ce at the fundamental weakening of a possible
obstacle to its instincts of territorial expansion. There is a removal
of that latent feeling of restraint which the presence of a powerful
neighbour, however implicated with you in a sense of common guilt, is
bound to inspire. The common guilt of the two Empires is defined
precisely by their frontier line running through the Polish provinces.
Without indulging in excessive feelings of indignation at that country's
partition, or going so far as to believe--with a late French
politician--in the "immanente justice des choses," it is clear that a
material situation, based upon an essentially immoral transaction,
contains the germ of fatal differences in the temperament of the two
partners in iniquity--whatever the iniquity is. Germany has been the
evil counsellor of Russia on all the questions of her Polish problem.
Always urging the adoption of the most repressive measures with a
perfectly logical duplicity, Prince Bismarck's Empire has taken care to
couple the neighbourly offers of military assistance with merciless
advice. The thought of the Polish provinces accepting a frank
reconciliation with a humanised Russia and bringing the weight of
homogeneous loyalty within a few miles of Berlin, has been always
intensely distasteful to the arrogant Germanising tendencies of the other
partner in iniquity. And, besides, the way to the Baltic provinces leads
over the Niemen and over the Vistula.

And now, when there is a possibility of serious internal disturbances
destroying the sort of order autocracy has kept in Russia, the road over
these rivers is seen wearing a more inviting aspect. At any moment the
pretext of armed intervention may be found in a revolutionary outbreak
provoked by Socialists, perhaps--but at any rate by the political
immaturity of the enlightened classes and by the political barbarism of
the Russian people. The throes of Russian resurrection will be long and
painful. This is not the place to speculate upon the nature of these
convulsions, but there must be some violent break-up of the lamentable
tradition, a shattering of the social, of the administrative--certainly
of the territorial--unity.

Voices have been heard saying that the time for reforms in Russia is
already past. This is the superficial view of the more profound truth
that for Russia there has never been such a time within the memory of
mankind. It is impossible to initiate a rational sc