commodities needed for the manufacture of ammunition, Germany was particularly short of saltpeter. Now there reaches me a report of a resolution passed by the Chamber of Agriculture of Brandenburg, calling attention to this lack of saltpeter. As published by the "North German Gazette," which got into trouble with the Government for making it public, part of this resolution was as follows:

"There is danger to Germany in the fact that, owing to the war, Germany is unable to import saltpeter, and in the fact that this state of affairs may be renewed at any later time. This is a great danger because such a scarcity of saltpeter as now exists causes a considerable diminution in the produce of the harvest, and because the production of the ammunition and explosives that are needed may be handicapped. Therefore, since the food supply of the people and Germany's power of resistance may suffer from a want of nitrogenous salts, and since private industry cannot be counted on to solve this problem, it seems desirable for the Imperial Government to take measures at once to assure a permanent supply of nitrogenous salts for Germany."

The agitation in the German Socialist press for higher wages for the miners in the copper mines of Eisleben, Saxony, seems to indicate an unusual activity in these mines, which is probably due to Germany's great need of copper.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SEA CONTROL

Here we see well illustrated the importance of the control of the sea, an advantage which England's participation in the war has brought to her allies. Were the British navy neutral, all talk of " starving out" Germany would be folly, and France and Russia would be more likely than the Fatherland to suffer from a lack of imports. As it is, the Allies can buy abroad what they cannot make at home. Just the other day France ordered 350,000 rifles from an American firm. The fact that these rifles are not to be delivered for ten months indicates that the Allies are not likely to make the mistake which Germany made in underestimating the endurance of her opponents. So great is the demand for weapons, even among the Allies, that while the arms factories in their territory and in America are working overtime, American Springfield rifles of the model of 1883 have been sold retently at $11 apiece instead of

$3.50-their price before the war. These ancient weapons, of course, would hardly be used on the firing-line, but for use by guards at prison camps and by recruits in training camps they serve fairly well. Since the opening of the war the price by the thousand for cartridges for these old-fashioned rifles has risen from $23.50 to $28.75.

GERMANY STILL HAS MEN

Although there may be an impending shortage of ammunition in Germany, there is no immediately impending scarcity of men, even at the tremendous mortality rate maintained thus far, which has cost the Fatherland a million men in five months of war, according to the most reliable estimates. Having thrown all her trained forces against the Allies in vain efforts to break the ring of steel first on one side and then on the other, Germany can now be expected to call upon her untrained men. Theoretically, Germany has universal military service, but, as a matter of fact, a great many men escape the required military training, First, of course, are those who fail to meet the requirements of physical fitness, many of whom would be useful enough in an emergency such as that which now confronts the Fatherland. Then there are those who come up to this standard but who have not been trained because the size of the military budget has not permitted it. These are placed in the Ersatz, or Replacement Reserve, and are not to be trained till the commencement of an emergency. Finally, there must be available fully a million youths under twenty-the age at which young Germans are supposed to enter the army. It is difficult to compute accurately the full extent of the human stream that will flow to the defense of Germany from these three sources, but it is probably no exaggeration to say that there are still available between three and four million Germans yet untrained or now training. In our Civil War the South, with a population of about ten million whites, put into the field an army of about ninety per cent of her military population. There is reason to believe that Germany will fight as bitterly and determinedly as the Confederacy did, and, if so, with her population of 67,000,000 in August, 1914, she ought to be able, between the outbreak of the war and the cessation of hostilities, to put nearly eight million men in the field, exclusive of what Austria contributes. Even if the present high casu

alties continue, this should give her enough men to defend her present military frontier and maintain her communications for a matter of years yet.

THE WAR NOW A GIGANTIC SIEGE

Reviewing the situation to-day, there is a sound basis for considering the war in Europe as a siege of Germany and Austria-a viewpoint that some English experts are coming to take. The Teutonic forces are not completely blockaded, it is true, but they have been deprived of considerable freedom of maneuver, and the conflict in the east seems likely soon to become, like the struggle in the west, a battle from fortifications entirely, in which the sapper plays a part prominent in siege operations from time immemorial. The German line is far extended, and as Germany's armies are worn down it may be

difficult for her to avoid retreating to shorten the length of frontier to be defended.

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The Allies are now searching out the weak spot in this line, as the allies in the Crimean War felt out the weak link in the chain of defenses before Sebastopol, and as Grant felt out the point of least resistance in Lee's lines about Richmond. When they find it, or think they find it, they will lunge forward in a battering-ram attack, hoping to break through as the French and English broke through at the Malakoff, and as Grant broke through at Five Forks. On the other hand, the Germans boast that (barring the possibility of such an internal defection as might develop from the reported unrest in Hungary and Transylvania), whenever the war ends it will end where it is to-day.

. January 6, 1915.

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INCE the declaration of war against Russia by Germany, on the 1st of August last, the Russian people have surprised the world with two great mass movements of extraordinary interest and importance. First, they put aside remembrance of their grievances and wrongs, and went unanimously to the support of the monarch who had so long oppressed them; and, second, they voluntarily abandoned the most injurious of their habits, and persuaded, if they did not compel, their Government and their Czar to go out of the vodka-selling business and relinquish the immense revenue derived therefrom. The second of these movements I described in an article on "Prohibition in Russia" which was published in The Outlook of December 16, 1914. purpose now to consider the first, and to answer as fully as I can the questions, "How was the unification of Russia brought about, and how long is it likely to last?"

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The war of Russia with Japan was terminated, as General Kuropatkin himself admits, not by the Russian armies in Manchuria, but by the opponents of the Russian Government at home. It was internal dissension, not defeats in the field, which forced the Czar and his Ministers to make peace. When the present war began, the Germans at least

expected that the history of 1905 and 1906 would be repeated; and that the Czar's Government would again be hampered, if not crippled, by a revival of the revolutionary movement, and by the active hostility of the Poles, Finns, Armenians, Georgians, Catholics, Mohammedans, and religious dissenters who had felt the Czar's heavy hand in the past and who were supposed to be watching and waiting for another chance to rebel and resist. These expectations, however, were not realized. Instead of availing themselves of the opportunity to renew the attack on their oppressors, the insurgents and malcontents buried the hatchet-to use an American phrase and rallied around the throne with patriotic enthusiasm and unanimity. All political, racial, and class lines were instantly obliterated, and all parties, nationalities, and social groups laid aside their animosities and united in defense of the state. At the historic " war session" of the Duma, on the 8th of August, 1914, the representatives of almost every nationality and political party in the Empire gave the Government a sincere promise of hearty co-operation and support. These assurances of loyalty, moreover, were not confined merely to words. No matter how much a class, a party, or a nationality had suffered at the hands of a, despotic and

intolerant oligarchy in the past, it forgot its injuries, forgave its oppressors, and contributed what it could to national defense.

Within the memory of men not yet old the Turkomans of Central Asia fought a defensive campaign against an invading Russian army led by General Skobelef. When

their resistance was finally broken, in January, 1881, their principal settlement, GeokTepe, was taken by storm, and was then given up for three days to all the horrors of sack, pillage, and slaughter. After this bloody episode in their history one could hardly expect that they would have a kindly feeling for their enemies and conquerors; and yet, only a few weeks ago, they equipped, at a cost of 150,000 rubles, a Red Cross hospital train, with half a dozen surgeons, a corps of trained nurses, and a force of one hundred and thirty stretcher-bearers and sanitarians.

Even the Kirghis of Siberia-poor Asiatic nomads of the Mohammedan faith-rallied in support of a Christian monarch, and telegraphed the Grand Duke Nicholas, in Poland, that they were shipping to him by rail five hundred of their best horses-" animals," as they explained, "that are accustomed to privation, and that will go long and far on very little food." Only a few years ago the Czar sanctioned a measure which deprived these same nomads of a large part of their wandering-ground, on the pretext that it was needed for Russian agricultural settlers. As soon, however, as the state was imperiled, the Kirghis, disregarding the fact that their lands had been taken from them without compensation, gave for national defense a large part of the scanty property that the Russian Government had left them.

Equal magnanimity was shown by the Armenians, who not only contributed liberally to war relief funds and the Red Cross, but volunteered, in large numbers, for active service in the field. And yet, only a few years ago, the Russian Government arbitrarily sequestered the property of the Armenian Church, and still more recently it arrested more than a thousand Armenians, on trumpedup charges of "separatism," held them for long periods in overcrowded prisons, and finally sent scores of them into exile and penal servitude. Prince Vorontsof-Dashkof, Viceroy of the Caucasus, subsequently admitted that these Armenians were innocent, and said in his official report, no longer ago than last year, "Separatist tendencies among the Armenians do not exist. Any statement

to the contrary can be disproved by the actual facts, which confirm the devotion of the Armenians to Russia." When the safety of the state was threatened by the aggressive action of Germany, the persecuted Armenians forgot or condoned the acts of their oppressors, and rivaled the Slavs in their loyalty and patriotism.

All that has here been said of the Turkomans, the Kirghis, and the Armenians is equally true of the Finns, the Jews, the Lithuanians, the Georgians, the Caucasian mountaineers, the liberals, and even the revolutionists. All of these nationalities and political groups had at some time been persecuted or oppressed by the Czar and his Ministers; and yet, in the great national crisis that followed the German declaration of war, every one of them, for patriotic reasons, took the side of its persecutors and oppressors. Never, I think, in any country, has a finer or more magnanimous spirit been shown.

How have these manifestations of loyalty and patriotism been received by the Russian Government? Has it met magnanimity with appreciation and concession? Has it relaxed its severity toward the peoples and groups that have forgotten and forgiven so much? Not in the slightest degree! On the contrary, while accepting, as a matter of course, the support so generously given, it has continued to pursue its old policy of distrust and repression. Take as an illustration its attitude toward the liberals and the Duma.

If at the outbreak of the war the Czar had followed the example set by France-if he had reorganized his Ministry by admitting to it a few capable and patriotic men from the ranks of the Constitutional Democrats or the Octobrists-he would have strengthened greatly his own position, to say nothing of increasing the efficiency of his Government. But he preferred to retain such hidebound reactionists as Maklakof, Shcheglovitof, and Kasso, and to govern on the lines drawn by Stolypin and Pleve. After the remarkable exhibition of loyalty and unanimity given by the Duma in the war session of August 8, one would have expected the Government to put some trust in the representatives of the people, and to invite their co-operation in the tremendous task set before the nation by the war. But the Czar did not trust even a Duma in which he had always had a majority. When big problems of taxation and finance began to come up, and the country was in

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urgent need of its best brains, a number of influential Deputies, with President Rodzianko at their head, begged the Government to reconvene the Duma and allow it to participate in the impending legislation. But the Czar preferred to rule by ukase, under the provisions of Section 87 of the Fundamental Laws, and politely declined to avail himself of the Duma's advice and aid. ("Russkoe Bogatstvo," September 14, 1914, pp. 306-307.) By putting the whole country under martial law and "obligatory regulations," he and his Ministers could keep all power in their own hands. A few weeks later, when the influential liberal review "Russkoe Bogatstvo published an article in which this policy was mildly criticised, that periodical was promptly suppressed "for the whole period of the

Few governments, I think, have ever had more loyal and patriotic support from the periodical press than the Czar's Government has had since the outbreak of war; and yet Russian newspapers have been treated almost as if they were secret allies of Germany and covert enemies of the state. The most moderate criticism and the most reasonable suggestions have been fiercely resented by the Czar's officials, and under the wide license given to civil administrators by martial law the punishments inflicted upon offending editors have been made much more severe than they were before. Within the last six or eight weeks ten newspapers or reviews have been suppressed altogether, and eleven have been fined in the following sums: Omski Vestnik," 500 rubles s; "Altaiski Dyello," 500; "Priishimye," 500; "Svet," 1,000; "Sinii Zhurnal," 1,000; "Utro Rossii," 1,000; Zavet," 3,000; "Bourse Vedomosti," 3,000; "Russkiya Vedomosti," 3,000; "Reitch," 6,000; "Den," 10,000. This list is by no means complete; it comprises only a few cases that I have happened to notice. Scores of separate numbers of perhaps twenty different papers have been confiscated by the police, and three editors have been sent to prison for terms ranging from seven months to one year. Permission to establish new journals has been almost invariably refused. At the war session of

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I The editor of "Russkoe Bogatstvo" is the well-known author, publicist, and patriot Vladimir Korolenko. Readers of The Outlook will perhaps remember the affectionate and enthusiastic greetings sent to him on his sixtieth birthday by hundreds of clubs, societies, and organizations, as well as by thousands of individuals, in all parts of the Empire. His voice is now silenced at the time when his criticism and counsel are most needed.-G. K.

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the Duma, Deputy Ichas, from the province of Kovno, made a most patriotic speech in behalf of his constituents, the Lithuanians, who, he said, would support the Government with their fortunes and their lives. A few weeks later he asked permission of the Minister of the Interior to establish a newspaper to be called "The Voice of the Fatherland;" but the Minister seemed to be afraid that the voice of the fatherland would be a shout for freedom, and he therefore denied the request.

Two of the most moderate and influential newspapers in the Empire-the "Reitch " of Petrograd and the "Russkiya Vedomosti " of Moscow-have recently been fined nine thousand rubles for three articles. The "Reitch "" was at first suppressed; but upon promise, perhaps, of better behavior, it was allowed to resume publication upon payment of a three-thousand-ruble fine. If, under the authority given by martial law, the Government continues to impose these excessively heavy fines upon obnoxious periodicals, it will force many even of the larger journals into bankruptcy, and thus restrict public criticism of governmental action more closely than it has ever been restricted before.

In other fields the repressive policy of the Government is equally manifest. Provincial editors are still being punished for comments made on the Beilis "ritual murder case more than a year ago; three Baptists have recently been exiled to Siberia for life, because their preaching happened to convert a few Russian unbelievers who were nominally Orthodox; and five Social Democratic members of the Duma, who are accused of initiating an anti-war movement, are about to be tried for high treason, and will probably be sent into penal servitude, as were the Social Democratic members of the Second Duma. But these, perhaps, are not the worst cases.

Between two and three years ago Baudouin de Courtenay, an aged and distinguished professor in the University of Petrograd, wrote a brochure entitled "The National and Territorial Aspects of Autonomy," which was devoted mainly to the advocacy of federalism, as an essential feature of good government in a state composed of heterogeneous nationalities. The aged and revered professor was soon arrested and prosecuted on the charge of "inciting to sedition and spreading false information calculated to provoke popular hostility toward the Government." The case dragged along in the courts for two years

and a half, and finally ended about a month ago in the Petrograd Chamber of Justice. One might reasonably have supposed that, in view of the generous support given to the Government by all of the liberal parties, the Czar and his courts would have treated this distinguished liberal with some consideration and forbearance; but the Chamber of Justice sentenced him to two years' imprisonment in a fortress, and all that the Czar would do was to commute his punishment to three months in view of the long time that he had been under accusation. On the 22d of November, Professor de Courtenay, at the age of seventy, went into solitary confinement in a cell of the Viborg fortress in Finland. (Petrograd Reitch," November 24, 1914.)

Soon after the outbreak of war Vladimir Bourtsef, one of the oldest and most distinguished of the Russian revolutionists, issued an appeal to his comrades to support their Government; offered his own services to the Czar; and, leaving Paris, where he was safe, went back to Russia to co-operate with the very officials against whom he had so long fought. If the Russian Government had had any generosity-if it had had even common "horse sense "-it would have welcomed this able and patriotic ally and set him at useful work; but, instead of doing this, it arrested him at the frontier and threw him into the House of Preliminary Detention in Petrograd, where he is now awaiting trial on a charge of lèse majesté.

If there were any nationality in the Empire to which the Czar owed gratitude for loyalty and service, it was certainly the Finns. They had every reason to feel dissatisfaction, and if at the beginning of the war they had shown a spirit of hostility or disaffection, they might seriously have embarrassed the Government, and have compelled it to keep in Finland a large force of troops that it needed on the frontier of Germany. But the Finns did not do this. Forgetting or forgiving the action of their monarch in depriving them of their Constitution and their autonomy, they gave him their support; many of them volunteered for active service in the field; and two of their officers-Spare

and Dahlstroem-have recently been killed in battle. Has the Grand Duke of Finland and the Czar of All the Russias taken a single step toward the people who have shown so much readiness to make peace with him? Not one! His Governor-General, Zein, continues to harry the Finnish press and to prosecute Finnish citizens for lèse majesté, and less than a month ago he exiled to Siberia Judge Svinkhuvud, exspeaker of the Diet, who is one of the ablest and most respected citizens of Finland. Judge Svinkhuvud's offense was refusal to recognize the authority of a Russian procurator appointed in violation of the Finnish Constitution. But Governor-General Zein is no more hostile to the Finns than his Imperial master is. Within the past few weeks Nicholas himself has approved and allowed his Ministers to publish the legislative programme of the so-called " Finland Commission," which recommends the extension to the Grand Duchy of all the Russian laws that the Russians themselves have found most oppressive. In so doing he has virtually said to the Finns: "You have been faithful, loyal, and patriotic in time of war; now I will unite you more completely with the rest of Russia by muzzling your newspapers, suppressing your societies, abrogating your right of public assembly, trying your officials in my courts, and lifting from your shoulders the heavy burden of your antiquated Constitution."

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If the Czar thinks that this is the way to confirm loyalty and win affection, he is likely in the not distant future to get a severe mental "jolt." The nationalities of Russia and the Russian people are patient and longsuffering, and just at present they are completely absorbed in the tragedies and miseries of the war; but if Nicholas and his Ministers do not change their course-if they continue to follow the ante-bellum policy of Stolypin and Kokovtsof-united Russia will become disunited when, if not before, the war ends. Then there will be trouble of a very serious kind-trouble which may profoundly affect Russia's internal status, as well as her international relations and the possible extension of her territory and power.