"
[Illustration: THE PERSUADING OF TINO]
In Greece the quick change of Premiers proceeds with kaleidoscopic
rapidity. The attitude of the successive Prime Ministers has been described
as (1) Tender and affectionate neutrality toward the Entente Powers; (2)
Malevolent impartiality toward the Central Powers; (3) Inert cupidity
toward all the belligerent Powers; (4) Genial inability; (5) Strict
pusillanimity.
Lord Milner has gone so far in the House of Lords as to say that "such war
news as is published has from first to last been seriously misleading." The
Balkan intelligence that is allowed to reach us does not exactly deserve
this censure. To call it misleading would be too high praise; it seldom
rises beyond a level of blameless irrelevance. It is hardly a burlesque of
the facts to say that a cable from Amsterdam informs us that the Copenhagen
correspondent of the _Echo de Paris_ learns from Salonika, _via_
Lemnos and Nijni Novgorod, that in high official circles in Bukarest it is
rumoured that in Constantinople the situation is considered grave; and then
we are warned that too much credence must not be given to this report. The
number of Censors at the Press Bureau being exactly forty, and their minute
knowledge of English literature having been displayed on several occasions,
it is said that Sir John Simon contemplates their incorporation as an
Academy of "Immortals--for the duration of the War.
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