THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 820907

R

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS 1917

MEA AOBK

(The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved)

PREFACE.

A CONSIDERABLE portion of this work was published in 1876 under the title of Shadows of Coming Events; or, the Eastern Menace. I had intended to issue a Second Edition, the first having been exhausted; but so much of the prediction of six years ago has since become history, that I have been compelled to rewrite much and add more. The first title having to a certain extent become a misnomer, I have retained the second only, and as more than a third of the volume is new matter I cannot justly call it a second edition.

My object now is the same as that which I sought in publishing the first book, viz. to direct public attention to a national peril. Since 1876, England has accepted the consequences of defeat in two continents. That she has done so has resulted from causes which, as I pointed out, foreshadowed defeat.

The change in her policy, from 1876 to 1880, with regard to the Eastern Question, from a long course of masterly inactivity' to a spasm of vigorous action, was too brief, too fitful, and too illsustained to arrest the process of the decay of her power. The attempt at change has been abandoned. Helpless, effortless renunciation of the burden and the benefit, the cost and the glory of empire, has resumed its influence over the spirit of her people.

But the result of the process of decay in the power of great nations, is so fraught with the evils of violence to the generations affected by it, that it is impossible for anyone foreseeing the fate of the victims to refrain from a note of warning. Wherefore, I again call the attention of my countrymen to facts which cannot be denied, and to their sequel, which should not be ignored.

ORIENTAL CLUB: October 1881.

ARTHUR CORY.