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 _régime_, 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 the sad fruits, will become more clear-sighted, especially after the annexation of the new Hellenic provinces, when the need will be the more felt for a revision of our political system, and the reconstruction of our new political edifice on a basis more real, more solid, more durable, and more in conformity with our national character, with our needs, and with contemporary aspirations. Our political life, especially during its latter years, instead of adding a page to our contemporary history, has, on the contrary, consumed and wasted foolishly many of our intellectual faculties which might have been more usefully employed. At the moment when vague questions, which were useless to our national and political development, were being gravely