunis proposed the imposition of new taxes to the amount of 400 million francs, but afterwards reduced the figure to 200 million. He also begged for a truce between parties on controversial questions, and the Liberals accordingly dropped two contentious measures which they had intended to bring forward-one on cremation, and the other on the laicising of the oath in the law-courts. The Right, however, persisted with its project for extending female suffrage to the provinces. The provincial councillors elect some forty members of the Senate; consequently, owing to the influence of the clergy over the women, such a law would ensure a Catholic majority in the Senate, which would lead to numerous conflicts between the two Assemblies.

Among the laws actually passed, the most important was the new customs tariff. Belgium has now two tariffs-a minimum and a maximum-the latter being double the former and re