[C 9206] 10 DEC 1928

BRITISH LEGATION,

SOFIA.

December 5th, 1928.

No. 342

Sir,

I have had the honour to receive Lord Cushendun's despatch No. 328 (C8810/42/7) of the 26th ultimo requesting observations on certain aspects of the Macedonian question.

• 2. I trust that I may be forgiven if I deal first with the aspect raised in the last paragraph of Lord Cushendun's despatch. Although no observations are requested upon this I feel that I should be failing in my duty if I did not offer them. The remarks of “The Times” article regarded as irrelevant may be summed up in the sentence: “The Belgrade Government could do much if it would to draw the fires”. I venture to express the opinion that there is no one in Bulgaria who could disagree with that view, no statesman, no publicist, no ordinary Bulgarian in the street. To people living in Bulgaria the case is so self evident that it scarcely needs statement, still less argument. One and all they consider that fundamentally the cause of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation is right, namely the liberation of the Macedonian in whatever State he may happen to live. They are apt to forget in their sympathy for the Macedonian cause that the Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation's programme goes so far as to aim ultimately at the autonomy of Macedonia, entailing the overthrow of the peace treaties. They merely remember that, as they believe, Macedonia, especially Yugoslav Macedonia, is an unhappy country and that this unhappiness is due to the ruthless government under which it has been forced and they feel that the Macedonians are one with them in blood and one in speech, and it is their deep desire to lighten the lot of their brothers. This question more than any other has been before the public recently and it forms by far the most important subject round which the debates on the answer to the speech from the throne, just concluded, have revolved. I have the honour to enclose a translation of that portion of the Prime Minister's speech winding up the debate for the Government in which Monsieur Liaptcheff stated his policy in regard to it together with a short extract from the debate.