The news from South-Eastern Europe is of a most menacing
kind. The Christian Powers desire to reduce Macedonia to order, and as one necessary step in that process have appointed Financial Agents to arrest financial oppression. The Sultan, indignant at this invasion of his sovereign rights, has refused to support the Agents ; and the Powers, unaccustomed to such resistance, have presented him with an informal ultimatum in the shape of a proposal to make of a Commission composed of their Agents, with Hilmi Pasha as its president, a supreme Exchequer Commission in. Macedonia. If this was refused they threatened, and openly prepared, a naval demonstration. The Powers expected that this would be final ; but the Mus- sulmans of Turkey, looking round at the situation of Europe, with their hereditary enemies paralysed and Germany doubt- ful, saw eleniente of hope in it, and insisted that the proposals
should be rejected. The Sultan accordingly on Wednesday finally rejected them as fatal to his sovereign rights. The Powers, however, cannot recede, and it is expected that they will at once seize certain Custom-houses accessible to men-of- war, and then await developments. The Sultan may, of course, yield; but his people appear determined that he shall not, and he and they alike hope for assistance of some sort from Germany, who, it is to be noted, has sent no ships to the demonstration. If he does not yield, Europe and Asia stand face to face. Asia has been greatly encouraged by the Russo-Japanese War, and the contingencies are most alarm- ing. The crisis will doubtless unroll itself slowly ; but Mohammedans with their minds made up become formidable fighting men.
