conceivably be employed as an argument in favour of an Italian occupation.  Not only would it bring her inevitably into collision with the Southern Slavs who already are, and are likely to remain, a military power of no mean order; it would lead her on into the false and hopeless path of attempting to assimilate a hostile population by the aid of an insignificant minority which only exists in half a dozen towns, and in all the rest of the province is simply non-existent.  The price paid would be the eternal enmity of all Slavs, the jeopardising of Italian interests in the Balkans, the sacrifice of many of the benefits which the new Trans-Balkan railway route (Odessa-Bucarest-Kladovo-Sarajevo-Spalato) would naturally bring to Italy, a challenge to one of the finest maritime races in Europe—­the Croats of Dalmatia, Croatia and Istria—­a challenge which would sooner or later involve the creation of a Southern Slav navy against Italy.  So far as Britain is concerned, to separate Dalmatia from Bosnia is not only to prevent even the beginnings of a solution of the Southern Slav question, but to obscure the naval situation in the Mediterranean, to alienate Russia in a matter in which we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by accommodating her.  But even when Bosnia and Dalmatia have been united to Serbia and Montenegro, the Southern Slav problem will still be far from solution.  Dalmatia is alike in constitutional theory and in political fantasy, though not in sober fact, an integral portion of the Triune Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia, and it is unthinkable that Serbo-Croat opinion could ever consent to the liberation of the one without the other.  No solution has any chance of permanence which ignores Agram as the centre of Croat political and religious life, of education, art and historic memories.  The Dalmatian Croats, as the most virile and stubborn element in the race, have always formed the vanguard of political thought, but it is to Agram that they have always turned for the necessary backing, and it is the peasantry of Croatia who have always borne the brunt of every attempt at repression.  Latterly the Dalmatians have been the soul of the student movement, which plays so vital a part in recent political development.

[Footnote 1:  In the West they are only known under their Italian names, but at home they are known as Zadar, Sibenik, Trogir, Split, Hvar, Korcula, and Dubrovnik (Ragusa).]

Croatia-Slavonia is a vital part of the problem, indeed from a national point of view perhaps more vital than Bosnia and Dalmatia.  But even this is not enough.  No settlement will be complete which ignores the Slovenes of eastern Istria, Carniola, and southern Carinthia and Styria:  they must share the fate of their Croat and Serb kinsmen.