It is no use to try
and keep out Russia merely to let Germany reap any commercial advantages
that may be got--and that is the policy England is following at the
present moment. The question whether or no we have a secret agreement
with Germany, in connection with the Euphrates Valley Railway, is a
serious one, because, although one cannot but admire German enterprise in
that quarter, it would be well to support it only in places where it is
not likely to be disastrous to our own trade and interests generally.

Little or no importance should be attached to the opinion of the Russian
Press in their attacks upon England. The influential men of Russia, as
well as the Emperor himself, are certainly anxious to come to a
satisfactory understanding with England regarding affairs not only in
Persia but in Asia generally. An understanding between the two greatest
nations in the world would, as long as it lasted, certainly maintain the
peace of the world, and would have enormous control over the smaller
nations; whereas petty combinations can be of little practical solid
assistance or use to us.

As I have pointed out before on several occasions,[3] Russia is not
to-day what she was half a century ago. She has developed enough to know
her strength and power, and her soldiers are probably the finest in
Europe--because the most practical and physically enduring. Her steady,
firm policy of bold advance, in spite of our namby-pamby, ridiculous
remonstrances, can but command the admiration of any fair-minded person,
although we may feel sad, very sad, that we have no men capable of
standing up against it, not with mere empty, pompous words, but with
actual deeds which might delay or stop her progress. As matters are
proceeding now, we are only forwarding Russia's dream of possessing a
port in the Persian Gulf. She wants it and she will no doubt get it. In
Chapters XXXIII and XXXIV the question of the point upon which her aims
are directed is gone into more fully. The undoubted fact remains that,
notwithstanding our constant howling and barking, she invariably gets
what she wants, and even more, which would lead one to believe that, at
any rate, her fear of us is not very great.

We are told that our aggressive--by which is meant retrogressive--policy
towards Russia is due to our inability to effect an entire reversal of
our policy towards that country, but this is not the case at all. At any
rate, as times and circumstances have cha