IN NEW DISGUISE

News from a corner of the earth rather remote from these prosperous states would indicate that the best laid plans of those statesmen who framed the Versailles Peace Treaty have once more gone astray. When three subject peoples of the old Austrian Empire were removed from the rule of that country and lumped into the combined Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, it was hoped that the ends of democracy, self-determination, and all the other idealistic phrases current at the time had been served with a finality that would leave everyone happy. But unfortunately the Serbs, who happened to find themselves the uppermost of the three in the person of the king, have had so much trouble convincing the other members to the agreement of their good fortune that it has just been found necessary to declare a dictatorship, and dispense with parliamentary forms entirely.

Absolutism of one sort or another, so popular at present in southern and eastern Europe, is undoubtedly justified in a case where ten years of representative government produced little but turmoil, riots and even assassinations on the floor of the legislative chamber. Those familiar with the past and present maps of Europe will remember that the Jugo-Slavian government has in addition at least one other "submerged nationality" to deal with, the Montenegrins, whose support of the Allied cause was rewarded by the loss of their independence at the Peace Conference.

The establishment of the new nation in a prosperous and settled career probably demands stern repressive measures when the population is so lacking in inner harmony. Obviously it is impossible for every group of nationals irrespective of size to set up its own government. Nevertheless the Croats, who are the most strenuously malcontent, must feel that the establishment of the new state was merely an exchange of alien governors. It will be a tribute to the Serbians and the progress of humanity in general towards liberalism if the-rule of the Hapsburgs, does not rise in retrospect to the dignity of that of a King Log.