The Croats and the Concordat The conflict over the Yugoslav
Government's Concordat with the Vatican has once more broken out with violence. At Bjelina in Bosnia on Monday, Dr. Janitch, an expelled member of the Government Party, said that the late Bishop Varnava had died of poison supplied by M. Pantitch, a chemist of Bjelina, a Deputy, and a member of the Govern- ment Party ; in the riots that followed the gendarmes opened fire and two persons are reported killed. The violent feelings aroused by the controversy have by now apparently per- suaded Dr. Matchek, the Croat leader, to lend his influence to the opposition ; he is reported to have written that the first act of a Cabinet including the Croats would be to withdraw the Bill ratifying the Concordat. The old Parliamentary parties suppressed by King Alexander, which originally stood aside from the controversy, are by now also against the Bill and even willing to co-operate with the Croats in forming a Cabinet. There would thus appear to be a formidable coalition of opponents against the Government. Yet it should be observed that the agitation in which the Croats and the Parliamentary parties are now said to have joined is led primarily by the extreme Serbian Nationalists, that the Croats are themselves Catholics, and indeed that the most violent opposition to the Bill is inspired by the belief that it is a concession to Croat separatism: * * * *
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