The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

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SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

great harm to anybody in the future. Or it may happen that she might repent of her foul action and wish to be received among the Slav and European nations she so recklessly betrayed. But those who know Bulgaria do not believe in the sincerity of her conversion. Dr. Dillon warns her neighbours in this respect, saying: ‘‘The Bulgars are at one with their monarch. Bulgarian sentiment, honour, humanity, are words which their descendants may one day invest with meaning. Their policy, however, takes full account of these qualities in their neighbours, and if fortune should play them false, the Bulgars will again touch the chord of Slav kinship, and endeavour to move their ‘ little brothers ’ to pity and indulgence.” 1 Therefore, the first duty of her neighbours towards themselves and peace in the Balkans is to make Bulgaria harmless, and to obtain real guarantees of her sincerity before committing themselves to any co-operation with her in the future.

Those who believe in freedom and democracy must equally believe in a bright future of SouthEastern Europe constituted upon these principles. Liberty will achieve her unity, which ages of bloodshed and forcible conquest failed to do. In spite of the present horrors, in spite of Coburgs and Kaiser Wilhelm II, the moral progress of the world cannot be stopped, as cannot be stopped

* “ Error about Bulgaria,” The Daily Telegraph, August 16th, 1916.

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