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222 Edward H. Egerton, Minister to Greece, to Marquis of Salisbury. After having enumerated the different difficulties of the financial conditions of the country, he says: "But after all, these considerations must not be taken too seriously. In no country in the world are there greater material resources than in Greece, no country offers greater attractions to the student and the traveller, and no country can boast of a more industrious peasantry or a more intelligent and ambitious middle class. The government does well not to grudge expenditures on roads and railways, and when the country is opened up it will be its own fault if Greece does not enter upon a future of prosperity and health."

What has Greece to show for her blanket mortgage? Sixty-five years ago there was not a mile of wagon road, to-day there are more than three thousand miles built, often over mountains. Thirty years ago there were but five miles of rail connecting Athens with her seaport, now there are seven hundred miles of railway in operation, connecting the capital with most of the Peloponnese and opening up a good part of Acarnania and Thessaly, while the Pirseus and Larissa Railway traverses northern Greece, thus bringing it in direct communication with Europe. The