"When we consider that all these manufacturing establishments which one sees in Greece are the work of a few years, we shall learn with interest what progress has been made in so short a space of time, and so much the more so since all this is due to individual enterprise, to the association of capital, and to competition, that universal condition of the progress of nations as of individuals. The various manufactories in which steam-power is employed, distributed among the different towns in the kingdom, have been founded since 1863; their saleable value is over £1,000,000 sterling. They spend £1,600,000 in raw material, about £100,000 in fuel, and turn out products of the value of nearly £2,000,000. Seven thousand three hundred and forty-two operatives, male and female, are employed in these establishments, which, under the impulse of the national industry, are multiplying and developing themselves daily with considerable rapidity. Again, it is a Greek, an Epirote, Evangeli Lappa, at whose cost have been instituted, under the name of [Ὁλὑμπια, exhibitions of agriculture, and manufactures every four years, in which, conformably with the fundamental statutes, all the products of Hellenic industry are to be represented, and particularly its manufactures, its agriculture, and cattle-breeding. A magnificent palace, erected expressly for it at the cost of the generous founders, is destined to receive, when finished, the fourth exhibition of the Ὁλὑμπια."
In common with agriculture and manufactures, trade is likewise making considerable progress. It is to the commercial spirit of the Greeks, of which traces are everywhere seen, that we owe the considerable extension which commerce has undergone in Greece since her national regeneration. Her general trade shows the following figures:—
| Year. | Imports. | Exports. |
| 1865 | £3,196,403 | £1,775,775 |
| 1874 | 4,261,870 | 2,663,662 |
The spirit of association, under every aspect, is the secret of human progress and development in modern times. In Greece this idea, essentially human, of association has not yet realized the grand results in the way of progress which we admire in the rest of Europe. The poverty of the country, recently delivered from general destruction, is, doubtless, one of the chief causes of this. However, since the year 1868, a great impetus has been given to our national life in respect of association. The first company was formed in 1836. From that time to the present 144 joint-stock companies have been created at different dates. Of all these companies there remain at this day fifty, witnesses to the vitality of the country, and to the constant progress of Greece. This fact is still more clearly affirmed by the operations of the National Bank of Greece.
This bank, established in 1842 with a capital of £165,000 divided into 5000 shares, possesses to-day a capital of £600,000. While in the year following its establishment (1843) the highest amount of its note circulation only reached £12,500 that of its discounts £85,000 and that of its advances £6500; in 1877 the note circulation reached £1,500,000, its discounts £3,800,000, and its commercial advances £1,100,000. The annual dividend has increased from about £3 per share in 1846 to £8 6s. 6d. in 1875.
It is in the budget more especially that we may ascertain this great national progress which is manifesting itself under every aspect of Hellenic life. The revenue of the kingdom, according to the budget for the year 1879, amounted to over £1,600,000, while at the date of the establishment of the first monarchy the total of the ordinary public revenue was £260,000.
This extension of the vital forces of the nation is, doubtless, a visible progress. We have not yet arrived at the completion of the national work necessary to place us on the level of European civilization. Much has yet to be done; but this does not depend only on the good-will and the capacity of the inhabitants. The too narrow limits of the kingdom, the political uncertainty which has weighed upon the life and upon the future of the country, particularly during recent years, divert the attention of the Government and of the nation to more general and more urgent matters. The peaceful labour of the country has not, however, been entirely suspended during the late period of agitation and crisis, when the cannon was thundering in close proximity to us. The material and social progress which has taken place during the last three years shows the confidence which the nation has in herself, in her mission, and her future.
Already, since the creation of the new kingdom, the West, regretting in some sort what it had just done, had shown itself very severe towards Greece. After the phil-Hellenic enthusiasm a singular change supervened in the sentiments of Europe. A calculating and scornful spirit had succeeded that fever of generosity which produced the day of Navarino. It was thought that a Liliputian could play the part of a giant. Impossibilities were asked of a new State, without means, without resources, scarcely risen from the tomb of oblivion and ruin. If clear-sighted men of this period had been listened to—Leopold of Belgium, Palmerston, Metternich even—Greece would have had limits more natural in order that she might breathe and act more freely. This youngest child of the European States would to-day be a strong Power, capable of struggling against the Panslavist spectre in the East, and of realizing the projects of the West in this country of the Balkans which appears to be menaced by Muscovite conquest. However, if in a military point of view Greece cannot to-day be the chief actor, she yet remains the most important factor of civilization in the East in intellectual, political, and ethnological respects. It is the indomitable genius of this nation which in the darkest moments of its historical life has been able to throw some brilliant flashes over the history of the human race. It is Greek industry which to-day plays par excellence the most active part in the propagation of culture in the East. Intermediate between the West and the East, the Greeks assimilate with an astonishing rapidity the results of progress; and the ancient East, that unfortunate mummy of history, begins to be born again, to revive, to breathe, to speak, like the legendary statue of Memnon, under the breath and at the approach of the new spirit casting its vivifying rays on the motionless and silent body of the alma mater of human civilization.
Here is a country which formerly existed and which lived only in its past, and which to-day presents itself with promises, aspirations, claims on the future. It was only an historic tradition, a sad souvenir, a geographical expression, a land of the dead, where everything was lacking except the sun, which still shone as a lamp which cast a mournful light on the tomb of a departed glory. This land has to-day become quite young again. There are towns now, where formerly the shepherd led his flock silently among the ruins of a past which he did not know. Athens, formerly an insignificant village, is to-day the finest town in the East, and may be compared with the first cities of the West. She numbers, according to the recent census, more than 70,000 inhabitants; the Piræus, which contains more than 20,000 of this number, has latterly become the centre of the industrial activity of the new State. All the large towns of Greece are now centres of commerce, of manufactures, of culture. The population which existed at the time of the creation of the new kingdom has been doubled, in consequence of the material development of the country, whose prosperity is every day attracting foreign capital. The credit of Greece is assured in the money-markets of Europe in consequence of the much desired agreement which has been come to between the Government and the creditors of the unfortunate loan of 1824. Already the Times is raising its voice in favour of the Greek exterior loan recently contracted at Paris. Greece has, indeed, yet other unworked resources; she lacks only sufficient means by the aid of which she might continue her civilizing march in history.
The disquietude and uncertainty in the condition of Eastern affairs which have followed upon the war and changed the political condition of the Balkan peninsula have not been able to completely arrest the intellectual movement which is a peculiar trait of the Hellenic race. On the contrary, there has in recent years been observed in the life of the nation a more active and serious tendency to a radical improvement and a more complete reorganization of the education of the country, and particularly of popular instruction. This famous word, which for some time past has been going the round of Europe, and according to which it was the German schoolmaster who gained the victory over France, is in Greece also, as everywhere in Europe, the watchword of the day, which occupies individuals as well as the Government. The impetus which was at first given by the Syllogoi on this fundamental question of a more complete instruction of the nation has been followed by the Government, which does not ordinarily distinguish itself by taking the initiative in general questions which do not particularly affect its political interests. Primary normal schools, on the model of those of Germany, without, however, losing sight of the character and the individuality of the Hellenic mind, have been founded in different parts of the kingdom, and in the Turkish provinces; and we hope that this lively and generous impulse will produce the most glorious and most useful fruits in the future of the nation. A thorough and living popular education is always the fundamental basis of the morality and liberty of nations. It is always the surest guarantee of their intellectual and national independence. In modern society, in which, according to the famous saying of Royer Collard, democracy moves like a ship in full sail, in which the people, by universal suffrage, take a direct part in the affairs of the State, popular instruction ought to be always very extensive and scattered abundantly among the people. We would even say, quoting from M. Jules Simon, that no citizen who does not know how to read and write ought to take any part in the concerns of the State. Our Governments unfortunately do not take the initiative in order to revive the noble tendencies of the nation. However, there are here individuals, associations, and societies (Syllogoi), who, in a way different from that which is taking place in other countries, have the preponderance and make up for the deficiencies of the Government.