THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1912. THE BALKAN DANGER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 10718, 23 October 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1912. THE BALKAN DANGER.

A striking article appeared in a recent issue of the Round Table, dealing with the Balkan danger. The writer, after describing the various factors that wore working for peace, expressed the opinion that if) wair were to break out it would involve the World. This does not, ho says, mean that the great nations will bo at war, but they will bo standing round the ring, watching the combatants, excited and suspicioiis one of tho other, intent on grabbing something -under cover of the dust and confusion, or anxiously (protecting their rights and interests against the greed of their neighbours. And if the scramble 'becomes general, wliat is the result likely to be ? None can s ay. It may vary between two extremes. It may leave tilings exactly as they are, because no one is able to win a decisive vio ■tory, and because tho chief parties ,can ,reach no agreement about change, or it may involve a complete resettlement. If so, the maximum change that seems possible is that Austria-Hungary should incorporate* Sorvia, Montenegro, and the Southern Slavs, that Bulgaria should annex South-eastern Macedonia, and reach, tho Mediterranean, that Greece should acquire Creto, the Aegean Islands and Epirus, and that Albania should form a now State, wedged between Austria, tho Greater Bulgaria, and Greece, under some sort of international guarantee. Thus would tlie political organisation of the Balkans be founded on language and race. What- of Turkey and Russia? Turkey would probably retain Constantinople —the last outpost of her ancient Empire in Europe—because no other arrangement would command the assent of tho Powers. If Russia were willing to treat Bulgaria as its advance guard, a. pacific agreement with' Austria would be possible. Bub isbe would require a. new arrangement about the Dardanelles and probably territorial compensation elsewhere. And is there any doubt that that would mean a further approach, to the Persian Gulf, at tlio expense of Turkey or Persia? Whatever M. Sazonoff may say or desire, Russia is bound fco move towards the Persian Gulf so long as alio does

not break up internally, nnd so long as Persia and Turkey remain n>: chaotic as they are to-day. It is not a question of her policy or ambitions, it is a question of necessity—the sam-e necessity which. has driven us lo .conquer India. Egypt, K-hodesia, and 'the Sudan. Thus is the British { piro vitally interested in th«- Balkan 1 question, for i.t may bring appreciably ■ nearer the day when the greatest land . empire in the world, containing mono than 150,000,000 white people, will break its pennant oil the oceans -which wash the shores of South Africa, Now Zealand, India, and Australia.