fact it is time to examine her reasons. These after all are sufficiently obvious. Russia has made up her mind that one outlet alone on an open ice-free ocean is insufficient for the needs, commercial and naval, of an empire of her size and strength; she must touch the open sea in as many directions as possible, and the Persian Gulf is not only the nearest outlet for which she can make but als for geographical reasons the only one, and that the best suited for her purpose, between Kronstadt and Port Arthur. Moreover Persia is in Russian eyes the line of least resistance on political grounds; as a military Power Persia is about on a par with San Marino, and England, who alone of the Great Powers might from the Russian point of view be expected to offer any serious resistance to her expansion, is a Power whose policy and diplomacy have been idle at Teheran for many a long year, and whose only method of defending its Asiatic interests, real or fancied, against the Russian advance in Turkestan, the Pamirs, and in China, has been that of Parliamentary invective and futile protestation. The possession of Persia would carry with it a fourfold advantage; it would mean the opening up of the whole Caspian region to Russian trade, which could then pass, in and out, over railways and through ports whose tariffs and dues were arranged to suit the Russian merchant, a hot-house plant whose particular disease, which Professor Oseroff calls "hypertrophy of profits," would otherwise be speedily cured. Secondly, Russia in Persia would control the Euphrates Valley, and thus be in a position to work for a footing on the Levant, to checkmate the many schemes for a railway between the Mediterranean and Basrah which, if realized, would seriously damage her trade and her position in the Gulf. and to threaten the Suez Canal. Thirdly, it would give her in Bander Abbas a naval base, not only serving as a halfway house between the Baltic and Manchuria, but vastly increasing her powers of offence in the event of a war with almost any naval Power; the question of coal-supply

has added a new figure to the problem of naval war, and although the Rossia is credited with the power of steaming at slow speed from Kronstadt to the Far East without recoaling, such a performance would be impossible in war and Russian cruisers under present conditions would have to limit their commerce-destroying energies to two circles at either extremity of the continent whose radii would not extend as far as the Indian Ocean. Lastly, the possession of Persia places her in a strong position on the weakest frontier of India. Such are the reasons of Persia's importance from the Russian standpoint.

In the popular mind Russia exists for the purpose of invading India, forcing Mr. Goschen to increase the navy estimates, providing "copy" for Mr. Stead and Madame Novikoff, and consigning Nihilists to Siberia. There appears to be a sort of hypnotic influence attached to the mere mention of that country which evokes visions of an army several million strong, of the slow but irresistible absorption of a vast continent, of a religion mediæval in its intolerance of rival creeds, and behind it all the vision of one single superhuman brain, directing and controlling, that of the Autocrat of all the Russias, whose aim is the Russification of Asia, neither more nor less. It is an awe-inspiring subject for those who have the artistic temperament, imaginative and averse to detail. It is impossible to avoid having a suspicion that it is our ignorance of Russia as she is, a state of mind which tolerates the idea that Russia is invincible and her expansion at our expense inevitable, which weakens our policy as far as it concerns her. Russia, if in some respects a Colossus, is a Colossus of the same clay as the rest. The Czar has far less real power than à constitutional Sovereign, and there is far less unity of purpose among the real rulers of the country and the various Ministers than there is under our own Cabinet; each Minister is supreme in his own department, whose policy he directs, frequently in opposition to the policies of the other departmental heads.

The legend of the 300 years of continuous policy, which I see has been repeated by a recent historian, is historically unsound as well as opposed to ordinary common-sense. Russia has always desired an outlet on permanently icefree waters. "It is not land I want, but water!" exclaimed Peter the Great, who did his best to procure it, and succeeded on the Caspian, the Baltic and the Black Sea. His successors have always experienced the same want, but their endeavours to supply the deficiency must not be interpreted as a vast scheme for acquiring the whole of Asia. Let those who believe in such a theory read Gortchakoff's Circular to the Powers in 1864, which it is the fashion among Russophobes to deride as an example of official chicanery, in which he states the reasons for the Russian advance in Central Asia,* and let them remember that it was the same man who bitterly opposed the formation of the Transcaspian military district ten years later on political and financial grounds, since the step was demanded by the war-party, who wished to give the army of the Caucasus something to do, and to win medals for themselves. The Imperial Commission appointed to consider the proposal rejected it by a large majority, but the war-party―Jingoes in modern parlance gained the ear of the Czar and ultimately his sanction. In this, as in many phases of the advance towards the Khanates, there was absolutely no question of political expediency, or of the prosecution of any long-meditated scheme of national aggrandizement. As for Russia's expansion in China, the matter stands thus we have done our utmost to shut her out from the Mediterranean, from Constantinople, and so far with some success; the Persian pear was not yet ripe, and Russia therefore hurried across to the opposite end of the continent where there was still time to secure an outlet with

* For another Russian view of the policy which governed the advance into Central Asia and the Amur region, see Professor Grigorief's sketch, "The Russian Policy regarding Central Asia," Schuyler's "Turkestan," appendix iv., Vol. II.

such forces as she could spare for the for the purpose from Europe.

It is once more this belief in the deadly fixity of purpose on the part of Russia which coloured the views, and consequently justified the strong words, which British politicians have indulged in on occasions when the extension of Russia's frontier in Asia was fraught with no serious consequences at all to ourselves, and to read the accounts of the outcry which the occupation of the Khanates aroused in this country, it would seem as if every step taken without our permission were considered as a casus belli. This dog-in-the-manger attitude is responsible for the suspicion and hostility with which Russia regards England to-day, and it is not surprising that such should be the case.

Our insularity is mental as well as geographical, and the point of view changes accordingly. "Le Français,” said a witty Frenchman, commence par avoir une bonne opinion de soi-même; l'Anglais par avoir une mauvaise opinion des autres." Convinced, therefore, of our love of peace, and of a fair field and no favour for our trade, we view the inevitable arrival of backward foreign nations at the overflowing stage in the light of a "wanton rupture of the status quo," oblivious of the fact that the status quo, though of great benefit to us, may be capable of much improvement from their standpoint.

We have, to all intents and purposes, finished our period of expansion; our colonies are scattered over the globe at vast distances from us and from one another, and as the sole link which in the end can bind them to us is the fleet, we have not hesitated to acquire coaling-stations along all the trade routes-Gibraltar, Malta, Aden, and Singapore on the road to India, and the East. Late in the day other nations, under the stimulus of increasing commerce, have expanded also and acquired foreign possessions; but their natural desire to connect them with the Mother Country is continually being thwarted by the fact that