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28 RUSSIAN-BULGARIAN RELATIONS [chap. iv.
Government should be granted the right to conclude
secret conventions with foreign countries before
submitting them to the Sobranje, a right which was not
mentioned in the existing constitution. Hence as it would
be necessary to add an additional clause to the organic
law of the country, the Great Sobranje—i.e. a constituent
assembly alone possessing the right to decide the
question—had to be convened. As I have just said, the
King, his Ministers and the Radicals who were not in
power were agreed on this point. The Radicals were
desirous of following up the conferences they had held
with us on the subject of a Russo-Bulgarian military
convention which they thought was on the eve of being
concluded. Moreover, at the Russian Legation it was
thought that this was the object of the new organic law.
In the country at large, opposition only came from
the Socialists and the " Agriculturists "—a new party
who preached the strictest economy in State
expenditure, and who were irreconcilable foes to war and
armaments. Much astonishment was created in Sofia
when the Novoyc Vremja and a few other Russian
Nationalist newspapers suddenly began to support the
Bulgarian Opposition, represented on this question by
elements with which these papers had, after all, nothing
in common. The Novoye Vremja, which led the campaign,
displayed a fear that if the Bulgarian Government
obtained the right to conclude secret treaties without
having to have recourse to the vote of the Sobranje,
Ferdinand would be in a position to come to all kinds of
agreements with Austria! Our Foreign Secretar}’ had
to intervene in order to persuade the Novoye Vremja to
relinquish this ill-timed campaign.
In the month of June the "Great Sobranje" was
convened at Tirnova, and the Diplomatic Corps was
invited to the formal opening. We had a special train
for the journey, as if we were going on a pleasure-trip.
The weather was beautiful, the political sky fairly clear,
and most of the Foreign Ministers were on pleasant
terms. The following summer we made the same trip
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