20 JUNE 1903, Page 1

Nothing new has transpired as to the causes of the

insurrec- tion. It is universally ascribed to the deadly hatred felt in the Army and throughout Servia generally for Queen Draga, who had completely mastered her husband, and was constantly egging him on to tyrannical acts. She at last persuaded him to acknowledge her brother as Heir-Presumptive, and a decree to that effect, was subsequently found in the Palace. The secret had leaked out, and determined the action of the officers, who had recently received no pay, and who attributed the King's neglect of them to the Queen and her entourage. The Radical party was entirely with the officers, whose ferocity is inexplicable, except upon the theory that they held a massacre of the Royal Family and the Ministry to be essential to a revolution. Prince Peter Karageorgevitch is generally acquitted of any cognisance of the murders ; but he admits that he was "prepared" for the revolt, and in his proclamations he praises the "devotion of my beloved people and my faithful Army," and pledges his word that he will forget all that has Passed during the last forty years. He is understood also to have given a pledge that the most Radical of all Servian Con- stitutionsrshall be re-established, and that a general amnesty

shall wipe out all the guilt of individuals. He has telegraphed since his election to the Powers, and has been congratulated by the Czar and the Emperor of Austria, who, however, adds a hope that "he may raise his country again after the severe fall which it has recently sustained in the eyes of the civilised world through a heinous and universally reprobated crime."