the Arabs in Asia and the Albanians in Europe. Both these elements resent bitterly the Ottomanist tendencies of their Turkish co-religionists. The Arabs have on more than one occasion protested against the use of Turkish as the official language in Parliament and the Porte. The Albanians have made it quite clear that in future they will insist on having the Albanian tongue recognised as the medium of instruction in the Albanian schools. And both these Mohammedan nationalities, in their struggle for self-preservation, can count on the support of the Christian nationalities-Greeks, Slavs, and Bulgars in Europe, Armenians in Asia. It is hardly necessary to add that of these Christian elements the Greek is incomparably the most important, both on account of its numbers and by virtue of its intellectual and commercial superiority-an importance demonstrated by the fact that out of the fifty Christian deputies in the Turkish Chamber twenty-five are Greeks; and that, too, despite all the means, some of them of a highly questionable nature, resorted to by the Young Turks during the elections in order to secure the return of their own co-religionists. It would be a most impolitic step to alienate permanently from the Constitution the sympathies of so powerful an ally. The same remark applies to the other elements in proportion to their relative strength. The recent rupture between the Liberal Union-which embraces nearly all the non-Turkish representatives in the Ottoman Parlia ment-and the Committee of Union and Progress, which stands for Turkish supremacy, is an event the ominous significance of which can be ignored neither by the friends nor by the enemies of Young Turkey. Old Turkey always maintained towards the rival nationalities, of which the population of the empire is made up, the attitude of a passive onlooker. Their inter necine struggle did not seem to concern it directly. Its traditional policy was to foster that rivalry and to rule by dividing. Young Turkey has inaugurated a new policy-a policy of unification of all the heterogeneous elements into one people. But this policy may defeat its own object by being pushed to excess. What nature has divided man cannot unite. It is inconceivable that the Greeks, for example, will ever consent to exchange their language the language of Homer and Plato, the language upon the study of which still rests all culture throughout the civilised world-for the language of Djevdet Pasha or Kemal Bey. All that the Turkish patriots can reasonably hope to achieve is to conciliate the non-Turkish nationalities by practical proofs that their welfare is bound up with the welfare of the Empire. A policy of moderation would have been the most prudent policy even if national diversity were tempered by religious and social uniformity, and even if the geographical position of Turkey rendered it invulnerable to outside influences. As it is, the chasm which divides the Christian from the Mohammedan can only be bridged over by a genuine conviction on both sides that each is indispensable to the prosperity of the other; for it is a chasm that cannot entirely disappear, so long as civil and social institutions continue to have creed for their basis. Again, the mere fact that Turkey in Europe is surrounded by free States, each of which is represented by a kindred population within the Empire, renders the conciliation of those populations imperative. The uncertainty which still prevails in Macedonia serves to keep alive Bulgarian ambition; the regrettable nationalist programme adopted by the Committee of Union and Progress serves to keep alive the distrust of the non-Turkish populations; and, lastly, the enthusiasm with which the Greeks at first welcomed what they considered as the opening of an era of security and progress has lost much of its fervour, owing partly to the failure of the new rulers of Turkey to remove the old causes of unrest from Macedonia, and partly to the resentment aroused among the Turks by the action of the Cretans. Crete had for generations supplied a perennial source of bitterness between Greek and Turk. Maladministration had repeatedly goaded the islanders to rebellion; and their efforts at emancipation had always met with warm sympathy and support among their kinsmen of the Greek kingdom. In fact, the economic troubles of Greece during the last half-century owe their origin mainly to the Cretan question. The first foreign loan contracted by the Hellenic Government had for its object the succour of the distressed Cretans; and the same demand has continued to form a regular drain on the Hellenic treasury. Ten years ago the Powers intervened, Vol. 210.-No. 419. 2 Y and took the first step towards the union of Crete with Greece, by placing the island under a Greek governor and an autonomous administration. The Cretans regarded this emancipation as only a partial fulfilment of their ultimate aspirations, and never ceased to petition for fusion with the mother-country. The Powers yielded so far as to grant to King George the right of nominating the governor of the island, and to allow a portion of the local militia to be placed under the command of Hellenic officers, intimating at the same time their decision to withdraw their own troops within a given period. Turkey herself, by treating Cretan imports on the same footing as foreign imports, has implicitly acknowledged that Crete has ceased to be part of the Ottoman Empire. The only vestige of Ottoman domination left in the island is a solitary Turkish flag floating idly from a rock off the coast. The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria, and the declaration of Bulgarian independence, however, have suggested to the Cretans that the moment has come for them also to take the final step towards complete independence by joining Greece. The Hellenic Government has hitherto abstained from sanctioning this step, in order not to add a fresh embarrassment to those which already hamper the Porte and the Powers. The former has protested against the Cretan action; the latter have not repudiated it. On the contrary, their consuls appear to have tacitly recognised the accomplished fact, by dealing with the new Government established in the island as they did with its predecessor. The withdrawal of the international troops is due to be completed next July. Meanwhile Crete, by the grace of God and the will of its inhabitants constitutes virtually part of the Hellenic kingdom, King George only awaiting the formal consent of the Powers to take full possession of the new province. The Cretan problem might thus be considered as finally solved, were it not for the dissatisfaction evinced by the Young Turks of Constantinople, and the small Mohammedan minority in Crete. Out of the 300,000 inhabitants of the island, 30,000 are adherents of Islam; and, though as thoroughly Greek in race and language as the rest of the Cretans, they show a natural preference for Mohammedan over Christian rule. Material griev ances they have none. Since the emancipation of the island from the Sultan's rule, they have enjoyed all the rights and privileges of free citizens in perfect equality with their Christian fellow-countrymen. But it is not easy for men to reconcile themselves to equality where they have been accustomed to supremacy; and the sentimental discontent of this Mohammedan minority has furnished their co-religionists in Turkey with a lever for an agitation which has done much to nip the budding Greco-Turkish friendship. The matter, however, has long been taken out of the hands of Greeks and Turks alike; and there is no doubt that the Powers will, sooner or later, legalise the solution for which they have paved the way. When this secular cause of friction between Greek and Turk is removed, it may be hoped that the two elements will perceive that a cordial understanding is essential for their common safety. To sum up-whatever the future policy of the Great Powers may be the smaller States (Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, and Roumania), even in the absence of internal discontent and external ambition, are bound, by the very nature of things, to act as centrifugal forces for the Bulgars, Serbs, Greeks and Vlachs of the Balkan Peninsula. Those forces cannot be counteracted save by the establishment of conditions calculated to persuade the different parties concerned that they have more to gain by maintaining the integrity of the Ottoman Empire than by furthering its dissolution. The first requisite towards the establishment of such conditions is an energetic affirmation on the part of the Turkish Government of its power to protect each element from aggression by the others, the removal of administrative abuses, and, in one word, a practical demonstration that it is no longer necessary or permissible for the various races to adopt towards each other the attitude of armed combatants. Pending the realisation of this ideal, the NearEastern Question must remain-a question. G. F. ABBOTT. Art. 16.-LORD MORLEY AND INDIAN REFORM. 1. An Act to amend the Indian Councils Acts, 1861 and 1892, and the Government of India Act, 1833. Ordered by the House of Lords to be printed, February 17, 1909. 2. Speeches by Lord Morley of Blackburn, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Curzon of Kedleston, and others. House of Lords, February 23, 1909. LORD MORLEY'S Indian reforms have aroused much criticism and some apprehension, but upon one point there has been complete unanimity, and that is that some measure of reform was wanted, and wanted urgently. 'The general question of the expediency of reforms,' as so competent a critic as the special correspondent of the Times' declared, 'has practically passed out of the region of controversy.' The second reading of the Indian Councils Bill by the House of Lords was the official confirmation of that view. Indeed the debates of Febru ary 23 and 24 will constitute an era in Indian history; they mark the close of one epoch and the opening of another. The doctrine that all the Indian Government had to do was to provide the people with an efficient administration was definitely abandoned; and, in its place, we have the new policy, which, without disregarding efficiency, recognises that the contentment of the people is a legitimate object of official solicitude. The last decade of Indian history has sufficiently demonstrated that, desirable as is an efficient administration, it may be bought too dear; if an efficient adminis tration can only be secured at the cost of alienating the people from British Government, it is not worth the price that is being paid for it. That such alienation was taking place it is no longe possible to dispute. The Indian press has been growing shriller year by year; Indian politicians have denounced the Government in tones of increasing acerbity; and latterly a party has emerged which plainly demands that the tie which binds India to England should be severed, if need be, by force. This is a new and ominous change. Until a comparatively short time ago the educated classes of India, though not effusive in protestations of loyalty, were at heart fundamentally convinced |