By such a voluntary unions of free States or peoples they would surely gain much greater commercial, national and economic advantage than by any additions of territory not made with the free consent and wish of the inhabitants. We are told that much of the liberated territory is inhabited by people of the same blood and speaking the same language as their liberators. These will no doubt wish to unite with their victorious fellow countrymen. Let them therefore at once make known their intention, when the war is finished and Turkish officials of every grade have either retired into Asia or given up their offices, to invite the inhabitants of the whole liberated country to choose representatives in order to determine their wishes as to union with either of the allies, or to remain as separate States of the future Balkan Federation.

     The advantages to be secured by each and all of the Allies would be vastly greater than anything they could obtain by compulsory occupation or annexation. Servia, for instance, would not have one seaport only, but would have free access to every Balkan port, whether in the Adriatic, the Mediterranean, the Sea of Marmora or the Black Sea. Instead of having discontented subjects in forcibly-annexed territories, she would have friends and brothers in every part of a large and prosperous Federation, which, when thoroughly united and working together for the common good, might take its place as one of the Great Powers of Europe, while its great War of Liberation would gain it the admiration and respect of the whole civilised world.

     On one point only the Allies should welcome or even invite the co-operation of the Great Powers--the future of Constantinople. That historical city is and will always be to a large extent cosmopolitan. It might therefore be constituted a free city, to be ruled by a council formed by two or three members chosen by each of the more important nationalities inhabiting it, and, I would suggest, under the presidency of an American citizen of eminence, chosen by the President of the United States for his efficiency as an administrator and a sanitary reformer. Russia would gain what she most desires in the opening of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, while the other Powers should rejoice that the spectre of Turkish misrule in Europe would be banished for ever.

Alfred R. Wallace.