Birmingham state herald., 1897-02-21

that Macedonia would also have to be reckoned with. Greece, he declared, could never view with indifference the struggles of Macedonia for freedom, and in any case it would require an army of at least 100000 men to prevent Greek volunteers from crossing the frontier into Macedonia to help their brothers in race and religion Events have justi- fled M. Delyannis in regard to Crete and it looks as though Macedonia also would prove his prescience.
 The situation in eastern Europe, de- spite it's gravity, has not been with out its humorous aspects, and chief among these is the issue of the porte of an order for the mobilization of the Turkish fleet into two active squadrons. Over here the joke is thoroughly under stood and enjoyed. but it may not be SO generally known in America that ex- cept for few small ships which a singlel United States cruiser could easily dis pose of, the Turkish fleet consists of rot ten old vessels which have been anchored for years in the harbor at Constantinople. as mo money is available for repairs or for the payment of officers and crews. It is gravely estimated that it would take months to accomplish one job alone, the removal of barnacleS from the bottoms of this so-called fleet, and a period of at least equal duration to scrape, clean and oil the machinery. Furthermore, a ma jority of the Turkish naval officers have either committed suicide in despair of obtaining the vast accumulations of un- paid salary, or long ago retired into civil ian obscurity from the same cause, while the living accessible minority, owing to lack of experience, is incompetent to navigate ship of any size. If the strug- gle should be a naval one, Greece would win with consummate ease without out side aid.
 The committee of the house of com mons appointed to inquire into Jame- son's filibustering raid into the South African republic, which has held two sittings this week. devoted both to the examination of the Rt. Hon. Cecil Rhodes, the man who pulled the strings from a safe distance. So far, MT Rhodes examina ton has been conduct ed by the liberal members of the commit tee and nothing particularly new or sem sational has transpired The sensation will come when MT. Rhodes friends, the tory members of the committee, begin to cross examine and afford him plaus- ible pretext for divulging the particu- lars of the alleged anti-British intrigues carried on at Pretoria by England's good friend and Queen Nictoria's grandson, Kaiser Wilhelm. Whether MT. Rhodes has anything mora substantial to go upon than rumor and suspicion remains to be seen. The general opinion is that he has tangible proofs. His friends say he has trunk full of compromising let ttFS ITOIH lIle hdlSef to ff6SlQenI Kruger and other documents and that th=se will be produced at the proper moment for ensuring the maximum amount of effect upon the Birtish people. Meanwhile signs accumulated that the final struggle be- tween the Boers and British for predom- finance in the Transvaal will not be de- layed beyond the present year. Two powerful forts have just been completed at Pretoria, one commanding the north ern and the other the southern approach to the capital. Two more are in course of construction and government military engineers are now engaged on plans for forts designed to dominate disloyal Johannesburg. Moreover, within th= last few weeks a new alliance, offensive and defensive, has been concluded be- tween ths Transyaal and the Orange Free State.