How annoying it can be to win a national election, Greek Royalists found out last week. The first acts of the new Royalist Premier. Panayoti Tsaldaris, lover of preserved ginger, were to default the $444,920 debt payment which Greece owed the U. S. and to set up in Athens a system of rationing bread by food cards similar to that in Russia.
Worst of all, the Greek Royalists cannot, if they are men of honor, create a diversion by restoring their King George II. Before taking office they were forced to promise the Great Greek Republican, goat-bearded Eleutherios Venizelos, that “no change will be made in the form of the Greek State.”
Foxy M. Venizelos, having obtained this promise, considered himself well out of the Premiership last week, prepared to enjoy one of his periods of “indefinite retirement” at his home on Crete.
A representative of Manhattan’s National City Bank was in Athens last week negotiating an extension of its $7,500,000 loan to Greece. With a chip on his royalist shoulder, Premier Tsaldaris said “Greece will reduce her expenditures to the barest minimum. She will convince her creditors that she is doing everything possible to pay her debts.”
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