He began with the enfranchisement of Thrace (9 Sept.). This province, still under military occupation and martial law, was to vote: further, a political frontier was erected between it and the rest of Greece, which only those possessing a special pass could cross, whilst a rigorous censorship kept all anti-Venizelist newspapers out of it; and, lastly, it was enacted, for the benefit of an electorate alien in its majority and unable to read or write Greek, that the {223} Thracian votes, contrary to the general rule, should be polled by ballot paper, instead of by a ball. Another Bill enabled the army on active service, for the first time in the history of Greece, to participate in elections, the assumption being that among the soldiers Venizelist feeling predominated, or that, at all events, they would be controlled by their officers. As exceptional importance has always attached to the district and city of Athens--"which," M. Venizelos said, "symbolizes the very soul of the country," [5]--it was incumbent upon him to pay special attention to this area. The difficulty was that the actual population was notoriously unsympathetic. M. Venizelos hastened to overcome this difficulty by three strokes of the pen: 18,000 refugees from all parts who lived on the Ministry of Public Relief were enrolled as Athenian citizens; to these were added some 6,000 Cretan gendarmes and policemen; and, to make up the deficiency, 15,000 natives of Smyrna, supposed to have earned Greek citizenship by volunteering in the war, had their names inscribed on the electoral lists of Attica. There followed promises and warnings. On the one hand, the people were promised fresh labour legislation, the conversion of the great landed estates into small holdings, and public works on a large scale. On the other hand, they were warned that an adverse vote from them would have disastrous consequences for the country: Greece had been aggrandized by the Allies for the sake of M. Venizelos; if she discarded him, she would forfeit their goodwill and her territorial acquisitions. But M. Venizelos and his partisans did not trust altogether to the practical sense and the Imperialist sensibilities of the people.