Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-07-16
Politics in Modern Greece.

Athens suffers from an excess of intel
lectual activity. The city is overstocked
with brains. Its hands are idle. Greece
has no great manufactures; it has no
system of roads. Among the many fail
ures of King Otho's reign, perhaps none
was more injurious than his failure to
provide any means of ready intercommu-
nication between the provinces of Greece
OF course the topography of Greece-her
mountain ranges and deep reaching CULTS
and bays renders the task of road build
ing difficult one. But; national unity
and material prosperity can not come
without good roads. To-day all Greece
has but fifty miles of good carriage roads.
Finding no outlet in the development of
the cOuntry's material resources, all the
energy of the marvellously active Greek
mind has been turned to trade, to study,
and to politics; and chiefly to politics, al
ways a passion with the Athenian.
| With a territory but three-fifths as great
as that of New York, with population
of nearly two millions, with universal
| suffrage, and with a monarchy so limited
that the government is in reality de-
mocracy in the administration of its in
ternal affairs, the Greek nation of to-day
devotes ten times too much energy to
governing itself. This concentration of
force within narrow limits begets heat at
Athens. Under such pressure the po
litical friction is something enormous.
Athens supports from thirty to forty
newspapers. Political clubs re more
numerous than in classic days, and as in
fiuential. Every man of prominence has
his newspaper, his club of personal fol-
lowers, his petty party. When the death
of DelegeOrges, ex-Prime Minister, was
announced in the street to a~group of
Athenian gentlemen with whom l was
talking, the first remark was, s'Ah, now
Kurie So-and-So' manning politician
of little infuence) twill form party, will
he not?" Room for one more aspirant to
Office, with his organized clique of fol-
lowers, was the argument.
Salaries for public services are of course
pitifully low. Criticisms of all official
acts, and of every measure advocated by
the government is bitter and ceaseless.
This spirit of criticism is not merely
healthful concern for the public welfare;
it is the constant effort to induce pub
lie, ever prone to change its political
leaders, so to clamor as to put the ''in'
out, and to give to other men chance at
what must be for them, too, brief ten
ure of power Acrimonious attacks upon
men and motives abound. The news
papers give room to angry opponents for
virulent personal diatribes against politi-
cal rivals The irrepresslble life and
mental activity of the nation preys upon
itself.
| Give Greece mission; let her hope for
that influence in the readjustment of
power after Turkeys approaching disso-
lution-if the chronic "sick man. is in
deed soon to die-which justly belongs to
her as the most intelligent, the most en-
terprlsing the most highly civilized race
of the Levant; extend her boundaries, as
we hope the great powers will soon do;
give but CLEAN of distant hope to such
enthusiastic patriots as joined the club
some time since organized at Athens, by
Makrakes, shrewd political and religi
Gus agitator, which processes for its OBJ
| ject to place Prince Constantine, King
Georges eldest son, on the throne of all
Greece at Constantinople-and the truly
great qualities of this wonderful race,
which were proved to be still hers by the
gallant. unflinching heroism displayed in
her struggle for independence, but which
have suffered temporary eclipse since
that struggle closed, will be once more
displayed to world which has so often
been inspired by the words and deeds of
the Greeks of ancient times.