Norwich bulletin., 1920-02-21
JUSTICE FOR GREECE NOT EASY

None of the countries which have figured in the creative processes of 1 peace. abroad is likely to prove. of more i
 interest to the people of the western i 4 world than Greece small country infall her history and likely to remain
 a small country-who5e eultureal dom | finance in tIle early days and whose | struggles for liberation from foreign I rule nave held the admiration of civ lilized peoples for many years, declares f Professor Archibald Cary Coolidge of f1afval'd university, in a complete and 1 analytical review of the history, hopes, ! l ambitions and disappointments of the
 Greeks through the centuries which the peace conference is attempting to 2! solve.
 Though in a sense. the Greeks are. tneW people, they are also the oldest of all famous European peoples, with. tra-
 ditions still considerable force among
 theIn. It is also true that in the case
 of the Creeks even more than in that
 of the ,Runanians, the important thing
 ' in their descent is not what they are
 but what they think they afe, the speaker declared. It matters not how
 much ancient Greek blood they have
 in their yeins and how much Albanian
 or Stay; what matters is that the be-
 lief that they are heirs of ancient i Greece and all her gIories, and also of
 the Byzantine empire, is one of the. . strongest forces in the formation of the national character of the modern
 Greeks-tboth for good and ill-and eff
 fleets their spolitical thought at every
 turn. It was also worthy of note that
 they have intense pride in their , achievements and not little in their
 present capacity.
 ts .
 territory that the Greeks hold, says, today, as was the fact nearly 5000 years ago, they are g people not only , solidly masssd in a small, rather bar ren peninsuIas but otherwise scattered ) over swarns bf islands; have always been maritime and commercial, rather than agricultural, and have often been l wholly or partly under foreign domin- ation. On the northern Black sea coasts they are found in considerable numbers in Bqrgas, Varna and Odessa, ! and there are many along the north [ ern coast of Asia Minor and on every side of the Egean. For three centuries,
 ! following the capture of Constanti- t nople by the Turks in 1453, the Greeks 9 remained quietly under Turkish. rule, Q but in 1S21-29 came the Greek war of 1 tnGcp pandence, Which enlisted the sym e pathies of the civilized world and e which ended in; the intervention of e England, Franee and Russia, and the l liberation of most of Greece in the : limited sense of the. term, but of only n a small minority of the Greeks.
 r Henceforth, it was the greatest hope t and dream of the Greeks some day to free the remainder The great idea t was to reconstruct a new Byzantine n empires with Cois5tantinople as the q focal point Things moved slowly, bu1 U such people as the Bulgarians and Al : banians had weakened to the seIti-
 rnent of their national existence and r. far from wanting to form a portion o- = any Greek empire, soon began to claim 0 territory the Creeks had long regard 9 ed as their own. There was the un- Il fortunate war of 1897 with Turkey ana e the war between Italy and Turkey 1T e 1911, Followed by the Balkan leagut l and the Balkan wars, Greece by tn, a peace of Bucharest obtaining 8 yer! il substantial increase in her demands A almost doubling her territory and he e. population .-.' a Fair justice of Greek claims at Pari y,t is by. no means, simple. Greece hal ,a lI already got in 1913 the thing to whicl !, she had the strongest claim, and a cur ,, ious thing was that in the two case
 where they were best founded, tn
 Greeks could not openly insist upol rs them. Cyprus has been under BIitis ot though they have recognized the Sri IS tish rule, have for some time made Il 2. secret of their desire to join their kins 4s men in the kingdom of Greece. Tn le British have fallen back on. the argu Ao Tnent that the islanders are better of
 as they are, also that the Mohalnmed 9 an minority are opposed to the chang ao and must be protected. Though ther 75 has been a delegation in London fo o- months, it has>reeeived no definite as f slIrances. The. Dodekannessas, con e- sistipg of the island of Rhodes and h. number of smaller ones, was recogniz ne ed as belonging to Italy. As for tn m claims in Asia Minor and Thrace,
 was said that wien MT. Venizelos wer i- to Paris he would get either of th be two. The situation is still in doubt cb Greece was in a difficult position he even in the eyes of those who wei 7d opposed to their claims at each pal
 a ticular point. In Asia Minor some .t cy the powers were iii. favor Of givir or them a good part of it. By invitatic ns of the powers they landed troops to Smyrna and, as will be recalled, u " Turks are well stirred up and al ell uounce that they will resist any ce ny S4OtA eO IltG GIGChS. IIE ldl6 OI DdS nd ern and Western Thrace is Hkewi ee. unsettled, also that of lConstantinopl ng Greeks are present everywhere, b
 nowhere in majority. They ha, for been given a part. of Western Thra, nd and the rest has been taken away fro for the Bulgars till the powers know wh he theX want to do with it, and there nd another chance of Turkish resistance on Boston has been a@ center of Gre, At and Albanian propaganda for a Iol sh time The Aloanians go back to cla ne sical antiquity. The northern popul as tion are Catholics and the soufhe lo5 are Orthodox and more or less HelIe
 u ized. The Albanian colonies in Gree es les distinguished themselves in the Gre . oL war of independence, but there came ,,ls widening Of the Albanian feelings al
 the Austrians and Italians had air ! there. In 1913 there came the creati ny of the Albanian state and since tn es. it has been well fought over, and ny ny more or less a dere1ict. The ,resl G ,GuL may be an Italian mandate. T coI Greeks claim the districts of Argv