ations to political interests and
necessities; a sad but eloquent sign of the moral confusion of our
times, and of the bad faith which dominates over the political and
international conceptions of some Governments.

The political life of Greece has, doubtless, been very stormy of late
years. The state of confusion and uneasiness which followed the
expulsion of King Otho, and, later, the unfortunate issue of the Cretan
rising, acted to some extent as a drag on the peaceful progress of the
new kingdom. Besides this, the adoption of a political Constitution
dissimilar and entirely strange to our customs and political and social
habits, the introduction of what is called in political language the
Constitutional _regime_, transplanted from the cloudy region of England
to the sunny climate of Greece, has not proved the political panacea
which had been hoped for by the enthusiasm of the political ideologists
of our times. Already, and especially during the last fifteen years, the
intellectual life of a young nation full of health and vigour has been
wasted foolishly in a barren struggle about political formalities, while
other questions, more serious and more vital to the national
development, have been neglected. No doubt we may console ourselves with
the thought that we are neither the first nor the last for whom the
fruit of the political wisdom of old Albion has proved so bitter and so
indigestible, and that other nations of the Continent, more advanced
than ourselves in civilization, have committed the same fault of not
taking into account that the Government of a nation is not a mere
question of forms, but that it ought to be the expression of its moral
and social life, that it ought to represent its historical traditions
and political aspirations. Like most of the Continental nations, we also
have the external forms of the English Constitution, without having its
internal essence, which constitutes the real value of its political
institutions,--viz., Self-government. It is true that the political
wisdom of nations does not improvise itself, nor reveal itself all at
once in its fulness, as Minerva of old sprang from the head of Jupiter,
clad in complete armour, but that it develops itself during their
historic progress amidst vicissitude, and by turning to profit the
lessons of trial and experience. It is this that gives us the hope that
in future our nation, enlightened by the painful events of which we are
now reaping