THE MACEDONIAN QUESTION.
[To TUE EDITOR OP TUE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In his letter (October 11th) dealing with the scheme of a Macedonian principality put forward by the Spectator in its previous issue, Mr. W. Miller has mentioned my work " Macedonia," and, unless I have misunderstood him, gives it to be understood that I have asserted in that work that the whole of Macedonia, from end to end, contained nothing but Greeks. Allow me to reply that this is a slight error. The ethnographical map which is inserted in the book would of itself acquit me of such an insinuation. I have certainly stated that in all the principal towns of Macedonia—North and South— the Greeks represented the intelligent and educated section of the population, whilst the Slav element comprised the labourers and working classes. That applies even to the North of the province, where the Slav element—which is, for the rest, more Servian than Bulgarian, as is asserted by a Commission of savants sent by the Academy of St. Petersburg —undoubtedly predominates. But in the Southern zone, which I have marked, starting from Monastir, by a horizontal line, passing through Prilep and Nevrocop to the frontiers of Eastern Roumelia on the east, I have contended, on the strength of statistics drawn from the official European Consular Reports, that the predominant element, not only in intelli- gence and civilisation, but in numbers, is Greek. The Russian Commission mentioned above reported that the population of Macedonia amounted to 2,000,000, of whbm 700,000 were Greeks, 100,000 Jews, 50,000 Albanians, 600,000 Mussulmans, 300,000 Serbians and Slavophones (Greeks speaking Slav), and 200,000 Bulgarians. As regards your scheme of a Macedonian principality, I consider it may be realisable, not on the basis of the Government of Lebanon, but rather as a Confederation framed on the Swiss model, divided into cantons, each of which should be governed by one person, belonging to the Christian nationality which was represented in the majority in each canton or zone. It would only require an International Com- mission, composed of delegates of all the Great Powers, and in that way offering all the guarantees of impartiality, to be sent to mark out these zones on the spot. I believe that in this manner all the elements of the population would be con- tented, even the Sultan, who would maintain his suzerainty, and the peace of Europe would be thus once more preserved.— • Berlin. I am. Sir, &e., DR. CLEANTIIES NICOLAIDES.
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