It is hardly necessary to insist that no one here
regards the InMerial meeting with annoyance, anxiety, or misgiving. If the visit makes for the peace of the world, we shall experience nothing but pleasure, for peace on just and sound foundations is now, as always, the greatest of British interests. That the meeting will in any sense undermine the Triple Entente is out of the question. Russian statesmen—and in these the Tsar must, of mime, •be included—realise fully, we had almost said instinc- tively, the great risk Russia would run if an impulsive and ill-considered " swing " towards Germany were to leave her isolated. People here and in France do not fully realise that the Slav question is the European question of the future ; but the Russians, at any rate, are not likely to forget it, any more than they are likely to forget the warning which they received last March of the way in which the question of the Southern Slays is regarded at Berlin and Vienna.
