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[Being the fourth part of a series of Studies on the Eastern Question. The preceding parts appeared in the January, April and July numbers of the Jouranl. for 1911.]Since the publication of our last article, the political independence of Bulgaria has been juridically established from the constitutional point of view.As we have already seen, the Bulgarian diplomatic and governmental situation had been developed in fact, without ever having been theoretically or diplomatically discussed. This is natural. The Bulgarian Government took great care not to raise that question, contenting itself from the internal point of view with Art. 17, of the Constitution of Tirnovo, which gave to the Prince, in general, the conduct of diplomatic negotiations. It might have been contended that Bulgaria, which was a vassal state, had no absolute right to make purely political treaties; and it is doubtful that King Ferdinand, before the establishment of Bulgarian independence, had ever entered into any written political treaties. Moreover, if he had, it would have raised an internal constitutional question; for, in such case, it would have been incumbent upon him to refer the matter to the Sobranjé.

[Being the fifth part of a series of Studies on the Eastern
Question. The preceding parts appeared in the January, April and
July numbers of the Journal for 1911, and the January number for
1912.]

From the foregoing explanations, it will be seen that in the
Turko-Bulgarian arrangement relative to the question of independence, less
care was taken in regulating according to juridical principles the
transmission of the attributes of sovereignty than in an effort to reach a
financial compromise capable of conciliating opposing interests. We have in
particular considered the property of the public domain as a real property
for which the emancipated State must refund the accumulated outlay. This is
a curious idea for our times, when we have lost the habit of looking at the
public power in the light of patrimoniality. But this conception is
self-explanatory, if we but remember that we are in the Orient, in Turkish
territory where the coining of the attributes of sovereignty has always been
the rule, where the principles of the Middle Ages have survived longer than
anywhere else. And these conditions are self-explaining if we think of the
persisting uncertainty of the nature and the real meaning both of the Treaty
of Berlin and of the union of 1885 regarding Bulgaria and Rumeiia. From all
these conditions, there issues an impression of indecision and of
archaism.

Review of four books on the Philippine question.