THE WAR OF GREEK INDEPENDENCE 1821 TO 1833 BY W.ALISON PHILLIPS 1897

CONCLUDING REMARKS 397
the Conference had fondly imagined, been settled for
ever;
but it was the formal end of the struggle against
the Turkish domination;
and it
opened a new phase in
the history not only of Greece but of Europe, in the
commonwealth of which a new Christian kingdom was
now included. How pregnant this last fact was with
dangerous issues for the future, the history of the last
sixty years, and especially the events of the present
time, have proved. It may be doubted, indeed,
whether the peril would have been so great to European
peace,
had the Powers been less
timid in their
handling of the question of Hellenic independence. It
is, however, the essential weakness of every Concert
that, even when its mutual jealousies
achieve anything at all,
allow it to
it can never effect more than
a compromise. Is"ow, in politics, compromise is the
seed of all evils. A one-sided settlement, even when
unjust, will in the end be better for the world; for,
though one party to the arrangement may be dissatisfied,
the other will be content; whereas, in case of a
compromise, both sides will be discontented, and the
chances are that the question at issue, instead of beingsettled,
will only be postponed.
In the case of the revolt
of the Greeks against the Ottoman Empire, the
truth of this is especially obvious, and has been proved
only too clearly by the subsequent development of the