RUSSIA. ON THE PACIFIC.* THE writer who disguises himself under

the name " Vladimir" published two or three years ago an interesting volume on the China-Japan War. His work seemed to show an intimate knowledge of the Japanese, and a propensity to overlook un- pleasant features in their record. He has now turned his attention to Russia, and it may fairly be said that his new book shows the same characteristics. " Vladimir " is plus royalists que le roi, and just as he formerly chose to ignore the stories of massacre committed by victorious Japanese troops, he now allows his sympathy with Russia to obscure certain very patent defects in the conduct of the Russian Empire. After all, we in England are not likely to forget the beam in our neighbour's eye, and it is interesting to find a writer who can throw himself into the parts of an enthusi- astic Russian and a patriotic Japanese with equal facility.

The extension of Russian dominion over the Northern parts of Asia admits of several theories on the part of philosophic historians. The most usual idea, perhaps, in this country is that Russia has proceeded on a definite system of conquest, carefully planned out beforehand. It is, at the same time, quite possible to make out a plausible case for the belief that the Russian Empire, like all other Empires of which we have historic record, has grown by opportunity skilfully seized, rather than by a set design. " Vladimir" appears to favour the doctrine that the destiny of the Russian race has been to advance upon a north-easterly line from the Danube (where he places their origin) to the Pacific Ocean. We are far from wishing to offer an opinion on a question which may be said to belong to the metaphysics of history, but we commend this last view to the notice of the writers who believe that all Russian conquest in Asia has been intended to embarrass England in the East, and thus to unbar the road to Constanti- nople.

The earlier history of Russia is so little known to English readers that "Vladimir's" sketch of the gradual growth of the Muscovite Power is full of interest. Indeed, the rise of the unimportant fief of Moscow to the domination of a third of the Old World is as remarkable in its way as the growth of Rome. For Moscow, like Rome, was one among many towns, and for a long time was dwarfed by the greater im- portance of Novgorod and of Kiev. Even after it had become the most important of the Rusian States, it seemed very possible that the Russian race itself might have become absorbed by Poland (which for a time held the greater part of Little Russia), or annihilated by the Tartars of the Golden Horde. " Vladimir's " theory that Poland lost her chance of becoming the great leader of the Slav race by her adoption of the Western, instead of the Eastern, form of Christianity, a step which definitely separated the Poles from other Slays, and made their country part of Central Europe, is one of those unverifiable ideas which charm the historic imagination. Moscow in time assumed the part that might have fallen to Warsaw, and the Poles, after bearing the brunt of the Turkish attack upon Europe, passed to national decay, and are to-day the servants of their Russian kinsmen. It is inter- esting to remember that the later Muscovite successes over the Turk were made possible by the valour of John Sobieski. The Tartars, who were to Russia what the Turks were to Poland, soon lost their national coherence, and the famous Golden Horde was obliterated by the petty State whose rulers had once accepted their investiture at the hands of the Khan.

We have dwelt upon the origins of the Grand Duchy of Moscow because " Vladimir " has devoted the first part of his work to a study of early Russian history. With the advent of Yermak in the sixteenth century the interest shifts to the east of the Urals, and the rest of the volume is

• Russia on the Padflc, and the Siberian Railway. By Vladimir. London : Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. [14s.]

occupied with the conquest and development of Siberia. The English reader will notice with surprise that this study of Russia in Asia ignores the Russian conquest of the Caucasus, Transcaspia, and Turkestan. While these provinces are beyond the scope of " Vladimir's " present work, it is quite unjustifiable for a historian who generalises largely on the character of Russian dominion to disregard one of the most instructive chapters of Russian history. " Vladimir" is con- cerned to trace the steps by which Russia has advanced to the inheritance of the realm of Genghiz Khan, but the reader who is invited to consider her north-eastern progress will entertain a very false idea of the national history if he for- gets that a Russian Governor now sits at Samarkand in the throne of Tamerlane.

The first step to the conquest of Siberia was taken when the adventurous merchants of Novgorod pursued their quest of valuable furs over the Ural Mountains. As Novgorod declined, Moscow took her place, and the enterprise of the Stroganoff family paved the way to dominion in Asia. That dominion, however, might have been delayed for centuries but for the daring of the Cossack Yermak. It must never be forgotten that Siberia was conquered not by the Muscovite State, which was still struggling for existence in Europe, but by a marauding chief of Cossacks, who laid his conquests at the Czar's feet, much as Strongbow resigned his Irish fief to Henry II. of England. Yermak was a man of extraordinary powers, perhaps of genius, and it is fitting that he should be honoured in Russia. If, in our national virtue, we see with wonder a statue erected to the great filibuster, let us not for- get the remark of the Spanish Admiral who confounded the Mayor of Plymouth not long ago. "What," he exclaimed as he walked along the Hoe past the statue of Drake, "do you English erect statues to your pirates?"

Yermak showed the way, and gradually other Cossacks followed. Without these Cossacks, indeed, Russia would have remained a European Power. Although the nucleus, at any rate, of the Cossack communities was Russian, the wild, semi-military condition of their life on the outposts of the Empire turned them into a folk very different from the apathetic moujiks. To-day the term " Cossack " has lost all racial significance (thus " Cossacks " have been formed from the natives of Circassia), but the Czarevitch is still Atta- man of the Cossacks of the Don. In the sixteenth century their methods were, as might be expected, rigorous. " The Cossacks," said an unhappy Tungnz, whom " Vladimir " does not quote, though he admits the barbarity of the invaders, " make gridirons of the parents to roast the children on." They carried the arms of the Czar as far as the Pacific early in the seventeenth century, and began that conquest of Kamchatka which has never been really completed. But the eastward advance brought Russia face to face with China.

The Manchu Emperors, the "Bogdol Khans," were two hundred years ago at the head of a great military nation. But the conquest of China exhausted the energy of the Manchus. China, like Greece, capta fey tan victorent cepit. The absurd " Banner Army " of to-day represents the descendants of the conquerors, dispersed through the Middle Kingdom, and Manchuria itself has been largely repeopled by Chinese. The Manchu Emperors are now as powerless to resist the European at Pekin as the Great Mogul was at Delhi.

In the seventeenth century, however, China could, and did, defy Russia. By the treaty of Nertchinsk, signed in 1689, furthur Russian progress was absolutely barred for more than a century and a half. The Chinese made the fatal mistake of not entering into effective occupation of the Amur region, and Muravioff was enabled, at the time of the Crimean War, to annex the maritime province of Manchuria, and to hold his own on the Pacific littoral against the allied fleets of England and France. The confusion into which China was thrown by the Taeping Rebellion, and the war of 1860, enabled the Russians to consolidate their new possessions. The audacity and energy of Muravioff were admirable; he defeated the intrigues of his opponents at St. Petersburg, he actually added to the Russian dominion in Asia at the very moment that Russia was humbled in Europe, and four years after the Crimean War he utilised the proceedings of the French and English to obtain concessions from the terrified Chinese. For forty years Russia rested with no better port than Vladi- vostok, whose name, however (" Dominion of the East "), seemed a presage of further advance. At last the China-Japan War gave the desired opportunity. The Russians, who had made a half-hearted attempt to secure Corea, suddenly found themselves able to establish their paramountcy in Manchuria instead. Corea was, for a time at least, relinquished, and the Siberian Railway will run from St. Petersburg to Talienwan.

Vladimir's " account of these events is full of interest, and his Siberian chapters open a romantic page of history to the Western reader. It is startling to be reminded that the Russians, when in possession of Alaska, actually pushed southward to the spot where San Francisco now stands. But, with supreme wisdom, the Czar conveyed his American

possessions to the United States. It is curious to reflect that cur Klondike boundary question would have been, but for this act, a dispute with Russia.

While the historical chapters of the book are admirable, "Vladimir" does not seem quite certain of his ground when treating of recent diplomacy. In one place he seems to think that the German action at Kiao-chow took the Russians by surprise, and necessitated an unpremeditated advance to Port Arthur, although such an idea is not quite in accord with his general theory. And his naïve unconsciousness that the Siberian Railway can have any use other than commercial is a little amusing. While it is too often forgotten in England that an enormously long single line of rails over difficult c mntry is not a perfect machine for hurling masses of troops upon a distant point, we may be permitted to doubt whether the line would ever have been contemplated in the absence of strategic reasons. The same commercial theory has been advanced in the case of the Transcaspian Rail way, but few people believe that the development of Turcomania was a sufficient motive for the construction of such a line at the expense of an already depleted Treasury.

"Vladimir" occasionally gives voice to historical judgments which are a little surprising. For instance, he laments the mistake made by Russia in mixing herself up with the wars of the French Revolution, thereby delaying her Asiatic advance, and adds, more curiously : "It is strange that Napoleon was destroyed by England and Russia, the two great colonising Powers, whose interests, lying outside Europe, ought to have induced them to allow him a free hand on the Continent." But the chief defect in this most interesting work, to our mind, is the tacit assumption that all is for the best in the best of all possible Russias. The Siberian convict system, the suppression of liberty of thought, the neglect of economic distress in European Raesia,, the harsh administrative methods so often employed (as in the case of the forcible transplantation of colonists from Trans- Baikalia to the Amur), and the corruption of lower officials, rendering nugatory the most honest attempts at good government,—facts such as these find no place in his survey of the Russian Empire. His remarks as to the invulnerability of Russia deserve careful study. But must we necessarily

applaud what we cannot prevent P At the same time we recommend to all " Russophobes " his arguments as to the mutual compatibility of the Russian and British Empires in Asia. But what are we to say to such a sentence as this P-

" [In Russia] the spirit of the Government and the character of the people are averse from pride of race : the only feeling on which to base such conquests [as the absorption of China]. The sentiment of race equality has succeeded well in the Russian Empire, because the ever-increasing number of the prolific Slav race has tendered it possible to neglect heterogeneous elements gradually and irresistibly absorbed or smothered. But this principle would be fatal in the government of the millions of China."

Now this is true enough as regards China. Farther, it is not often recognised that the Russians owe much to foreign influence. They received Christianity from Byzantium, and the saving leaven in their early history came from the Norse- men who founded the house of Rurik. Again, their com- mercial progress is due almost entirely to German traders, and the reigning house is at least as German as the house of Brunswick. But we should have thought that pride of race (which by no means depends on ultimate homogeneity, as we see in the British Islands) was the great motive power in Russia. And has the eulogist of Russian "race-equality " ever heard of Finland?