6 JUNE 1914, Page 2

seg troubles in the Balkans. The Times of Wednesday published

a letter from a correspondent near the Dardanelles, dated May 27th, giving a lamentable account of the invasion of the Greek villages in the Troad by Moslem refugees from Macedonia, who have helped themselves to the houses and property of the natives, driving them out with nothing but the clothes on their backs. "All the Greeks in the district are now outlawed, and to-day it is reported that the whole Greek population of the Troad and the Straits is to be expelled and deported to Greece without being allowed to take with them any article of property." Confirmation of this report was furnished by a telegram which the Times received from the Metropolitan of Chios announcing the arrival on Sunday and Monday last of over Svc thousand terror-stricken and destitute women and children from the Asiatic coast. Later news from Greek sources indicates that the assurances given to the (Ecumenical Patriarch by the Porte that the authorities would take the necessary steps to safeguard Ottoman Greeks from further ill-treatment have been followed by an improvement in Thrace and elsewhere. The policy of wholesale expropriation, unhappily, is not the monopoly of the Young Turks. The Macedonian refugees profess to be only exercising the lea ialionis, and, in consequence of the complaints of the Turkish Government of the clearance of Moslems from Greek Mace- donia, the Turkish Minister at Athens, at the suggestion of M. Venezelos, Lae proceeded thither to make a personal inspection.