t888] Tricoupi 9 



toman inheritance. On this last point he said that it was impossible 

 for any Greek politician not to look to an extension of territory, and 

 that if Greece did not go forwards she would go back and lose her 

 independence at the hands of either Austria or Russia. They were 

 quite content to let things alone as long as the Ottoman Empire sur- 

 vived, but they must prepare for the future. The Turks were no 

 longer an enemy, but the others were. I asked him where he would 

 draw the line of Greek claims northwards, and he said they could no 

 longer claim the line of the Balkans, but in Macedonia would ask for 

 a boundary as far north as Seres, beyond Salonika, and in Thrace as 

 far as Adrianople. The exact limit, however, could hardly, he thought, 

 be settled without a war with the Bulgarians. Then the conqueror 

 would fix his own limit. 



" I asked him about Albania. He said that Southern Albania, which 

 was Christian, would revert to Greece, but Mohammedan Albania, on 

 the extinction of the Sultan's power, would find itself isolated and 

 might accept a personal union with Greece under the crown, after the 

 model of Hungary with Austria. I told him I doubted the possibility 

 of this. Otherwise I agreed with him in his view that it was necessary 

 Greece should put forward her claims or prepare to put them forward. 

 Also I am of opinion that if England is to have a policy of the future 

 it should be to help Greece rather than Bulgaria. Greece would be 

 always under the influence of pressure from a naval power in the Med- 

 iterranean, whereas Bulgaria must remain under pressure of the Con- 

 tinental powers. 



" With regard to Greek progress there is no doubt things are im- 

 proving, though slowly. The revenue has tripled since 1858, when the 

 financial Commission sat, and this without oppressing the peasantry. 

 On the contrary, Tricoupi has lately abolished the land tax, a really 

 great measure, and the peasants, in spite of recent bad harvests, have 

 money to buy their holdings whenever they are not already the owners. 

 He has had the sense to put heavy duties on manufactured imports ; 

 and he gives no facilities to the peasantry for borrowing. The country 

 is certainly improving. Only the rascality of the officials remains un- 

 changed. Tricoupi was silent on this head, though he hinted that all 

 was not quite satisfactory. Noel tells me the Constitution is worked 

 by a vast system of jobbery. If so, i't differs little from other Constitu- 

 tions, notably those of France and Italy. On the whole, I find Tricoupi 

 a superior man. All give him a perfectly clean character. 



" 4th Dec. — To Corinth alone, to see the Canal. Good luck took me 

 in the train with Mme. Tiirr whom I had known an extraordinarily 

 pretty woman twenty-two years ago, when I was staying on Lago 

 Maggiore with the Usedoms at the Prussian Legation in Italy. Tiirr 

 was at that time negotiating co-operation between Bismarck and the 



