1921, by some twenty
Members of Parliament and a few outside persons. These expressed their
approval of Mr. Lloyd George's step in convoking the League of Nations
for the settlement of the Serbo-Albanian question. If this resolution
served no other purpose it showed, at any rate, that the signatories are
such thoroughgoing friends of the Tirana Government that they rushed
enthusiastically to their assistance, though their deep knowledge of
affairs--without which, of course, they would never have signed--must
have caused them to regard the Prime Minister's impulsive action with
something more than misgiving. It is a minor point that the signatories
sought to enlist the world's sympathy on the ground that a small
"neutral State" had been wantonly attacked by the Serbs, because if this
accusation were true it would not be worth objecting that the Albanians
were scarcely a State (though some of them were trying to make one) and
that their neutrality during the War consisted in the fact that they
were to be found both in the armies of the Entente and--rather more of
them, I believe--in those of Austria. But the accusation is untrue;
there are, undoubtedly, a number of fire-eaters in Serbia, as everywhere
else, yet the Government is not so childish as to wish to squander its
resources in a region where there is so little to be gained. (The Tirana
correspondent of _The Near East_ said on November 3, 1921, that the
Serbian Government was reported to be committing unwarrantable acts,
giving as an example that Commandant Martinovi['c] had had six million
dinars placed at his disposal in order to recruit komitadjis and that he
had himself promised 2500 dinars to each of his men if they succeeded in
entering Scutari. But this gentleman, a retired officer, lives almost
exclusively at Novi Sad, where his very beautiful daughter is married to
M. Dunjarski, one of the wealthiest men in Yugoslavia. Yet neither his
son-in-law nor the Serbian Government has ever given General
Martinovi['c] the afore-mentioned sum or any sum at all for the
afore-mentioned purpose. He goes at rare intervals to his old home in
Montenegro, of which country he was once Prime Minister. It is natural
that the numerous refugees from Albania should flock round him--in view
of his own past prominence and of M. Dunjarski--begging for money and
food.) The protesting British Members of Parliament registered their
sorrow that the Serbs should have employed on their anti-