The island of Crete, which is about the size of Porto Rico, not only occupies a very important strategical position, being nearly equidistant from the coasts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, commanding every line of communication in the eastern Mediterranean, and being within easy striking distance of the Strait of Gibraltar, the Dardanelles, and the Canal, but it is also one of the richest agricultural regions in the world, or would be if the warring elements among its population would permit the rattle of the harvester to replace the rattle of the machine-gun. Ever since the Turks wrested the island from the Venetians, close on two and a half centuries ago, its history has been one of corruption, cruelty, and massacre. Almost annually, for more than seventy years, the island Christians rose in rebellion against their Turkish masters, and just as regularly the Turks suppressed those rebellions with a severity which turned the towns of the island into shambles and its fertile farm-lands into a deserted wilderness. The cruelty which coupled the name of Turk with execration in Armenia and Macedonia assumed such atrocious forms in Crete that finally the great powers were aroused to action, and in 1898 the fleets of England, France, Italy, and Russia dropped anchor in Suda Bay, the Turkish officials were forcibly deported, and a board of admirals assumed control of the affairs of the unhappy island. After a few months of martial government, during which the admirals squabbled continuously among themselves, the intervening powers proclaimed the island an autonomous state, subject to the Porte, but paying no tribute, and ruled by a high commissioner to be appointed by the King of the Hellenes. Though theoretically independent, it was provided that all questions concerning the foreign relations of Crete should be determined by the representatives of the powers, who would also maintain in the island, for a time at least, an international army of occupation. Recent events in the Balkans having resulted in bringing about an agitation in Crete for annexation to Greece, where a propaganda has long been vigorously carried on with that end in view, the protecting powers have definitely announced that the administration of the island will be continued by the “constituted authorities” (this should read “_self_-constituted”) until the question can be settled with the consent of Turkey. As things stand at present, the withdrawal of the international troops from Crete is about as distant as the withdrawal of the British garrisons from Egypt. To tell the truth, each of the protecting powers is exceedingly anxious to get the island for itself—England because it forms an admirable half-way house between Gibraltar and the Canal; France because its occupation would carry French influence into the eastern end of the Mediterranean; Italy because it would serve as a connecting link between the peninsula and Tripolitania; and Russia because it