Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/237

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GREECE BEFORE THE WAR OF 1 897. 2 1$ better success than it had opposed the deliver- ance of Greece. The islanders gained by their struggle noth- ing but a doubtful amelioration of their condition. A sort of a charter was extracted from the Porte in 1868, under the name of the Organic Regula- tion, which has never been put in force. At the time of the Congress of Berlin they thought once more that they would succeed; they only received another paper, a sort of a mockery, " to enforce scrupulously the Organic Regulation of 1868, ivith such modifications as might be judged equi- table r The history of the Greek question at the Con- gress of Berlin and the conferences which fol- lowed it is very voluminous, since many docu- ments have been published, but it throws no light on the motives which inspired the action or inaction of each government which took part therein. The Greeks desired from the Berlin Congress the fulfilment of the hopes which they had en- tertained ever since 1 82 1 , namely, the liberation of the entire race, not only of a fraction, since their government was under no delusion as to the many difficulties with which the realization of that wish had to deal. It felt bound to be