22. POST-WAR PROBLEMS AND RE CONSTRUCTION IN THE BALICANS. One of the greatest problems or series of problems which claim the attention of the statesmen of both the Old World and the New is to arrive at an equitable adjustment of the numerous and often conflicting claims of the Balkan states. These lands of southeastern Europe, so far from having reached a solution of their peculiar racial and territorial probletns through the military operations in that theatre from 1914 to 1918, have emerged from the throes of the conflict with greater and mom puzzling complexities than ever before, with the possible exception of the new Serbo-Croat-Slo vcne State (Jugoslavia), formed from the king doms of Serbia and Montenegro, and the for mer Austrian crownlands of Bosnia, Herzego vina, Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia.
After the adjustment of the boundary and territorial claims of the several nationalities, a most diffictilt problem in itself due to the fact that the populations of these states are more or less intermixed racially and linguistically. there remain for settlemeut the problems of providing adequate means for the transportation t,o tide water of the agricultural and other products of these states and of affording to each an outlet for its commerce through a national seaport. Other problems of the period under discussion will be referred to in the course of the article.
The one great Balkan problem, past and present, is transportation. The elaborate sys tem of Roman roads, improved and extended by the mediseval republics of Venice and Ra gusa, has well nigh disappea.red. The Balkan lands differ to-day from the rest of central Europe chiefly because in the period during which the latter reached its most rapid develop ment they lay prone under the heel of the Turlc As these Balkan peoples gradually freed them selves of the Turkish yoke, they found them selves economically strangled, partially because the most favorable trade outlets were in the hands of their powerful neighbors, Austria Hungary and Russia, partially also because they were denied an outlet to the sea through the natural obstacle in the shape of a mountain wall which separates the heart of the Balkan Penin sula from the Adriatic. This barrier (the Dinaric Alps) offers peculiar engineering diffi culties to railroad and road construction from the interior to the coast, and such construction is also rendered impracticable by the fact that no amount of expenditure of labor and money can construct a good port along that coast. Fiume is the logical
outlet to the sea for Jugoslavia and is the only good port on that side of the penin sula. It is also the terminus of the one good railway to the interior which reaches Belgrade throug.h Agram. A railroad has been projected from Spalato to Serajcvo and thence inland to the heart of Old Serbia, but the capital needed is excessive in view of the probable returns, and the special construction problems it offers will require much time, hence this line does not promise a speedy solution of the Serbian trans portation problem. A narrow-gange road ex tends from Ragusa to Serajevo, which renders valiant service subject to its limitations. To make this road of standard gauge is impracti cable for the reasons already given. Another ailw ay project is the route from Prizren along the old Roman road to the gulf of San Giovanni di Medua. The objection to this from a Jugo slav viewpoint is that the latter port is Albanian territory. These routes practically exhaust the possibilities for a Jugoslav national seaport in Dalmatia, which is literally. the lungs through which commercial Jugoslavia must breathe un less Salonica on the .2Egean be opened to it through some arrangement after the manner of the German Customs Union or Zollverein. Such arrangement would naturally include Greece, within whose national territory the port of Salonica lies. Salonica is the only Jugoslav outlet to the sea apart from those on the Adri atic described at length above. A l3alkan Cus toms Union would immediately make Salonica one of the most important ports in the Mediter ranean system, since it is the national outlet to the south for Thrace, Macedonia. Bulgaria and Jugoslavia. There has be( ii proposed an in land waterway by canalizing the Vardar to the Morava and the latter to its junction with the Danube below Belgrade. Were such a water way well developed it wottld become at once a large factor furthering the commercial devel opment of the countries concerned. A great extension must take place in the rai/way system of Serbia—even the Beigrade-Salonica main line is iwt a first-class road—to render it ade quate for the heavy traffic of a modern state would entail it larger exPenditure than the re gion concerned could well meet.