Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/306

 298] FOEEIGN HISTORY. [1899.

to be shaken. With regard to what the Count described as " the hot ground of Eastern Europe," there was the close under- standing with Russia, concluded two years ago, for the purpose of averting such dangers as threatened the peace of Europe and of disposing of that rivalry which for years had hampered their mutual relations. He dwelt upon the advantages of the Austro- Russian agreement for the Balkan States themselves, foremost amongst them being the principle of non-intervention in their interior affairs. While encouraging the Balkan States in the de- velopment of their political individuality and the maintenance of their independence, Austiia-Hungary was equally bent on the preservation of peace, and would therefore resolutely oppose adventures of any kind wherever they might come from. He further referred to the improvement in South-Eastern Europe which had followed the close of the Greco-Turkish war, and made special mention of the order and stability which prevailed in Roumania. The unrest and Chauvinist manifestations in Servia and Bulgaria were to a great extent symptoms of internal malady and must be regarded as unavoidable in all young States. The relations of the monarchy to those countries were quite normal.

The good intentions of the Sultan, proceeded the Minister, were not always carried out by his administrative organs, owing to the deep-rooted abuses which it would be in Turkey's own interest to abolish if the conciliatory disposition of the Turkish Court were to produce any lasting improvement. Turkey had no better nor more disinterested friend than Austria-Hungary. Their interests were in many instances parallel, and Austria-Hungary could only wish for what would promote and strengthen the fur- ther existence of Turkey in its present undiminished proportions.

Turning to England, Count Goluchowski affirmed that the friendly relations between that country and Austria-Hungary were undisturbed, and that both sides were equally bent on their continuing to be so. The hostilities which had recently broken out between the United Kingdom and the South African Republics imposed on Austria-Hungary the strictest neutrality, if only in the interests of her subjects who lived within the boundaries of the seat of war, and whose protection, in the absence of an Austro-Hungarian representative, had been taken over by Germany.

Alluding to the initiative of the Czar in connection with the Peace Conference, the Count observed that people should not found too great expectations on its first meeting, as the Russian programme extended to a later period which could not be fixed at present. At the same time the deliberations at the Hague were not to be underrated, either from a humanitarian point of view or from that of certain principles which had hitherto been confined to the pious wishes of the periodical meetings of the apostles of peace, and which had now assumed a more substantial form and had received the sanction of the law of nations.