The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF
to Serbia with rich presents for her wounded and suffering ones, and have returned home enriched by the love, sympathy and blessings of a grateful nation.
We sincerely desire and fervently hope that the relations between Great Britain and the Southern Slavs will not stop short with these noble beginnings of official and private help given to Southern Slavs during a world war. It would be a pity if the seeds so generously sown should be neglected, the field abandoned and the harvest never brought in. And the Southern Slav field is promising a very rich harvest in every respect. At last Great Britain by force of historical events has been brought in closer contact with the Southern Slav nation; she has already taken part in its destiny; but it is necessary now to enlarge and deepen the existing relations and to work consciously for the remaking of a nation in a powerful and free unity, and the beneficent results for Great Britain will appear at once.
The Southern Slavs, owing to their past history and to the present social organisation, being without powerful commercial classes or an hereditary aristocracy, can develop, if unhampered by the encroachments of other aggressive nations, only as a peaceful democracy, devoid of any Imperialistic tendency. Great Britain has every political interest in helping and strengthening the formation of such political organisations throughout Europe. The Southern Slavs, when all
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