While the situation will not be deter mined until the signing of the treaty with Hun gary it seans certain that the Jugo-Slavs will attain unto complete political independence. The Austrian treaty recognizes the independ ence of the 4Serbo-Croat-Slovene State.° Montenegro is to be merged with Serbia and the emancipated provinces in the new state. While the Serbian hegemony in the Jugo-Slav state seems likely to endure, there has developed much opposition to Serbian methods, particu larly on the part of the royal party in Alonte negro and on the part of the Croats. Jug-o Mavis and Rumania seem destined to become the two great powers of eoudieastern Europe and they have already begtut to quarrel over the disposition of the Banat. The fate of Al bania has not been decided upon, but it would seem that the intense Albanian hatred for-all of her neighbors will by a sufficient barrier to annexation by any of them aad will require autonomy wider the mandate of some great power other than Italy.
While Greece oresented to the Peace Con ference an sunbitious and not reasonable aspira tion to annex northern Epirus, Thrace, Con stantinople, die eastern coast of Asia Minor and a nuniber of jgean islands, including the Dodecanese islands held by Italy, she has not as yet been able to realize her aims. She seems destined to obtain something over half of Thrace, the Asia Minor coast and most of the islands claimed. She appears to be blocked in the desire to obtain all of Thrace and Constan tinople by the present Allied plan to constitute out of the remainder of Thrace a free state widi Constantinople as its capital under a man datory power. A sinister Italian intrigue in regard to Albania has prevented Greece from receiving her wholly just allotment in northern Epirus. But if Greece fails on account of Italian jealously to obtain all the territory she set out to secure there is no doubt that she wiU issue from die war stronger and more populous than at any other time since the fall of the old Byzantine empire.
If space were available one might carry this discussion into a consideration of the disputed territory in the extreme southeastern Europe and in western Asia: such as Kouban, North Caucasia, Azerbaidjan, Georgia, Armenia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Arabia and the new proposed Jewish colony in Palestine, but this territory involves problems of so widely different a character and such relative ease of solution that they may be passed over with this mere allusion. The principle of nationality
alight in justice be applied to the reconstruction of western Asia, which has at last been freed from the rule of the intolerable Turk. While die Turk can claim, under cover of the national principle, a more or less independent state in Asia Minor, national independence should cer tainly be extended to Georgia, Armenia, Syria, Palestine, Arabia and Persia, and, if a sufficient demand exists, to the Zionist settlement in Palestine. The internal peace and order of these new states and their security against for eign aggression should, and doubtless will, be guaranteed through their supervision by a more advanced and powerful state according to the mandatory system. From the Anglo-Persian Agreement of 9 Aug. 1919 and the Anglo French Agreement of 16 Sept. 1919 over Syria, it would appear clear that France and England plan to talce over die districts of western Asia which were dominated before the war by Tur key, Germany and Russia. It is difficult at present to predict how far they will respect the principle of national self-determination in this area. The candid analyst of political recon struction on the basis of nationality will also be likely to be skeptical of any reasons brought forward to deny the application of the principle to Egypt and Korea, though it might readily be conceded that the mandatory power in these cases should be exercised by Great Britain and japan, respectively. As the Monroe Doctrine is recognized in the Covenant of the Leave of Nations, it will devolve upon the United States to compel the respect of the principle of nation ality in the western hemisphere and to require the ((small nations* of this half of the world to abide by the dictates of international law and morality.