Politika
- A Document
- Before 29 May 1903
- What Are People Saying?
This partial reading of Politika's 25 October 1926 issue covers three items. A signed editorial by M. P. M. examined why the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes had failed to win a seat on the League of Nations Council, setting out the Covenant's distinction between permanent seats held by the Great Powers and non-permanent seats that other states win in Assembly elections. A recollection signed by the widow of General Cincar-Marković, the prime minister killed in the 1903 coup, claimed that his government had kept 7,000,000 dinars in the prime minister's office safe to pay for urgently ordered Krupp guns. A gossip column joked that the sugar found in a sick assistant minister came from the Čukarica refinery.
This reading covers three passages from the 25 October 1926 Politika page, transcribed from the page image because the supplied OCR text was too garbled to use. Some words are cut where image tiles meet, especially between the columns of the 1903 article, and the uncertain year closing the Krupp passage is left out. The rest of the page is not translated.
Translation
A Document
The question of our membership in the Council is the question of our failure to secure for ourselves, in that most important organ of the League of Nations, and therefore the most important international organ, the place to which we would be entitled under the provision of Art. 4, para. 1 of the Covenant. Under this provision, membership in the Council is of two kinds. It is "permanent" and "non-permanent". Technically, the difference between permanent and non-permanent membership lies in this: the former is the membership of the Great Powers and lasts as long as membership in the League itself lasts, while the latter is the membership of the other Powers and lasts as long as the mandate that those Powers obtain through elections held at the League's annual Assemblies. Our country, as one of the "other" Powers, therefore has every right to non-permanent membership in the Council, but in order to attain that right it must be elected to membership by the Assembly.
Before 29 May 1903
Finally, in view of the well-known shortage of munitions in general, as well as the particular need for a larger number of quick-firing guns, the government of General Cincar-Marković kept in the safe of the Presidency of the Ministry a sum of 7,000,000 dinars, earmarked for paying at that time for the artillery and other war material urgently ordered from the Krupp factory.
What Are People Saying?
An assistant minister fell ill and went for treatment to a sanatorium. On examination it was found that besides albumin he also had sugar. And evil, spiteful tongues at once found reason to spread it about that this sugar is from Čukarica.
Context
How League Council seats were allotted in 1926
The editorial by M. P. M. builds its case on Article 4 of the Covenant, and the League's structure matches its description. The Council began with four permanent members, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Japan, plus four non-permanent members elected by the Assembly for three-year terms. Electing those non-permanent members was one of the Assembly's powers as an electoral college. In 1926 the number of elected seats was raised to nine, and in the same year an Assembly resolution of 8 September 1926 made Germany a permanent member. The writer's complaint therefore came right after the Council had been reorganised and more elected seats were open than ever before. The paper says that even so, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes did not win one, and it calls this a national failure.
Momčilo Ninčić and the kingdom's place at Geneva
The kingdom's standing in the League was not limited to the Council question the editorial raises. Momčilo Ninčić was a lawyer who took his doctorate in Paris in 1899 and, as a member of the People's Radical Party, held several ministerial posts from 1912 onwards. He served as president of the League of Nations Assembly in 1926–27. In the same period in which Politika called the Council question a failure, then, a leading politician from the kingdom presided over the League's Assembly. The contrast shows that the kingdom held a visible role in Geneva, while, by the paper's account, it still fell short of the elected Council seat that carried real executive weight.
General Cincar-Marković and the coup of 29 May 1903
Dimitrije Cincar-Marković was a general who, as a close associate of King Milan, made a significant contribution to the reform and enlargement of the Serbian army. King Alexander Obrenović installed a government headed by him on 6 November 1902. On the night of 10–11 June 1903, which was 28–29 May by the Old Style calendar, a group of army officers killed King Alexander and Queen Draga in the Stari Dvor in Belgrade, and the conspirators also killed Prime Minister Cincar-Marković. That is the "29 May" of the column's heading. The column is signed by his widow, Marija. Her statement that his government kept 7,000,000 dinars in the prime minister's office safe for urgent Krupp orders is her own account, written twenty-three years after the killings, and it presents her husband's cabinet as one busy arming the country when it was overthrown.
Why sugar from Čukarica made a joke about an official
The Čukarica refinery in Belgrade, built in 1901, was the first sugar factory in Serbia. After the First World War it was under the administration of the Ministry of Justice until 1925, when it became majority state-owned and was renamed the State Sugar Factory in Čukarica. By the autumn of 1926, sugar from Čukarica was therefore the product of a state enterprise. The "evil tongues" in the gossip column were insinuating that the sugar found at a ministry official's medical examination came from helping himself to the state's sugar. The column names no one and presents the link only as malicious talk, so the item records the suspicion that surrounded officials in Belgrade at the time.
Original
Један докуменат
Питање нашега чланства у Савету питање је нашег неуспеха да у том најважнијем органу Лиге Народа, па стога и најважнијем међународном органу, осигурамо себи место на које бисмо по одредби чл. 4. ал. 1. Пакта имали право. По овој одредби чланство у Савету двојако је. Оно је " стално " и " нестално " с тим да разлика између сталног и несталног чланства технички лежи у томе што је прво чланство Великих Сила и траје док траје и само чланство у Лиги, а друго чланство осталих Сила које траје док траје мандат до којег те Силе долазе путем избора обављеним на годишњим Лигиним Скупштинама. Наша земља, као једна од " осталих " Сила, има стога пуно право на нестално чланство у Савету, али да би до тог права дошла потребно је да у чланство од стране Скупштине буде изабрана.
Пред 29 мај 1903
Најзад, с обзиром на познату оскудицу у муницији уопште, као и нарочита потреба у већем броју брзометних топова, влада генерала Цинцар-Марковића, држала је у каси Председништва Министарства Суму од 7. 000. 000 дан., будући одређена за исплату у том времену хитно наручиваног топовског и другог ратног материјала у Круповој фабрици.
Шта се говори?
Један министарски помоћник разболео се и отишао на лечење у један санаториум. При прегледу нађено је да сем беланчевине има још и шећера. А зли и пакосни језици нашли су одмах разлога да разгласе како је тај шећер са Чукарице.