May J, 1917 
LAND & WAllilt 
II 
especially important in tlic case of the Serbs, who niav be 
strong enough to decide the fate of their own laiid, wliile it is 
very doubtful whether they could give the same cultural ad- 
vantages to Slovenes and Croatians as a well-disposed Italian 
or Austrian government ^coukl do. 
Of course cultural considerations, however important, 
may sometimes he put aside for the sake of national freedom. 
In this case Serbia would waive any advantages which she 
might derive from Austria to gain lier own independence. 
But the other nations which are included in the programme 
of Southern Slav Unity, if they cannot be quite independent 
must be left to choose to which confederacy they will give 
their allegiance. In culture and religion Croatia has more in 
common with Austria, in language with Serbia, while she 
herself has a national feeling independent of either. 
This brings us to our third point, the necessity for taking 
into consideration internal tinity in national feeling. Even 
the countries of homogeneous population, without any 
" Ulsters " to speak of, may be misunderstood abroad, if they 
have no dii)lomatic bodies which represent, or rather ought to 
represent, the feeling of the whole nation. It is one party or 
another -usually the most wealthy political party— which sends 
its representatives abroad, and these representatives follow a 
party programme which, if it happens to be. for example, 
anti-Semitic or militarist, gives a wrong idea t)f the feeling of 
the nation as a vviiole on these (juestions. Tlius for a long 
time the anti-Semitic National Democratic Party of Po^nd 
created abroad the impression t-hat Poland was a homcj oi 
jiogroms and otjier methods of oppressing the Jews, ' So too, 
the able representatives of the small Reformed Church of 
Bohemia do not adequately express the views of the Koman 
Catholic majority of the Bohemian population. It follows 
that when dealing with the internal feeling of a country all 
sections of political opinion must be considered, and the truti 
will be f(.)und to lie in that part of the programme which is 
common to them all. 
On the whole it may be said that nationality is a question of 
tradition, which is stronger even than racial heredity. 
' We find, for instance, the non-Aryan Hungarians living 
on European traditions for many centuries, and in this case 
it does not matter whether the race was originally from Eiu'ope 
or Asia, so long as it is fairly homogeneous and has long 
occupied a settled position. But the question is more compli- 
cated in the case of the Balkan nations, where the admi.xture 
of races has not yet ceased, with the result that the national 
traditions do not reach sufficiently far back to render them 
stable. It is not the claims of responsible and cultivated nations 
for their own indejjcndence that renders the problem difficult, 
but the fact that some of these nations tend to create States 
at the expense of other nationalities, and this difficulty can be 
overcome only if at the Peace Conference the idea of a League 
of Nations is 'given preference o\'er an Alliance of States. 
White Blossom and Cold Winds 
By J. D. Symon 
BURK(,)\\1-:RS in old wx-athcr records tell us tliat 
this was the latest sj)ring for 840 years.. They may 
be rigiit. but the chronicle is incomplete. The fact 
remains, however, that ten years after the Norman 
Conquest, wintr\- weather began on November ist and 
snow and frost <ontinued until April 15th, 1077. Recent 
months have certainly ]>ut that story out of countenance, 
for we had om- first snow-showers and frost in mid-October 
of last year, and only just latelv have we bidden a final 
farewell to .Vrctic weather. Day after day of qualified sunshine 
persuaded country dwellers that now at length spring was at 
hand, and if the evening closed fair we went to bed trusting^ 
that to-morrow we should open our eyes upon a green earth ; ' 
t)nly to be cheated once more. 
In other years, it would have been easier to find com- 
])ensation ; for the delay means a purer snow on orchard 
boughs, when blossom comes at length. Mild and humid 
sjjrings, when the leaves run a good second to the blossom, 
rob the flower of its'intensest white, and the contrast of that 
snow with bare grey stems loses its' sharpness, blurred by 
the qualifying green. Such springs^robs the cherry tree of 
its prerogative of cold splendour. 
In normal years the fully glory of the orchards is coincident, 
in this climate, with the keenest airs. However genially the 
earlier days may have tempted the fruit trees to flower, 
when the orchards are a cloud of snow, then look out for 
ftost. There comes ail evening of clear skies when the air 
towards sunset nips shrewdly. Then the winter overcoat, 
rashly discarded at noon, has to be resumed with repentance. 
Summer is not yet awhile, for all this splendour of the country- 
side, and the market-gardener looks anxiously at the thermo- 
meter, and trembles for his harvest, wondering what the 
night may bring. Not for him the selfish detachment of the 
obser^^er who regards this phase of the spring landscape as 
mere phenomenon, chill but not unpleasing, and curiously 
harmonious in its blending of white blossom and cold airs. 
The statt> of the observer is the less gracious, but not, perhaps, 
without its uses. Watching such crystalline sharj) sunsets 
he sheds illusions and knows the spring for a fickle enchantress 
whose smiles carry a heavy price. And therewith he may 
learn to sympathise with the anxieties of his friend tlie 
market-gardener, to whom that drift of snow-white blossom 
is no mere pageant, but liis very livelihood. 
Some there be who find in white blossom at the best only 
a qualified pleasure, in no way comparable to the blaze of 
autumn. It is ])erhaps a matter of temperament, a question 
of sensuous capacities. Last year, during a walk of an 
ordered kind, a walk under discipline and therefore to be de- 
scribed as a parade, or march, or some such martial formalitv, 
it chanced (the word being given to march at ease), that the 
talk of comrades fell upon this very theme. About the 
advancing colump lay a countryside just starting into its 
sprmg dress, and one man-at-arms asked his fellow whether 
the orchards in spring gave him more than moderate enjoy- 
ment. For his own part, he said, they left him cold. He- 
was all for the russet and gold of autumn. Impatient man ! 
He would have his autumn in good time. Why should he 
thrust himself forward in siiirit and miss the present good 
in longing for that which is to come ? It is of the nature of 
the s])ring pageant that it should leave him cold, for cold it 
is and virginal, to its \'ery essence. Here, at another time, 
before the great quarrel arose, we would have (pioted a po(>t 
who has a p-rfect word for the occasion. But his language 
is now forbidden and his undeniable felicity untranslatable. 
Besides, it is reminiscent of a notorious Inqx'rial phrase of 
bad omen. Our friend remained impenitent. Spring is 
not f()r him ; he will not take her as she is. So we leave him 
reaching forward to the red autumn of his desire, for which 
in its own time we have nothing but praise and the li\'eliest 
affection. 
Lucky for that hot and eager spirit,' perhaps, that he had 
not the curious experience which came some years ago to his 
fellow disputant, who chased spring half round tlic world, 
and twice recaptured Iicr. Her robes were falling when he 
left these shores, but ten days later in the orchards of New 
England the white hand was only putting forth on the bough. 
On the low quiet landscape around Lexington and Concord, 
in the woods about Thoreau's lake, the drift of snowy blossom 
gathered in a day. Massachussetts had seen a rainy inclement 
April and early May, but in one night everything was altered 
and a burst of sub-tropical heat flung the Eastern States into 
sudden summer. But even then, at sunset, the season was 
tnie to herself, and the cold petals had their countcri)art of 
colder winds. New England was like Old England in this, 
if in little else. For although in the Eastern States there is 
some general resemblance to the old country, the one could 
never be mistaken for the other. We rniss our soaring 
trees ; the woods of New England are of a humbler sort, 
rounded and bosky, monotonous, yet with a quiet sweetness 
of their own. 
So much for the second spring. A few days later and the 
traveller, pushing north into Canada, saw the orchards 
blossom yet once more. For our eager champion of autumn 
this would have been the last straw. Poor man, he would 
have taken to desperate courses, and might ha\e ended 
untimely a useful career, forgetful of what ecstasies were in 
store for him, in his chosen autumnal paradise, had he been 
content to wait until the maple leaf was red. But he might 
have tbund solace in the spring of the Fnir Dominion, for by 
that time summer was upon us indeed, itnd what cold effect 
there might still be of flowering trees, had its compensation 
in an almost torrid heat. The orchards around St. Catherines, 
that wonderful httle garden city (not new) which the visitor 
to Niagara should not fail to make his headquarters, carried 
the dress of spring under the sunshine of a hastened mid- 
summer. June with its fulness of leaf, had come in mid-May, 
and the traveller from a variable and chilly island, where the 
hotte^t^ seasons are temperate, learned for the first time the 
nieaning of really warm weather. And because his delight 
in white bloossm and cold winds is perhaps at the root 
academical, he found his third spring the most exquisite of 
all, and did not waste a sigh on absent rigours. These are 
salutary and bracing for working days, but the hour 
was holiday, and with a good conscience and nothing 
loth, M went lotus-eating in the warm meadows ol 
Ontario. 
