on. Without superfluous corn for exportation, the State
would be unable to meet its obligations, maintain its solvency, or
provide the motive power of progress. The exportation of agricultural
produce was the fountain head not only of Russia's material
well-being, but of her moral and cultural evolution: everything, in a
word, was dependent upon plentiful harvests and extensive sales of
cereals abroad. And, suddenly, the gates were closed, the corn was
stored, and the nation left without its revenue. Nobody but a Russian,
or one who has lived long in the country, can realize fully all that
this tremendous blow connotes. Parenthetically, it may be remarked
that it adds a motive, and one of the most potent, to those which
inspire the heroic sacrifices of the people, quickening the flame of
devotion to their Allied cause. Russia is now literally fighting for
her own liberty, for escape from the iron circle that shuts her off
from the sea, and isolates her from the western world in which it is
her ambition and her mission to play a helpful part.

One needs no further explanation why the Russian Government put
pressure upon M. Delcasse and Sir Edward Grey to open the Dardanelles
route for the Russian corn. Neither is it to be wondered at that while
the Allied Forces in Gallipoli were still grappling with the Turks,
the Tsar's Ministers should have thrust into the foreground the
question of Constantinople and the Straits, and insisted upon an
immediate pragmatic settlement. True, that was not statesmanship; it
was anything but political wisdom; but at any rate it was human on the
part of all concerned. If this Titanic struggle, in which Russia is
perhaps the greatest sufferer, is to bring her any palpable and
enduring advantage, this, it was urged, can take but one form--freedom
from the preposterous restraints that bar her way to the sea, and
through the sea to the outside world. This and other pleas were
powerful; but for this very reason and for the purpose of realizing
her natural striving I personally would have temporarily negatived the
Russian proposal and left nothing undone to ensure its withdrawal. For
if I were asked to point to the efficient cause of the Allies' present
lamentable plight in the Near East, I should single out this premature
arrangement and its necessary consequences. For Roumania and Bulgaria
were at the moment as bitterly opposed to Russia's overlordship in the
Dardanelles and her possession of Co