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relations of Greece with her Balkan neighbours during the crises through which the 'preliminary question' has
The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria--Serbia--Greece--Rumania--Turkey 89
been worked out to its solution. Now that this solution is at hand, will Hellenism prove capable of casting out
these two evils, and adapt itself with strength renewed to the new phase of development that lies before it?
The northern territories acquired in 1913 will give a much greater impetus to economic progress than Thessaly
gave a generation ago; for the Macedonian littoral west as well as east of the Struma produces a considerable
proportion of the Turkish Régie tobacco, while the pine-forests of Pindus, if judiciously exploited, will go far
to remedy the present deficiency of home-grown timber, even if they do not provide quantities sufficient for
export abroad. If we take into account the currant-crop of the Peloponnesian plain-lands which already almost
monopolizes the world-market, the rare ores of the south-eastern mountains and the Archipelago, and the
vintages which scientific treatment might bring into competition with the wines of the Peninsula and France,
we can see that Greece has many sources of material prosperity within her reach, if only she applies her
liberated energy to their development. Yet these are all of them specialized products, and Greece will never
export any staple commodity to rival the grain which Rumania sends in such quantities to central Europe
already, and which Bulgaria will begin to send within a few years' time. Even the consolidated Greek
kingdom will be too small in area and too little compact in geographical outline to constitute an independent
economic unit, and the ultimate economic interests of the country demand co-operation in some organization
more comprehensive than the political molecule of the national state.
Such an association should embrace the Balkans in their widest extent-- from the Black Sea to the Adriatic
and from the Carpathians to the Aegean; for, in sharp contrast to the inextricable chaos of its linguistic and
ecclesiastical divisions, the region constitutes economically a homogeneous and indivisible whole, in which
none of the parts can divest themselves of their mutual interdependence. Greece, for example, has secured at
last her direct link with the railway system of the European continent, but for free transit beyond her own
frontier she still depends on Serbia's good-will, just, as Serbia depends on hers for an outlet to the Aegean at
Salonika. The two states have provided for their respective interests by a joint proprietorship of the section of
railway between Salonika and Belgrade; and similar railway problems will doubtless bring Rumania to terms
with Serbia for access to the Adriatic, and both with Bulgaria for rights of way to Constantinople and the
Anatolian hinterland beyond. These common commercial arteries of the Balkans take no account of racial or
political frontiers, but link the region as a whole with other regions in a common economic relation.
South-eastern and central Europe are complementary economic areas in a special degree. The industries of
central Europe will draw upon the raw products of the south-east to an increasing extent, and the south-east
will absorb in turn increasing quantities of manufactured plant from central Europe for the development of its
own natural resources. The two areas will become parties in a vast economic nexus, and, as in all business
transactions, each will try to get the best of the continually intensified bargaining. This is why co-operation is
so essential to the future well-being of the Balkan States. Isolated individually and mutually competitive as
they are at present, they must succumb to the economic ascendancy of Vienna and Berlin as inevitably as
unorganized, unskilled labourers fall under the thraldom of a well-equipped capitalist. Central Europe will
have in any event an enormous initial superiority over the Balkans in wealth, population, and business [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]