King of Sweden's death with deep sorrow, stating that he was Denmark's true friend. He expressed, however, a confident hope that the cordial friendship between the two kingdoms would continue under King Oscar's enlightened reign. The foreign situation, the King said, remained unchanged. The Schleswig question was still pending, but the hope of a satisfactory solution was undiminished. Bills had been prepared for a reform of the public schools in the direction of a more popular system of education, and for law reform. A revision of army law would also be proposed. The King was greeted with hearty cheers.

One public calamity there was to deplore shortly afterwards, in the awful floods which the storms of November brought upon the lowlands adjoining the Baltic. Whole families were drowned; and farms, and in some instances almost entire villages, were swept away.

RUSSIA.

The two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great was celebrated with great magnificence at St. Petersburg and Moscow, and in all the other cities of Russia, on the 12th of June. The imperial family attended solemn worship in the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul at St. Petersburg. Towards the end of the services, when the Hymn of the Resurrection was intoned by the choir, the Emperor took a medal, coined in honour of the occasion, from the hands of the Finance Minister, and placed it upon the sepulchre of his illustrious ancestor, the fortress walls sending forth at this signal a salvo of artillery.

At Moscow the occasion was taken to open the Polytechnic Exhibition; when the Rector of the University, Professor Soloviev, delivered an elaborate harangue on the merits of Peter the Great as a Reformer :-"With Peter's activity," he said, "we are accustomed to associate the most important reforms. Among his contemporaries, it is true, many were opposed to his grand schemes, while others regarded him as the regenerator of his race, and contended that he first called Russia into existence. Foreign writers, too, hostile to this country, and hiding their animosity under the pretence of censuring a single man, have frequently treated us to the assertion that Peter lived too early for his subjects, who were not in a position to profit by the blessings he showered upon them. As to the trifling circumstance that Peter's works survived his death, this has been set down by the wiseacres of Western Europe as accidental, and proving nothing. Indeed, these invidious critics go the length of asserting that, notwithstanding all that Peter has done for us, it is just possible his work may be undone some day, his reforms scattered to the winds, and Russia, once more steeped in barbarism, be forced back into an Asiatic wilderness. I think we can afford to wait the fulfilment of these prophecies; we can afford to wait and see

whether what is called a superficial civilization will not continue to stand, as it has stood so long. Meanwhile no one will deny that Peter's reign forms a great and decisive period in our history. Other nations have had reforms and reformers; but in no country in the world has so much been effected by one man, has such an immense amount of multifarious labour been done by a single individual."

The position of the Great Empire at this moment was indeed a gratifying comment on the lofty schemes and aspirations of its virtual founder. Recovered from the desolating effects of the Crimean War, and having shaken off some of its most hampering consequences by the revision of the Black Sea Treaty, she was now restoring Sebastopol as a military and naval emporium, while her Budget, showing for the first time a surplus instead of a deficit, indicated that firm financial foundation, without which a nation's reviving prosperity must always be more or less uncertain. "The Russian Budget for 1872," says a journalist, "marks a turning-point in the financial history of the Eastern Empire. A surplus of 384,221 roubles may seem a very insignificant sum for so vast a country, but it becomes a very appreciable indication of prosperity when it is recollected that for exactly forty years, ever since 1831, the Russian Budget has been suffering from a chronic state of deficiency. These deficits were by no means as unpretending as is the present surplus, nor have they been limited exclusively to years of war."

The improved management of the finances, according to the same authority, may be dated from the year 1863, when the Board of Control was newly organized; but political difficulties made the deficits still increase till 1866, since which time a steady progress towards solvency has been traceable, and this notwithstanding the great absorption of money by the steady development of the railway system.

The eighth meeting of the International Statistical Congress was held at St. Petersburg in August. There were assembled on this occasion an unusually large number of eminent statists both from Europe and America.

At the present time the policy of Russia was very much directed to the acquisition and maintenance of influence in the affairs of her neighbours and dependants. Rumours of a design to conciliate the Polish subjects of the Empire seemed to point to a consolidation of her Panslavonic policy. With the Letts of Livonia the efforts of the ultra-Russian party seem to have been successful only in increasing local hostility to the German element in the population, without drawing it at all nearer to the Russian. At the Court of the Sublime Porte, the Russian Ambassador, General Ignatieff, had succeeded in establishing an interest apparently as great as that which Lord Stratford de Redcliffe once wielded there on behalf of the English. The Grand Vizierate of Midhat Pasha was only a temporary obstruction of this interest, one of its effects being to check the independent aspirations of the Bulgarian Church.

The

Under the Vizierate of Mahmoud Pasha the claims of the Bulgarian Church to be governed by an elective hierarchy, instead of by bishops appointed by the Greek Patriarch, was officially sanctioned, and it was no secret that this sanction had been given with the connivance, if not at the instigation, of Russia, whose policy in regard to the Eastern Christians had thus entered into a new phase. Before the conflict between the Greeks and the Bulgarians, Russia had played the part of protector of all the members of the Greek Church in the East without distinction of nationality; but being now compelled to side with either one or the other of the opposing parties, she took up the cause of the Bulgarians with an ardour which excited much indignation in the Greek press. The Greek Patriarch at first wished to submit the Bulgarian dispute to the Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, but this was rendered impossible by the abstention of the Russian ecclesiastical authorities from that Council. He then convoked a synod of all the bishops of the Greek Church in Turkey; upon which General Ignatieff persuaded two of the most influential to take the part of the Bulgarians. When the synod met, the Greek Patriarch proposed that the "schismatic church" of Bulgaria should be excommunicated. majority agreed, but the patriarchs of Jerusalem and Antioch objected, and even threatened at once to leave the Council unless fresh negotiations were opened with the Bulgarians. The synod was in consequence adjourned for a fortnight. During this interval the Russian Ambassador used every effort to set aside the decision of the majority in the synod; while the Greeks, backed by the Government at Athens, and by the anti-Russian Grand Vizier Midhat, were equally active in supporting their patriarch. The result was a victory for the Greeks: the decree of excommunication was formally promulgated on the 30th of September, and the Bulgarian clergy are now prohibited by the head of their Church from performing ecclesiastical functions. The dismissal of Midhat, however, has removed the most formidable obstacle to the plans of Russia. The Bulgarian question, originally arising out of a dispute among members of the Greek Church in Turkey, has now taken the shape of a conflict between Panslavism and Hellenism; on one side is Russia striving to secure the predominance of the Slavonic element in the East, and aiming to undermine the authority of the Greeks in all the Turkish provinces; on the other, the Government at Athens, supported by Austria, and by those Turkish statesmen who think Greek influence at Constantinople less dangerous than Russian influence.

In Central Asia the activity of Russian policy this year was conspicuous. A commercial treaty, involving the cession to Russia of the district of Kuldja, estimated at 20,000 geographical square miles, was concluded with the ruler of a Mahometan kingdom in Eastern Turkestan, which had recently detached itself from the Chinese Empire; and schemes were proposed for railways to form a double line of communication between Russia Proper and her new

dependencies in the far East. Nearer the European limits Russia found it advisable to settle accounts with the Khan of Khiva, a prince who had made himself obnoxious by the murder of certain Russian merchants, and other actions of a political nature. The expedition ordered against Khiva in October was subsequently delayed; and the news received just before the close of this year was, that the Khivese had invaded the Russian territory, that nine thousand men were besieging the Russian forts of Old and New Emba, and two thousand infesting the lower course of the Emba River, while other detachments were marching against the post of Krasnovodsk on the Caspian, and Fort Irgles on the OrenburgTurkestan road; also that Russian reinforcements had been sent in haste to the Emba Forts from Orenburg and Irghis.

The dangerous illness of the Czarevitch at Christmas caused great alarm; but, as in the case of our own Prince of Wales at the same period of the preceding year, the symptoms began to ameliorate before the season was over.

TURKEY.

The great contest within the Roman Catholic Church had its effect among the subjects of the Mahometan ruler. To the Armenian Church question we have already had occasion to allude. The Hassounites and anti-Hassounites represented the respective parties of Infallibilists and "Old Catholics." Another ecclesiastical topic of interest was the Bulgarian Church question, which, as has been already said, turned upon the demand of the Bulgarians to manage their own religious affairs, instead of being subject to the Greek Patriarchate of Constantinople. After a long conflict with the Greek Patriarch, the Sultan issued a decree on the 24th of February, permitting the election of an Exarch for the Bulgarian Church, and recommending three prelates-Passios, Anthimos (Metropolitan of Widdin), and Hilarion (Bishop of Loftcha)-as the fittest candidates for the post. Hilarion was then elected by the Bulgarian Church Council; but the election was not confirmed, as the Patriarch could not admit to the dignity of Exarch a priest who had repeatedly been censured for his liberal opinions, and had been twice excommunicated. It was then decided to elect the more moderate Metropolitan Anthimos of Widdin. The Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in the month of September declared the Church of Bulgaria to be schismatical.

The Turkish Government sustained a great loss in September by the death of Djemel Pasha, the able Minister of Foreign Affairs, which occurred quite suddenly as he was returning by railway from a complimentary mission to the Emperor of Russia. Other Ministerial changes occurred abruptly this year. In the month of July the Grand Vizier, Mahmoud Pasha, fell into disgrace, and was

made to resign office in favour of Midhat Pasha, Governor of Bagdad. Mahmoud had represented Russian influence in the Councils of the Porte; Midhat represented Austrian influence. But Midhat's sway was short. It was said that he would not, like his predecessor, lay the savings of the State Treasury at the Sultan's disposal. Rudschi Pasha was appointed Grand Vizier in his place. The true key of Turkish politics this year seems to be discoverable in two motifs: the Sultan's wish to alter the succession, and the influence which the Russian Ambassador, General Ignatieff, had succeeded in establishing over his councils. With regard to the succession, the Sultan's eager desire was to get his own eldest son, Youssouf Izeddin, declared his heir, in conformity with the usual European system, instead of Murad Effendi, the eldest son of his brother the late Sultan Abdul Medjid, who, having been born under his father's reign, had, according to Turkish law, a prior claim to a cousin born before his father had ascended the throne. The policy of Russia was to favour the Sultan's wishes in this respect, through the ministry of those Grand Viziers with whom General Ignatieff had established an entente cordiale.

An Egyptian expedition against Abyssinia, in punishment of a raid committed by the Abyssinians on Egyptian territory, calls for mention. The Khedive was credited with ambitious designs of annexation, for which he was not sorry to seize on the first available pretext, and is said to have found a useful instrument in Werner Munzingas, the French consul in Abyssinia, and an élève of the Jesuits.

We must also advert to the ill-treatment of the Jews by the populace at Smyrna and in Roumania, and the refusal of Roumanian juries to find verdicts against the offenders. The Bill for the settlement of the Roumanian Railway question was passed at the beginning of the year.

Finally, we must bestow a glance on the Servian Principality, which was a source of some disquiet this year both to Turkey and Austria. Prince Milan Obrenovitch, fourth Prince of Servia of that family, attained his majority in the month of August, and entered upon the full exercise of his sovereign powers. The event was celebrated at Belgrade with great demonstrations of popular rejoicing. A million and a half of the Servian population are subjects of the King of Hungary, and these Servians, it would seem, are not the least impatient of the race for the realization of the great "idea" which contemplates a transfer of their allegiance from the Emperor Francis Joseph to Prince Milan. But as the notion of a disintegration of the Hungarian kingdom to favour the constitution of the Servian kingdom, of which Prince Milan and his subjects dream, is not one that Magyar statesmen can entertain for a moment, this question seems likely to become one of great difficulty and danger. The Servians, in fact, seek to found a Servian kingdom which shall include the whole Servian race.

Prince Milan opened the Servian Parliament, or Skuptschina, at Kragujevacz, in the month of October, and made a speech setting