Count von Billow, the German Chancellor, delivered on Wednesday a
rather remarkable speech. The Bavarian Socialist leader, Herr von Vollmar, had protested against the German "dependence" on Russia as shown in the constant sale of liners intended to act as coalships or auxiliary cruisers for her fleet, and in many actions of German police, and the Chancellor repudiated the accusation. The sales of the vessels were legal, and Germany, though she avoided making herself disagreeable to Russia, did not " run after her " and was not "dependent" on her. He did not believe in a collapse of Russia. The French were still assiduously cultivating the Russian Alliance, which also the English Liberals desired, and, indeed, " men of insight all the world over are more or less convinced that the position of Russia as a Great Power will survive the vicissitudes of the present war and the difficulties of the present domestic trouble. Just wait and see." That is a remarkable opinion if it is a sincere one, for Count von Billow must have a hundred correspondents in Russia; but he omits a detail which would greatly increase its weight. Does he, or does ho not, expect that the Russia of 1910 will be substantially the same as the Russia of 1905
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