firmed by the foregoing table. Numerically the Bulgarians are far stronger in Macedonia than are the Greeks, and it is certainly not merely by coincidence that, according to the official British statement, the Moslems and Turkish troops killed during 1907 408 Bulgarians, and only 90 Greeks.

The Bulgarian, Greek, and Serbian bands are composed partly of inhabitants of Bulgaria, Servia, and Greece, and especially of Crete, and partly of Macedonian peasants. Thousands of Greek and Bulgarian inhabitants of Macedonia have become brigands by choice or by necessity, from revenge or from despair.

Much money is required for financing these bands. Not only are arms and ammunition, which have to be smuggled across the frontier, very costly, but the leaders of the bands and the rank and file demand high pay and substantial compensation in case of disablement or death. Whilst the Bulgarians are perhaps more ready to fight and to lay down their lives for their country than are the Greeks, the Greeks dispose of far larger funds than the Bulgarians, who are a nation of small farmers. The Greek bands are financed by patriotic Greek millionaires, who reside in Egypt and elsewhere.

The pitiless campaign of mutual extermination is telling on the unhappy inhabitants of Macedonia. Consul-General Lamb reported recently: "The Bulgarian element in the southern portion of the Sanjak of Seres is reduced to virtual extinction. Emigration is assuming such large proportions that nearly 60,000 peasants are stated to have emigrated in the past few years to America from the vilayet of Monastir alone, of whom two-thirds are Bulgarians."

Such is the state of Macedonia, and such are the motives which have created that state. Will the Young Turks succeed in creating peace and order in that unhappy country? It is true that the granting of the Constitution has been followed immediately by a period of quiet in Macedonia, but it is to be feared that this quietude bears rather the character of a temporary suspension of hostilities than that of a lasting peace. Greeks, Bulgarians, and Serbs have always tried to enlist the active support of the Turks against their national competitors. The Turk has been the best ally to the Greek against the Bulgarian and to the Bulgarian against the Greek. The struggling antagonists have laid down their arms probably in order to be able to point to their national competitors as the peace-breakers, and thus to secure the goodwill and support of their new rulers, but they have scarcely forgotten their aims and ambitions, although the enemies of yesterday have fraternised and have embraced one another. The Young Turks have the choice of two evils. They must

either follow a liberal or a conservative policy. If they follow a liberal policy, if they introduce parliamentary representation, selfgovernment, and majority rule in Turkey in general, and in Macedonia in particular, the Christians will be in a majority, and it seems likely that they will then oust the Turkish minority and convert the ruling race into a ruled race. Bulgarian, Greek, and Serbian districts will be formed in European Turkey, and especially in Macedonia. The Turkish language will disappear from Macedonia, as the German language has disappeared from Hungary, and the Turks, who have been accustomed to be the masters, will emigrate into Asiatic Turkey, as did so many Turks who inhabited Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, and Bosnia, and Herzegovina, before their separation from Turkey. A liberal policy will therefore bring about the rapid disintegration of the Turkish Empire, and especially of European Turkey, and will mean the disappearance of Turkish rule from Europe.

Foreseeing the danger of allowing the alien elements to be further strengthened, many patriotic Turks have demanded that a vigorous conservative policy should be pursued which will abolish the national differences among the alien races and between the alien races and the Turks. They demand that a Turkish national policy should be initiated, that the aliens should be nationalised in Turkish national schools, that Turkish shall be the language of Turkey, that the Greek, Bulgarian, and other schools shall be closed. Will Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia quietly look on whilst the work of a generation is being undone? Will the Greeks, Serbs, and Bulgarians residing in Turkey allow themselves to be denationalised more or less forcibly? Besides, can they be denationalised against their will except by destroying the parliamentary and democratic government, the Constitution of yesterday, and by re-introducing the ancient absolutism in an aggravated form? Supposing it were possible to suppress the non-Turkish schools, will not the Christian churches in Turkey, the Exarchate and the Patriarchate, form political rallying centres and centres of disaffection and revolt of the Christians in European Turkey? Will the new Turkish Government be able to bridge over the differences between Christians and Mahometans. by bridging over the differences of their religions, and by settling the quarrels of their priests? Two hundred years ago the Turks could easily have nationalised the alien races by means of the church and the school; but it seems that it is now too late to make an attempt at turning the subject races into Turks.

Democratic government in accordance with the new Constitution means national suicide for Turkey. The Christian majority in Europe will no doubt support parliamentary government which

may put the national power into their hands, and the patriotic Young Turks themselves, who introduced the Constitution, may be the first to regret its introduction, and to demand its abolition by a coup d'état. As they are warm-hearted patriots they may make themselves a coup d'état, and parliamentary government in Turkey may be followed by a dictatorial, military rule.

In endeavouring to settle the conflicts among the alien nationalities and between the aliens and the Turks, the path of the new Turkish Government will scarcely be smooth. The Balkan States are watching events with attention. Although they have congratulated the new Turkish Government, they have no interest in Turkey's regeneration, and they are bound to oppose the Ottomanisation of their compatriots in Turkey. Therefore they may be expected to draw the sword and to face Turkey unitedly if they see their plans of expansion threatened by the nationalisation of the alien elements in Turkey. It seems therefore clear that the Young Turks will hardly be able to pacify Macedonia, that the present truce will not last, and that Macedonia will again become a festering sore in the Turkish body politic, which ultimately may require the surgeon's knife. The recent festivities and generous speeches will hardly provide a permanent solution to a problem in which not sentiments but great national interests are chiefly involved.

Turkey's future depends largely on the settlement of her alien problem. This problem may have to be settled very soon in one way or another, and the Turkish revolution may be hastening on a crisis of the gravest kind. If the position in Turkey should become untenable owing to the conflict of the Turks and the alien races, if, as seems possible, civil war on a large scale should break out and devastate the Balkan peninsula, the European Powers would be compelled to step in and to replace chaos by a stable form of government. As the Christian population is in the majority in European Turkey, it might then be found necessary to end Turkey's rule in Europe, and the problem how to replace the Turkish Government at Constantinople by a non-Turkish one would arise. In the settlement of that problem Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia are no doubt most directly interested, but as the European Great Powers will scarcely allow the Balkan States to settle the future of Turkey among themselves, we must now take note of the interests which the leading Great Powers have in Turkey, interests which will determine their attitude and policy.

It is not the object of this article to look at the problem of Turkey from the purely humanitarian point of view. Humanitarian considerations take necessarily a secondary place in the cal

culations of statesmen, for it is the business of statesmen to promote rather the interests of their own country than the interests of foreigners or of humanity at large. Stripped from humanitarian considerations, the problem of the future of Turkey is the problem of the possession, or of the control, of Constantinople with the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus.

Strategically and economically Constantinople occupies a position of the very greatest importance. Napoleon I. indulged in one of his numerous picturesque exaggerations when he exclaimed: "The nation which holds Constantinople possesses the mastery of the world." On the other hand, it is no doubt true, and now more than in the time of Napoleon I., that the Power which holds Constantinople dominates Russia. The richest, the most fruitful, and the most densely populated provinces of Russia lie round the Black Sea and on the mighty rivers which flow into the Black Sea. Agriculture, commerce, and the manufacturing industries always follow the natural and the cheapest means of transport, the course of rivers, and the south of Russia is likely to become more and more the centre of Russia's wealth and power. He who is at war with Russia can, if he controls Constantinople, attack her in her most vulnerable part. He may bring Russia to her knees without great military exertion by closing the Bosphorus to Russia's foreign trade, which is now a far more important factor in Russia's economic life than it was at the time of Napoleon I., or of the Crimean War, when Russia's foreign trade was quite insignifi

cant.

Commercially also Constantinople occupies one of the most important positions in the world. Constantinople was the centre of the world's commerce when the productions of Asia were carried by caravans overland towards the ports of southern Europe, and when the European manufacturers were carried by land into the centre of Asia, vid Egypt and the countries on the southern shore of the Black Sea. Now the largest part of the goods exchanged between Europe and Asia takes the sea route, but when the ancient caravan tracks are replaced by railway lines starting from the southern shore of the Black Sea and opening up north-western Asia-the Baghdad Railway will, no doubt, be followed by other lines-the vast current of trade flowing through the Black Sea towards and from the Russian north will be further swelled by a vast current of trade flowing through the Black Sea towards and from Asia Minor and Central Asia. The rivers in the south of India will be linked up by railway with Constantinople. With the progress of civilisation Constantinople may again become the most important mart and

distributing centre of the world. Its commercial possibilities can hardly be over-stated.

Whilst Constantinople would be a very desirable possession to a Central European Power, it is of almost vital necessity to Russia, not only because Constantinople controls the Black Sea and the Black Sea trade. Russia has a fleet in the Baltic and a fleet in the Black Sea. The position of the Russian fleet in the Baltic is an exceedingly precarious one. The Baltic is full of treacherous shallows, the passage through the narrow channels which separate the Danish islands is at all times difficult and dangerous for ships of large draught, and if the Danish islands should be seized in time of war by a third Power-a comparatively easy undertaking-Russia would find her northern squadrons bottled up and useless. Ever since the time of Peter the Great and of Catharine II. Russia has endeavoured to obtain free access to the sea by securing to herself the control of Constantinople, which is the key to her house. Nearly all her great wars were waged for the possession of Constantinople, and she is not likely to abandon her aim now when the possession of Constantinople is to her far more important and necessary than it has been at any previous period of her history. It is an extremely humiliating and an intolerable position for the greatest State in the world to be denied free access to the sea.

Hitherto Austria-Hungary and Great Britain have resisted Russia's desire to obtain possession of Constantinople. The Austrian point of view as regards Constantinople was laid down by Field-Marshal Radetzky, the greatest and most statesmanlike Austrian general of modern times. The Field-Marshal wrote:

Owing to her geographical position Russia is the national and eternal enemy of Turkey. The huge territory of that Empire can send its produce only through the narrow gates of the Baltic or through the Bosphorus. Russia must therefore do all she can to take possession of Constantinople, for its possession gives to her the security she requires as well as territorial completeness.

Russia's geographical position makes it indispensable for her to keep open the Bosphorus and the Sound. She can secure the former object only by dividing its shores between two independent Powers or by taking possession of it. Austria might permit the former, and might also permit Russia to possess an isolated fortress on the Straits similar to Gibraltar. But Austria can never tolerate that Russia should incorporate Turkey in part or whole, for in that case Austria would be hemmed in and controlled by Russia.

The Danube is Austria's main artery. Its lower reaches in the Black Sea are as necessary to Austria as the Sound and the Dardanelles are to Russia, and, in order to utilise the Danube freely, Austria requires also the free use of the Dardanelles. Hence it follows that the conflicting interests of Austria and Russia must lead to war unless both nations arrive at an agreement with regard to Turkey.