it into hostilities with its eastern neighbour unless its honour and its interests were at stake. France has been for years on the most cordial terms with Austria, who, but for the unreasonable outcry raised when she definitively annexed Bosnia, might by this time have been detached from her close connexion with Germany.

If Russia chooses to thwart Austria's well-founded objections, which are supported by Italy, to Servia's acquisition of a port or ports on the Adriatic this is her own affair, and does not concern France. Nor, in conclusion, should it be forgotten at this juncture that it was anxiety as to Russia's future which led France to cultivate more friendly relations with England, and that the only criticism in France of such a policy is based on the fear that England may one day draw the Republic into serious complications with Germany, the cost of which may be chiefly defrayed by France, who is par excellence the pacific Power.

Strange indeed is the situation in Turkey after the bright promise held out by the Revolution of July 1908, when Christians and Mohammedans fell into each others' arms and, weeping tears of joy, vowed an eternal friendship under the régime of liberty which was believed to have set in under the auspices of the Committee of Union and Progress. Feuds and rivalries were regarded as having been dissipated for ever, but soon a jarring note was struck by Austria's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and by Prince Ferdinand's proclamation in the following October, and also by the restlessness of the Cretans.

The Committee grew suspicious of the Christians, and began to devise ways and means for daunting them. There was a programme for the immigration of 1,300,000 Mohammedans and of 200,000 Jews into Macedonia, Bosnia being confidently reckoned upon to furnish 600,000 of these Mohammedans and Bulgaria about the same number, while the Mussulman Tartars were also expected to supply a strong contingent.

Then efforts were made to play the different Christian races off against each other. The first to suffer seriously was the Hellenic population. In the summer of 1909 the relations between Ottomans and Greeks were so strained owing to Crete that the Patriarch called on Mahmoud Chefket Pasha, then Minister of War, to remonstrate. But he was brutally insulted, and was told that his people would be deliberately ruined and annihilated. Yet soon afterwards a Bulgarian Minister was declaring that if war should break out between Turkey and Greece his country's sympathy would be all on the side of the Porte, and a large party of Servian politicians and journalists was at Constantinople with profuse protestations of admiration and friendliness, this being actually followed by the visits of the Kings of Bulgaria and of Servia to the city on the Bosphorus.

The motive of these civilities was mistaken by the Committee, which in its conceit attributed them to fear, and soon it was capping its persecution of the Greeks with its Associations Law, which, among other things, meant the closing of the Bulgarian clubs and mischief for the Christian churches and schools generally. I shall have ten years of despotism decreed,' one of its leaders madly exclaimed; and again was the plan for the overwhelming of the Christians in Macedonia by the introduction of large numbers of Mohammedans seriously considered.

The result of all this tyranny was that by the beginning of the following year Greeks and Bulgarians, who had been in such suicidal rivalry, were arriving at an understanding, and that the visit of the Servian Crown Prince to Sofia was laying the foundation of the League whose arms have been crowned with such triumphant success. The blindness of the Committee of Union and Progress may seem incredible, but it is nevertheless a fact that by its hostility to the Christian populations it paved the way to this debâcle.

Well may the dethroned Sultan, if he ever learns the whole truth, ask the Committee what Turkey has gained by the Revolution when she has definitively lost Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Tripoli, and is undergoing so many other amputations. Infamous though his own rule was, no improvement set in afterwards; indeed, in the opinion of every competent judge, the last state has been infinitely worse than the first.

King Ferdinand is criticised for having called this war a crusade, but the definition is quite exact, owing to the intolerable policy pursued by the Committee, and as such it has been recognised by Christian soldiers in the Ottoman armies. The fact that the members of the Balkan League are evincing symptoms of megalomania is beside the question, as their respective aspirations are no novelty. Long ago the Servians speculated as to their chances of reviving their ancient Empire, the Bulgarians did the same, and after the reunion of Wallachia and Moldavia I often heard Roumanians express the hope that they might one day enter into full possession of Dacia through the addition of Transylvania, Bukovina, and the Banate of Temesvar to their territory.

This longing for expansion can be easily understood when it is remembered that each of these States is maintaining a Court, Legations, and an army, the quality of which, in the case of the League, has just been tested with so much success, but which is out of all proportion to its size and resources, and that therefore the country could not stand the strain for ever. As a matter of fact these costly preparations were made with a view to seizing whatever could be wrested whenever the opportunity offered,

and, when business with Turkey has been finally disposed of, the old rivalries between these States are bound to be resumed.

And their argument that Europe has no right to interfere in their affairs cannot be entertained for a moment. To go no further back, it was Europe who saved Servia from the consequences of her war with Turkey in 1876, and it was Austria who intervened in her rescue after her utter defeat by Bulgaria at Slivnitza. It was Europe again who saved Greece from the fate with which she was threatened after her crushing defeat by Turkey in 1897. So every consideration is due to Europe from States which owe their liberation to her, and which, if they know the meaning of the word gratitude, will refrain from any act which might lead to complications in comparison with which what is passing in the Balkan Peninsula, terrible though it is, would inevitably sink into insignificance.

J. W. OZANNE.

AT A JOURNEY'S END

A LITTLE army of men and women has suffered me to lead them during the last two years over a stretch of land, which some hasty observers seem to think as easy to cross as a well-paved street, and others judge to be less manageable than a pathless wilderness. The wayfarers know that neither opinion is strictly true. Caution and toil are needed to make the foothold firm, but orderly tracks can be cut, although they must be rather narrow. At many points pitfalls threaten. A false step, a wandering gait, may breed infinite trouble. The laws of the country prohibit any loose striding or haphazard digression. Yet if there be industry, vigilant control, obedience to discipline, recognition of a common cause and repression of selfish ambition, there is good reason to hope that home will be reached without mishap or reproach, even amid expressions of sympathy from bystanders.

This is not the first tour of the kind that some of my comrades have completed with me. A few of us have gone together over similar ground before. But the journey which has just ended has been new to the majority of the travellers, and the route has somewhat differed from that of the former tours. In the first elation of completing a pilgrimage in safety, travellers are prone to rate too highly the merit of their exploits. Their selfsatisfaction may well stir impatience in the onlookers, if they make for the Temple of Victory in gaily decked triumphal cars, and shout loud thanksgivings in the public ear. But a voyager, when he has just escaped from the heat and burden of the road, may, perhaps, without offence, muse in the Temple of Peace over some of his adventures, before the memory of them grows dim. Some small advantage for those who follow in our footsteps may attend a meditation on the methods and purpose of our recent march, and on some of the principles of conduct which we have tried to respect. My associates have worked with a zeal which it is grateful for me to acknowledge, but I speak here without consulting or committing them. The main responsibilities must needs rest on the guide's shoulders. None besides him keeps the whole field of operation quite continuously in sight; only he is at hand day by day to watch all the changing fortunes.

of the scene. His range of observation can alone be quite complete.

As I write, I am putting my 'imprimatur' to the third and last volume of the Second Supplement of the Dictionary of National Biography. I trust that my figures of speech will be reckoned of relevance to my recent editorial labours and to the brief comment on them which I am hazarding here. My newest experience is alone my present theme. It is sad to remember that I am the sole survivor of the original little band of active organisers who set the Dictionary on its road nearly thirty years ago; without intermission, albeit at the outset in a subordinate capacity, I have personally tended the giant from his infancy to his manhood, and none has shared the whole of that experience with me. The early stages of the undertaking barely touch the purpose of this paper, but it is right that I should recallfor public memory is often short-how this vast work was originally devised and carried out by George M. Smith, the friend and publisher of Thackeray and Browning, and the founder of the Cornhill Magazine and the Pall Mall Gazette. Mr. Smith did not count the cost of his enterprise. Nor was his public spirit rewarded in his lifetime. But he has taken his rank among national benefactors. A tablet in St. Paul's Cathedral now records the national service, and his portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. Another name of the past claims tribute of me, that of my predecessor in the editorship, Sir Leslie Stephen. It is more than twenty-one years since I succeeded to Stephen's chair after an eight years' apprenticeship, and I am conscious of no abatement in my sense of indebtedness to him, whose name has just been inscribed by my pen on the great roll in the latest Supplementary volume. To his training I attribute whatever success has attended my endeavours to continue the traditions, which he inaugurated for the Dictionary, of comprehensiveness, conciseness, fairness, and independence.

II

The Dictionary dates its theme from the first runnings of the river of national life some fifteen hundred years ago. Its essential value does not depend on the addition of those who have lately died; its importance as an aid to study and research is assured if it stopped short of the present era. The scheme justly ignores the living. It treats only of the dead. A biography, however brief or summary, has no title to exist unless it be complete, and without the finishing touch of death every biographic record is a fragment. But, in the affairs of mortal men, death is never at rest, and the various categories in the