The point at which Europe at large will be com-
pelled to interest itself in the Macedonian insurrection is probably Salonica. The district round that important port is in full insurrection, and the insurgents naturally desire greatly to get it into their hands. This ought to be impossible if the Turkish arrangements are as efficient as many assume them to be ; but Turkey has no Fleet, and though Salonica is a curious place, the most in- fluential classes being neither Turkish nor Macedonian, there must be thousands of its population who sympathise with their countrymen, and those thousands, as was proved by the attack on the bank, include some desperate men. If Salonica rises, and the rising is not instantly crushed, the Austrian Fleet will appear off the town with the full approval of Ger- many. This occurred a few months ago during the first disturbances, and it will occur again. The statesmen who really govern Austria expect that if the Balkans are ever partitioned, Constantinople will fall to Russia and Salonica to themselves, and even now they look to the latter place as their own depot for a future Asiatic trade. They will not allow it to pass into the hands of a new, and possibly revolutionary, Power; yet if they defend it, as they can do from the sea, they must continue defending, and another great blow will have been inflicted on the independence of Turkey, and a great step taken towards the partition of which Austrians and Russians dream.
