Geographically, it is inconceivable that to-day Dalmatia should be in different hands from Bosnia-Herzegovina. Herzegovina does actually touch the sea at two places--for a few miles at the swampy mouth of the Narenta below Metkovié, and for a mile at Castelnuovo-Zelenika, inside the Bocche di Cattaro. It is obvious that to allow Serbia these two outlets, while leaving their surroundings to another State, would create immediate and intolerable friction; whereas to assign the southern half of Dalmatia to Bosnia, but to leave the northern half in other hands, would be keenly resented by the Dalmatians themselves, as an outrage alike upon their national and their local traditions. When we consider the population of Dalmatia we must apply the rival tests of history and of race. On the grounds of historical sentiment Italy might claim Dalmatia; for its chief towns (Zara, Sebenico, Trau, Spalato, Lesina, Curzola)[1] were Venetian colonies, and not only they but even the Republic of Ragusa, which always maintained an independent existence, were saturated with Italian culture and ideals. But on ethnical grounds Dalmatia is now overwhelmingly Slavonic. In 1900 only 3.1 per cent of its population--in other words, about 15,000 out of a total of 584,000--were Italians, the remaining 97 per cent being Serbo-Croats. The census of 1910 is even more unfavourable to the Italians, probably unduly so. It is, of course, true that the Italian element, though numerically negligible, represents a higher percentage of the educated and cultured class; but while this would entitle Italy to demand guarantees for the maintenance of existing Italian schools and institutions, it cannot conceivably be employed as an argument in favour of an Italian occupation. Not only would it bring her inevitably into collision with the Southern Slavs who already are, and are likely to remain, a military power of no mean order; it would lead her on into the false and hopeless path of attempting to assimilate a hostile population by the aid of an insignificant minority which only exists in half a dozen towns, and in all the rest of the province is simply non-existent. The price paid would be the eternal enmity of all Slavs, the jeopardising of Italian interests in the Balkans, the sacrifice of many of the benefits which the new Trans-Balkan railway route (Odessa-Bucarest-Kladovo-Sarajevo-Spalato) would naturally bring to Italy, a challenge to one of the finest maritime races in Europe--the Croats of Dalmatia, Croatia and Istria--a challenge which would sooner or later involve the creation of a Southern Slav navy against Italy. So far as Britain is concerned, to separate Dalmatia from Bosnia is not only to prevent even the beginnings of a solution of the Southern Slav question, but to obscure the naval situation in the Mediterranean, to alienate Russia in a matter in which we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by accommodating her.