The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF

can again be made so at relatively small cost. By merely regulating its course from Stalac to Smederevo on the Danube a navigable waterway can be obtained, and the cost can be paid out by making available many thousands of hectares of most valuable land now useless owing to the frequent inundations. The same applies to the Vardar in its lower reaches. The marshy ground on both its banks, where nothing grows but thistles, is a permanent source of malaria and other diseases. From Stalaé upwards, the Morava, as well as the Vardar from Kumanovo to Gevgeli, should be canalised by means of locks on a length of some 300 miles.

When the Austro-Germans last year conquered Serbia their first thought was turned towards this project. By obtaining a cheaper route to Salonica the development of the mineral resources of Serbia would be enormously stimulated. Not only Serbia but the future national Magyar State, as well as Transylvania and Bohemia, would avail themselves of that route, as all their rivers flowing into the Danube would be naturally connected with the waterway Smederevo—Nish-Salonica. The agricultural and mineral products of Bohemia, Hungary and the Central Balkan countries would find an easy access to the sea, and an outlet to the Western European markets without being obliged to pass through Germany, or by the Lower Danube and the Straits. The distance from Budapest to the

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