Dr. House's statement about the hinterland of Salonica, is applicable to other places, as Drama, Kavala and Serres, which are generally spoken of as Greek. This is true of the towns that bear these names, but not of the rural population of the districts, which is predominantly Turkish or Bulgarian. In the towns of Drama, Kavala and Serres, the Bulgarian population in comparison with the Greek is very small, although in the first two towns the Turks really have the preponderance over both Greeks and Bulgarians. In the districts, however, of Drama and Kavala the large majority of the rural population consists of Turks and Pomaks (Mohammedan Bulgarians whose vernacular is Bulgarian), while in the Serres district the Greeks constitute a compact majority only in the county of Nigrita.

The limits assigned to this article do not permit extensive quotations from the works of foreign travellers and writers, who have treated of Macedonia and its population, and unmistakably asserted its Bulgarian character. But I may be allowed to cite the testimony of one of them both because of his competence and

Balkans.

At Janina the Italian political agent who knows the Balkans better than his own country, in defining Italy's policy toward the Balkan States admitted with sorrow that Monastir belongs by nationality to Italy's enemies. . . . Even the Greeks, who claim Florina, a Turko-Bulgarian town, as a suburb of Athens, dare not press their claims to Monastir. Unfortunate as it may seem, it is my conviction that no stable peace can be established in the Balkans without first either annihilating the Bulgars, who are the strongest and worthiest people there, or else ceding them Macedonia."(The Chicago Daily News, Oct. 22, 1917.)

character, and because he has put as in a nut-shell the basis of the Bulgarian claims to Macedonia.

Commandant Léon. Lamouche, a French military officer, who as Chief of the Staff of the Inspector General of Police in Macedonia had exceptional opportunities of visiting var ous parts of the country and becoming acquainted with the people, makes the following statement in his "La Péninsule Balkanique” (p. 2):

"Up to 1878, we may say, no one who had studied the subject had any doubt of the Bulgarian character of the Macedonians. Travellers of various nationalities-French, German, Austrian, English-such as Lejean, Hahn, Ami Boué, Kanitz, the Bohemian historian Iretchek and others, are in accord on this point. The Macedonians themselves, a long time since, have been conscious of their community of race with the inhabitants of Bulgaria. At the time of the religious strife between Greeks and Bulgarians, the inhabitants of Uskub, Prilep, Monastir, were most ardent in defending the Bulgarian interests. The Bulgarian nationality of Macedonia was then considered a matter of public notoriety. In the project for the reorganization of European Turkey, elaborated in 1876, by the Conference of the Ambassadors at Constantinople, Macedonia was joined to a vilayet [province] having its principal seat at Sofia. By the Treaty of San Stefano it was included almost in its entirety within the boundaries of the Principality of Bulgaria, the Great Bulgaria, which was divided later into three parts by the Congress of Berlin. . . . Even the Turkish authorities acknowledge that the majority of the inhabitants of the vilayets of Salonica and Monastir and of the Sandjak [district] of Uskub are Bulgarians. I have made inquiries on this subject of the officials of many towns in Macedonia and their answers have been identical."

Lamouche estimates the Bulgarian population of Macedonia to be over one million, which will correspond to about one-half of the whole population. He attributes the Serbian claims to Macedonia to the desire of Serbia to get an outlet on the Aegean Sea, which desire he considers reason

able; "but," he adds, "this does not prevent any impartial observer from recognizing the Slavs of Macedonia as Bulgarians and not Serbians."

In the settlement of the Balkan Question historical rights or pretensions that go back to pre-Christian or medieval times can have no place. It is no more reasonable for the Greeks or the Serbians to claim Macedonia to-day as Greek or Serbian because Aristotle was born there or Byzantine rule prevailed off and on before the Turkish conquest, or because Serbian rule at some time or other in the middle ages extended over it, than it would be reasonable for the Bulgarians to claim Epirus, Thessaly, Belgrade, Albania, or its seacoast, because these regions at certain periods of their history were comprised within the medieval Kingdom of Bulgaria. The Serbian Professor Tsviitch of Belgrade University is quite right in saying: "The mediæval States were not constituted in accordance with the principle of nationalities. Their frontiers did not correspond to national divisions," and therefore "they have no ethnographic value." Practical politics has nothing to do with the dead of ages ago; it must deal with facts as they have been and are in contemporary history.

The contention that the Balkan Question is so complex and complicated, on account of the tangle of nationalities, that it cannot be solved on the principle of nationality is greatly exaggerated, especially by those who do not wish, because they are afraid of, its solution on that

principle. This plea is not new; it has been invoked before and proved to be untenable. In 1870 the Turkish government established by a charter a Bulgarian national church administration. In view of the vehement protestations of the Greeks that Thrace and Macedonia are Greek and not Bulgarian, the charter provided that the dioceses or districts in Macedonia would be allowed to join that organization, on condition that at least two-thirds of the Christian population was proven to be Bulgarian. This right of self-determination has been most strenuously opposed by the Greeks for reasons easily guessed. When in 1876 the European Conference of Constantinople drew up a project of an autonomous administration for Bulgaria, including Thrace and Macedonia, the Greeks again protested, claiming that south of the Balkans the predominant population was not Bulgarian, but Greek. But in 1878 the Berlin Congress sanctioned, much to the chagrin of the Greeks, the creation of an autonomous province in Thrace ("Eastern Rumelia"). An International European Commission, delegated by the European Powers, framed the Constitution by which the province was to be governed, and equal civil and political rights for all the inhabitants were guaranteed. No sooner was this Constitution put into practice than the Bulgarian character of the province was indisputably proven, and no one has dared to contest it since then.

It is to be hoped that the era of "handing people about from sover

eignty to sovereignty as if they were property," or of disregarding "historically established lines of allegiance and nationality" is passed. The principle of nationality is the only rational way of settling the Balkan Question, and eliminating any cause for future strife and quarrels. If the just and rightful demands of the Balkan States relating to the Peninsula are satisfied on that principle,

W

in accordance with the wishes of the people and actual facts attested by official and international acts, the importance of which cannot be denied, then peace will be established in that part of the world, and the way paved for a better understanding and closer union among the Balkan peoples, wherein their free and peaceful development, their welfare and prosperity lie.

HEN the history of this great World War shall have been written, there will be many surprises, but, perhaps none more striking than that an element heretofore unknown in warfare, was largely responsible for the final success of our own Army and those of our Allies.

It seems almost incredible that something which, not over twentyfive years ago, should have been looked upon as almost a nuisance; was looked upon as a waste product; in fact was run into our streams as of little or no marketable value; should, in this short space of time, come into such prominence as to be dividing honors with ammunition and food, as one of the necessary factors. of this great crisis in the history of the universe.

Any man who would have dared predict twenty-five years ago, that to-day we should be depending on an

article, to win a World War, which article at that time was causing all kinds of trouble because of its uselessness, would have been deemed a visionary of the rankest type. Yet! What has happened?

Here we are depending on a former waste product of crude oil to turn back the Juggernaut of Barbarismof Might over Right-Greed over Humanity of the Physical versus the Intellectual.

The diffusion of this waste product by those refining crude oil, created a menace of such proportion that legislation had finally to be resorted to, before the pollution of our streams with it was stopped.

Scarcely a tank car full of the "stuff" (as it was frequently termed), could be sold in months, and its inflammable and explosive nature prevented its being shipped, except under the most careful handling and supervision.

At the present time, the United States is called upon to supply practically the entire world with this product, and the fact that Germany is not able to get it in any considerable quantity, explains, to a large extent, the failure of that country to fight us with our own methods.

How many people to-day realize the extent to which we and our Allies are depending on gasoline? Suppose for a moment that its supply to Europe should be entirely cut off. What would happen? Tanks, submarines, navy launches, aeroplanes, automobiles, ambulances, motor trucks, motor cycles, armored trucks, and a dozen other vitally essential methods of transmission, transportation, observation, attack and defense, would be shut down at

once.

Can you imagine the chaos of such an occurrence?

Holland merchants must be making fortunes out of the gasoline supplied to Germany for her undersea craft and aeroplanes, for the Galician fields cannot, under the most favorable of circumstances, furnish more than a fractional part of the amount demanded for these purposes alone.

From being a waste product, gasoline has now become one of the greatest of daily necessities throughout the civilized world, and every effort is being put forth by both corporations

and the Government to increase its production. That these efforts are being signally successful, is demonstrated by the fact that the Standard Oil Company of Indiana has a method whereby as much as 75 per cent. of a barrel of crude oil is now made into

commercial gasoline, as against 15 per cent. to 18 per cent. four years ago. The officers of this Company are confident that, under stress, even 90 per cent. could be obtained.

There are numerous other processes which claim a recovery of from 35 per cent. to 50 per cent., and, as these are being brought to more efficient operation from time to time, it will not be long until the average yield from a barrel of crude oil will be in the neighborhood of 60 per cent.

Many grades of refined oil-naphthas-lubricants and other products are being forgotten in the desire of the refiner to furnish his customers. with sufficient gasoline for their requirements.

Again, many gallons of refined oils, which cannot be sold as fast as recovered, are now being blended with a gasoline of very high gravity, recovered from natural gas, furnishing a low grade gasoline, which is specially adapted for motor truckstractors and other comparatively slow traveling vehicles.

This recovery of gasoline from natural gas, has no doubt aided largely during the past year, in avoiding a gasoline famine, and exorbitant prices; and nearly every large Natural Gas Company in the country now has a plant for recovering this gasoline, and finds a ready market for the product through the larger Refining Companies.

The larger Refining Companies have installed stations of large capacity in every town of importance along our principal railways, and others not so supplied are cared for

by an elaborate tank-wagon or tanktruck distribution system, which reaches even remote hamlets, making gasoline obtainable in most unexpected places.

In order to provide this countrywide distribution, thousands of additional tank-cars have been built within the past decade, and in spite of this increased equipment on the part of Transportation Companies and the Refining Companies as well, our Refiners have had to resort, in some cases, to pipe-lines to transport the product fast enough to care for our larger marketing districts.

Think of New York State automobiles alone consuming 600,000 gallons of gasoline per day.

Think again of over 500,000 small craft in American waters being operated by gasoline engines.

So important has this product become to our Army, Navy and Allies, that only ammunition and food are superior in line of precedence, and, that this trio of essentials is far in the lead of all other items, does not permit of argument.

Too much credit cannot be given to that once despised, misunderstood and maligned Standard Oil Company, and the "subsidiaries," for the marvelous record they are making in this, our industrial crisis.

In spite of the prediction of dozens of well-informed officials of various

Oil Companies throughout the world that gasoline would be selling at 50 cents per gallon before October 1st, 1915, these Captains of Industry have, at unheard of expense and effort, kept their plants abreast of the demand, until to-day this great essential commodity-gasoline is selling at a merely nominal advance over former years; while crude oil is at its highest point in forty-four years, and in the meantime all other war necessities have advanced 100 per cent. to 1,000 per cent. in price.

Is it not a strange paradox that a corporation looked upon eight years ago as our country's industrial menace, should to-day be proving its greatest benefactor and assistant?

We concede to the steel man, that steel is a mighty factor in "making the world free for Democracy”—to the powder man, his position of importance to the railway man, his place in the sun-to the food purveyors, clothing manufacturers, vessel owners, electric engineers, etc., etc., a place, but when it comes to a single article or product, and its multifarious accomplishments and unqualified or undeniable usefulness, we must insist that gasoline be placed next to man-power, as our greatest adjunct to the birth of Universal Liberty, and to the establishment of a creed with "World Peace" as its everlasting slogan.

"No contest in which America can possibly be engaged can equal this war in moral significance. Let us keep a stout heart no matter how long the waiting, how severe the trials, or how nearby the danger.

Life will not be worth living for any of us unless we win this war. Be assured that we are to win, for the whole moral and patriotic force of America is enlisted.Nicholas Murray Butler.