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This is undoubtedly true. The easiest road is not always the best. The goal to be reached is the highest development of national vitality, and that cannot be attained by the easy pathway leading to absorption into a foreign Power. Better far for a race which has faith in its destiny to struggle on a little longer to secure the national freedom which it longs for, than to bow slavishly its neck to another foreign yoke.

The chapter contributed by Mr Bourchier (The Times' correspondent) is a lucid and interesting exposé of the various steps by which Greece, Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria obtained their independence. In his remarks upon the setting aside of the Treaty of San Stefano, while admitting that there can be no doubt Russia had in view, by that treaty, the making of Bulgaria a Russian dependency, Mr Bourchier expresses the opinion that the Bulgarians, "by their dogged tenacity of character," would have speedily emancipated

themselves from Russian influence. We regret that we cannot share his views on this subject. Ask a Pole or a Finn what have been their experiences. The fact is that the throwing off the dominion of a great military Power by a small Power is a wellnigh hopeless task. We congratulate the Bulgarians that their dogged tenacity of character was not put to so severe an ordeal. Happily, by the remarkable political foresight of Lord Beaconsfield the independence of Bulgaria became the

act of the Concert of Europe, and not the gift of Russia alone.

After describing the irreconcilable antagonism between the Bulgarian and Greek Christians in Macedonia, Mr Bourchier summarizes the prospects as follows:

"Unhappily the Balkan States are not yet ripe for an amicable arrangement, and their discords seem likely as heretofore to offer a new lease of life to Turkey, and to serve the selfish purposes of their great neighbours."

The fifth chapter, by Mr Luigi Villari, is a very valuable contribution to the Macedonian question. In the first sentence of that chapter we read

"Had the population of Macedonia been homogeneous, the problem would have been settled long ago, but the mixture of races has ever been a marked characteristic of the Balkan peninsula, and of no part of it more so than of Macedonia." And further on

"This confusion of tongues and creeds makes the problem of Macedonian reform or autonomy more Greece, Crete, Bulgaria, or Servia."

difficult than it was in the case of

The various races which form the population of Macedonia are succinctly described. Mr Villari estimates it as 700,000 Mohammedans, and 1,300,000 to 1,500,000 Christians. The Christians he divides into four communities - Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, and Rumans or Kutzo-Vlachs. To the Greek community he attributes 300,000 souls, and to the KutzoVlachs 100,000 souls. No figures are given for the Serb and Bulgarian communities, but it is implied that to

gether they represent about 900,000 souls. Thus the Bulgarian element is only a little more numerous than the Mohammedan.

Some remarks of Mr Villari upon the ambitions of the Bulgarians in Macedonia deserve special notice. He writes

"But of late years another tendency has begun to manifest itself, especially in Macedonia, in favour not of a union of that country with the Principality, but of its formation into an autonomous province. In Macedonia the Bulgarian or BulgaroMacedonian element is not the only one, and incorporation with the Principality would arouse bitter jealousies on the part of all the other Balkan States. Their [the Bulgarian] aspirations now may be described as nothing more drastic than the execution of the provisions concerning Macedonia set forth in Article 23 of the Berlin Treaty. All that they ask of Europe is, that they may live in peace."

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The seventh chapter, by Mr Frederick Moore, gives interesting details of the working of the external and internal revolutionary organisations-in other words, of the Bulgarian insurgent bands; of the capture of Miss Stone, planned by Sarafoff to raise money for the purchase of rifles; of the murder of Professor Mihaileanu in Bucharest; of the Salonika outrages and of the Krushevo incident, which last is too mildly described as "a grand plunder, not a massacre. This chapter is most instructive, and shows the insurgents in their true colours, unscrupulous and unprincipled, characteristics which deprive them of the sympathy which otherwise their courageous but unsuccess

ful efforts might have called forth.

The eighth chapter, by Mr Valentine Chirol, is the ablest in the volume, and, in many respects, the most important. It is a masterly exposé of the attitude of the European Powers towards the Christian from the time of Catherine II. races subjugated by Turkey, of Russia down to the present day. During that long period of 138 years the policy of Russia towards these Christian races has never varied, and is aptly described by Mr Chirol in these terms:

"The underlying Russian conception of policy in the Near East was that all intervention in favour of the Christian subjects of the Porte should be carried out by Russia alone,— ostensibly because they were members of the same faith as the Russians, and that it was easier for one Power to bring energetic pressure to bear on the Sultan; in reality, because Russia wished to have a free

hand for the extension both of her torial boundaries. Though not specipolitical ascendancy and of her terrifically defined, Russia's claim to the right of interference between the Sultan and his Christian subjects was England, however, never admitted it, tacitly recognised by the Turks. and it was in order more effectually to resist it that she first sought to organise what has come to be known as the Concert of Europe, on the basis of the necessity for a collective intervention of all the Powers."

It is interesting and instructive to notice from Mr Chirol's paper that, although Russia first laboured in behalf of Greece, Roumania, Bulgaria, and Eastern Roumelia, these countries ultimately received their deliverance from Turkish domination by a collective act

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of the Concert of Europe, thus freeing them from a predominating influence on the part of Russia. We are told how Russia alone, as early 1767-74, induced the Greek population of the Morea to rise against its oppressors, but that it was the united squadrons of Russia, England, and France which destroyed the Turkish fleet at Navarino, and that the final protocol which regulated the status of the new Hellenic kingdom was signed in London. Roumania owed her first steps towards independence to Russia, but it was the Concert of Europe, by the Convention of Paris in 1858, which ratified her full autonomy, and, twenty years later, by the Treaty of Berlin, created her an independent kingdom. Alexander III. of Russia has justly been called the Liberator of Bulgaria, but it was the Concert of Europe, by the Treaty of Berlin, which gave Bulgaria the charter of its liberty. Russian agents and

consuls in Eastern Roumelia strenuously promoted the agitation for union with the Principality, but it was the attitude of England, France, and Italy which induced the Sultan to recognise that union under the Prince of Bulgaria as Governor. Indeed, if their national life is to be preserved, it is of vital importance to the Christian races of Turkey that their freedom should be ratified by the Concert of Europe, and this is a point which must on no account be lost sight of in any scheme for the amelioration of the Christian races in Macedonia.

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"The future of European Turkey -to Adrianople, at any rate-must sooner or later belong to Christian races. There is no example in history, since the siege of Vienna two centuries ago, of the Turk's having regained an inch of soil that he has once yielded to native races. Eastern Roumelia to constitute an exception to this rule? We have always been accused by Russia and chief obstacles to the emancipation of her agents in the East of being the Christian races in European Turkey. The reasons for a particular line of policy on our part have fortunately ceased to exist, and we are free to act impartially, and to take up gradually, with the proper restraints, the lines which made Palmerston famous in regard to Belgium, Italy, &c. The liberate Greece, Servia, and Roumania. Montenegro alone has remained faithful and grateful. They are now about to lose the Bulgarians. These newly emancipated races want Russian nostrils." to breathe free air, and not through

Russians have made sacrifices to

It was the breathing of that free air, not through Russian nostrils, which was secured to the Bulgarians by the substitution of the Treaty of Berlin for the Treaty of San Stefano. It will only be secured to the Macedonians

by the active, patient, collective action of the six great European Powers.

These six Powers do not regard the Macedonian Question from quite the same point of view. Russia and Austria, as contiguous Powers, have interests which prevent them alone regarding it from what may be called the humanitarian point of view. Germany, influenced by the strong friendship of its Emperor for the Sultan, while not ostensibly opposing the amelioration of the lot of the Christian races in Macedonia, may be expected only half-heartedly to support any measures which would be distasteful to Abdul Hamid. England, France, and Italy are the only Powers which are in a position frankly, and without any arrière-pensée, to espouse the cause of the Macedonian Christians. It can therefore easily be conceived how difficult is the task of the diplomatists of the three last mentioned Powers, and how much tact and patience will be required to carry with them the other three Powers. It was a happy thought of the editor of the volume upon the Balkan Question to include a chapter from a French and another from an Italian writer of weight. It is of no use dissembling the fact that a public opinion in France and Italy is not quite as strongly formed on the Macedonian Question as it is in England. It is generally sympathetic, but scarcely yet presents that pressure which the Governments of these countries would like to

have behind them as an couragement to action.

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The ninth chapter is by Monsieur Victor Bérard, and deals with the attitude of France towards Macedonia. We regret that the limited space at our disposal does not permit of our quoting interesting remarks in this chapter upon the past action of France, when "at the time of the Armenian atrocities, to go no further back, the fear of a general European war made the Government of France, together with the whole Concert of Europe, the accomplices of Abdul Hamid's crimes"; nor upon the hopelessness of any result being obtained, if Austria and Russia are alone left to deal with Macedonian problems. M. Bérard shows "how circumstances have undergone a complete change within the last six years," and in the concluding sentences of his article he says

"There remains but one policy for France. The various Balkan peoples are not yet sufficiently developed for any one of them to take charge of of the peninsula. The maintenance Macedonia and obtain the hegemony of the Ottoman Empire in some shape is still a necessity, but its integrity is only possible by means of European control. Without it the continued existence of Turkey is not only an iniquity, it is a sheer impossibility. . . . That Macedonia can be pacified by means of European control, the case of Crete should convince us. Cretan Question was, at least, as difficult as the Macedonian Question,

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and yet the Cretan problem was solved. It was solved through the three the joint action of Liberal Powers-France, Italy, and England.. The Macedonians themselves, we are told, have no faith in Austria and Russia, but trust only

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These are true and admirable words, and it is of vital importance that the sentiments they express should be universally received in France and guide the action of its enlightened Government.

The tenth chapter is a short exposé of the policy of Italy, in which it is not concealed that Italy is fearful of being shut out from the Albanian

coast of the Adriatic Sea, and therefore she desires the separation of Albania from Macedonia; and that "in the reorganisation of Albania, which should remain at all events for the present under the suzerainty of the Porte, no other Power should be allowed to have exclusive influence." This latter condition is in unison with the views of Mr Villari, who also insists upon "the separation of the purely Albanian districts from Macedonia proper." But the point is at present of no importance, for the action of the Powers is only now directed to improving the condition of the Macedonian subjects of the Sultan.

The eleventh chapter, by Mr E. Hilton Young, is headed "A suggested Scheme of Reforms. We confess that we reached this second-last chapter of the volume with interesting expectations. We hoped to find in it suggestions of value, a scheme of practical merit

which might prove a fitting climax to several interesting articles which preceded it. We were grievously disappointed. The suggested scheme is so confused and impracticable that we felt inclined to pass it over in silence; but, on second thoughts, we think it well to expose the crudities which pass muster with a well-meaning group in England who pose as an English Macedonian Committee.

As far as we can understand a rather confused exposition of Mr Young's scheme, it suggests that Macedonia should be handed over to

"the full executive control (sic) of foreign administrators nominated by the Powers. All relations with the Central Government would pass by the channel of these foreign administrators, who would have the power of appointment and dismissal in their departments. They would also meet as a board of control, which should be commissioned to report within a fixed period as to the alterations required in the law.”

Does the writer realise that that means the handing over of the administration of Macedonia to foreigners? It ignores the two leading factors of the situation-the opposition of the Sultan, and the divergence of views and interests amongst the Powers.

Is the Sultan likely to agree amicably to such a scheme, and, if not, is it probable that the six Powers would decide to impose it upon his Imperial Majesty by force?

Entirely oblivious of the impracticability of his scheme, Mr Young goes on to say—

"A settlement of this sort would, of course, be provisional. . . . Under it the peasants would settle down to

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