ntal attitude towards the Western
Powers is universal. It extends to all classes. The very children are
affected by it as soon as they begin to think.

The political value of such a sentiment consists in this, that it is
based on profound resemblances. Therefore one can build on it as if it
were a material fact. For the same reason it would be unsafe to
disregard it if one proposed to build solidly. The Poles, whom
superficial or ill-informed theorists are trying to force into the social
and psychological formula of Slavonism, are in truth not Slavonic at all.
In temperament, in feeling, in mind, and even in unreason, they are
Western, with an absolute comprehension of all Western modes of thought,
even of those which are remote from their historical experience.

That element of racial unity which may be called Polonism, remained
compressed between Prussian Germanism on one side and the Russian
Slavonism on the other. For Germanism it feels nothing but hatred. But
between Polonism and Slavonism there is not so much hatred as a complete
and ineradicable incompatibility.

No political work of reconstructing Poland either as a matter of justice
or expediency could be sound which would leave the new creation in
dependence to Germanism or to Slavonism.

The first need not be considered. The second must be--unless the Powers
elect to drop the Polish question either under the cover of vague
assurances or without any disguise whatever.

But if it is considered it will be seen at once that the Slavonic
solution of the Polish Question can offer no guarantees of duration or
hold the promise of security for the peace of Europe.

The only basis for it would be the Grand Duke's Manifesto. But that
Manifesto, signed by a personage now removed from Europe to Asia, and by
a man, moreover, who if true to himself, to his conception of patriotism
and to his family tradition could not have put his hand to it with any
sincerity of purpose, is now divested of all authority. The forcible
vagueness of its promises, its startling inconsistency with the hundred
years of ruthlessly denationalising oppression permit one to doubt
whether it was ever meant to have any authority.

But in any case it could have had no effect. The very nature of things
would have brought to nought its professed intentions.

It is impossible to suppose that a State of Russia's power and
antecedents would tolerate a privileged community (of, to Russia,