is nearly three times that of even the Germans, with the
result that by the introduction of enforced military service into
Eastern Europe, (excepting Hungary and perhaps Rumania,) the military
balance of power has been completely changed.

The wars among the Balkan States, including Turkey, have put on foot
armies of a dimension hitherto undreamed of among the South Slavs, and
the army of Russia is probably two and a half times larger than it
could have been thirty-five years ago.

The method by which Eastern Europe has succeeded in financing itself is
rather mysterious. We know, of course, that the original Franco-Russian
Alliance was based on reciprocal interests, and that large sums of
French money flowed into Russia, which partly developed the natural
resources of Russia and were partly in the shape of loans that in all
likelihood were used for war material.

Slavs in Germany.

The conflict between the Slavs and the Teutons all along the line on
which they border has therefore been in two ways intensified. In the
first place, just in proportion as Germany has become an industrial
State, the field work has been intrusted to immigrant Slavs, some of
whom come only for the season and return, but a very large number of
them--estimated at the present moment at close to a million--have
substantially settled within the borders of the German Empire. That is
to say, there is a constant injection of 1-1/2 per cent. of Slavic blood
into the territories of the German Empire.

Suppose now that Russia should succeed in establishing the protectorate
over all Slavs which she desires, and at the same time should press back
the Germans on that border line, something very closely approximating a
new migration of peoples in Europe will take place.

As far as I know the German feeling, expressed both privately and
publicly, officially and unofficially, they have hoped to maintain their
complete consanguinity, if not homogeneity, within the lands they regard
as their home; and their preparations for war, their increase of their
military strength, have been made, professedly at least, solely in the
interest of defense. Americans can simply not realize--it is impossible
for them to realize--the difference in the degree of civilization and
culture on either side of a purely artificial boundary line.

Very fortunately it has entered the minds of several people lately to
write to the newspapers about the unhappy confusion that comes