sfer Bosnia alone from Austro-Hungarian
to Serbian hands would settle anything whatever, fatally ignores alike the
laws of geography and those considerations of national sentiment
which dominate politics in South-Eastern Europe. In every respect
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Dalmatia complement each other. So long as there
were no railways in the Balkans and Bosnia stagnated under Turkish rule, so
long as the national consciousness of the Serbo-Croats slumbered or ran in
purely provincial channels, the separation between coast and hinterland
was possible, though even then unnatural. But with the advent of modern
economic ideas the situation radically changed. It was above all the
possession of the Dalmatian seaboard that tempted Austria to occupy Bosnia,
and so conversely the acquisition of Bosnia by Serbia would at once
compel the latter, willy-nilly (quite apart from all racial affinities or
sentiments), to aspire to Dalmatia as well.

Geographically, it is inconceivable that to-day Dalmatia should be in
different hands from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Herzegovina does actually touch
the sea at two places--for a few miles at the swampy mouth of the Narenta
below Metkovie, and for a mile at Castelnuovo-Zelenika, inside the Bocche
di Cattaro. It is obvious that to allow Serbia these two outlets, while
leaving their surroundings to another State, would create immediate and
intolerable friction; whereas to assign the southern half of Dalmatia to
Bosnia, but to leave the northern half in other hands, would be keenly
resented by the Dalmatians themselves, as an outrage alike upon their
national and their local traditions.

When we consider the population of Dalmatia we must apply the rival tests
of history and of race. On the grounds of historical sentiment Italy might
claim Dalmatia; for its chief towns (Zara, Sebenico, Trau, Spalato, Lesina,
Curzola)[1] were Venetian colonies, and not only they but even the Republic
of Ragusa, which always maintained an independent existence, were saturated
with Italian culture and ideals. But on ethnical grounds Dalmatia is now
overwhelmingly Slavonic. In 1900 only 3.1 per cent of its population--in
other words, about 15,000 out of a total of 584,000--were Italians, the
remaining 97 per cent being Serbo-Croats. The census of 1910 is even more
unfavourable to the Italians, probably unduly so. It is, of course, true
that the Italian element, though numerically negligible, represents a
higher percentage o