will be too small in
area and too little compact in geographical outline to constitute an
independent economic unit, and the ultimate economic interests of the
country demand co-operation in some organization more comprehensive than
the political molecule of the national state.

Such an association should embrace the Balkans in their widest extent--
from the Black Sea to the Adriatic and from the Carpathians to the Aegean;
for, in sharp contrast to the inextricable chaos of its linguistic and
ecclesiastical divisions, the region constitutes economically a
homogeneous and indivisible whole, in which none of the parts can divest
themselves of their mutual interdependence. Greece, for example, has
secured at last her direct link with the railway system of the European
continent, but for free transit beyond her own frontier she still depends
on Serbia's good-will, just, as Serbia depends on hers for an outlet to
the Aegean at Salonika. The two states have provided for their respective
interests by a joint proprietorship of the section of railway between
Salonika and Belgrade; and similar railway problems will doubtless bring
Rumania to terms with Serbia for access to the Adriatic, and both with
Bulgaria for rights of way to Constantinople and the Anatolian hinterland
beyond. These common commercial arteries of the Balkans take no account of
racial or political frontiers, but link the region as a whole with other
regions in a common economic relation.

South-eastern and central Europe are complementary economic areas in a
special degree. The industries of central Europe will draw upon the raw
products of the south-east to an increasing extent, and the south-east
will absorb in turn increasing quantities of manufactured plant from
central Europe for the development of its own natural resources. The two
areas will become parties in a vast economic nexus, and, as in all
business transactions, each will try to get the best of the continually
intensified bargaining. This is why co-operation is so essential to the
future well-being of the Balkan States. Isolated individually and mutually
competitive as they are at present, they must succumb to the economic
ascendancy of Vienna and Berlin as inevitably as unorganized, unskilled
labourers fall under the thraldom of a well-equipped capitalist. Central
Europe will have in any event an enormous initial superiority over the
Balkans in wealth, population, and business experience; and th