“We, the children of the fatherland called Turkey, of which Macedonia is a part—actuated by the love which we bear to the land of our birth, our desire to work in harmony to bring about its tranquillity and welfare, and our wish to disabuse your minds of the false impression which we know you entertain to the effect that we (the Committee of Union and Progress) are few in number and mischievous in our aims—now write to you the following, to explain to you from what evils Macedonia is really suffering, to show you what is the true remedy and the right path, and to save Europe from a number of vain efforts and avoidable difficulties.” The manifesto then proceeds to demonstrate that the efforts of the European Powers to introduce reforms into Macedonia had not only been attended with no success, but had made the condition of the country worse than it had been before their interference, and that all the so-called remedies that had so far been applied had been introduced by foreigners only, “who assumed an attitude of generosity,” and not by “Ottomans, who must know more about their own country than the foreigner does. “We are told that the object of European reforms is to insure the happiness of Macedonia, in answer to which we assert that Europe, in spite of all her efforts, has been unable to attain this object and never will attain it.... The intervention has been useless for Europeans, injurious to the Ottomans. The Great Powers themselves admit the failure of the measures adopted by them; and yet now, Europe, instead of honourably withdrawing from this business, is, so it appears, about to make Macedonia the arena of yet further experiments.” Then the manifesto, after discussing the new schemes proposed by the British and Russian Governments, and showing how these, if carried out, would destroy the independence of an integral part of the Ottoman Government, declares that “We Mussulmans and Christians, united under the name of the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress, not influenced by national or religious fanaticism, are working together to deliver our country from foreign intervention, and to obtain our personal and political liberty from the existing Government. We positively assert that these plans of England and Russia would sever Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire. We therefore cannot accept these proposed measures, which would lead to the general ruin of the Empire, and are opposed to justice and civilization. We are determined to employ all means to obtain our natural rights.” The manifesto points out that the purely selfish action of Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia, which for purposes of annexation sent their bands to murder and ravage in Macedonia, was the chief cause of the existing state of anarchy in the country; and it has a slap at our humanitarians, whose sole sympathy was with the Christians. As the first public declaration of the Committee, this is an exceedingly interesting document.