ot be satisfied here
with such rights as Serbia enjoys at Salonika--free use of the port and
free traffic along a railway connecting it with her own hinterland. Her
heart is set on complete territorial ownership, and she will not compose
her feud with Greece until she has had her way.

So long, therefore, as the question of Kavala remains unsettled, Greece
will not be able to put the preliminary problem of 'national
consolidation' behind her, and enter upon the long-deferred chapter of
'internal development'. To accomplish once for all this vital transition,
Venezelos is taking the helm again into his hands, and it is his evident
intention to close the Greek account with Bulgaria just as Serbia and
Rumania hope to close theirs with the same state--by a bold territorial
concession conditional upon adequate territorial compensation
elsewhere.[1]

[Footnote 1: The above paragraph betrays its own date; for, since it was
written, the intervention of Bulgaria on the side of the Central Powers
has deferred indefinitely the hope of a settlement based upon mutual
agreement.]

The possibility of such compensation is offered by certain outstanding
problems directly dependent upon the issue of the European conflict, and
we must glance briefly at these before passing on to consider the new
chapter of internal history that is opening for the Greek nation.

The problems in question are principally concerned with the ownership of
islands.

The integrity of a land-frontier is guaranteed by the whole strength of
the nation included within it, and can only be modified by a struggle for
existence with the neighbor on whom it borders; but islands by their
geographical nature constitute independent political units, easily
detached from or incorporated with larger domains, according to the
momentary fluctuation in the balance of sea-power. Thus it happened that
the arrival of the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ at the Dardanelles in August
1914 led Turkey to reopen promptly certain questions concerning the
Aegean. The islands in this sea are uniformly Greek in population, but
their respective geographical positions and political fortunes
differentiate them into several groups.

1. The Cyclades in the south-west, half submerged vanguards of mountain
ranges in continental Greece, have formed part of the modern kingdom from
its birth, and their status has never since been called into question.

2. Krete, the largest of all Greek islands, has been