The papers have been full of stories of a coming
Anglo- Russian rapprochement, but no statement as yet made is either official or definite. What seems to be true is that Russia desires to remain at peace for some years, and feels the need of arrangements with other Powers. She clings strongly to her alliance with France, which is for her an economic necessity, and she would prefer an entente with Great Britain to one with Germany, because Great Britain asks nothing except to be let alone. Germany, on the contrary, might ask Russian support in her Weltpolitik, and even in her disputes with France and ourselves. It is necessary, however, to warn our readers, as we did in our original article on this subject, that friendship with Russia must grow slowly, and that the detailed statements about Persia and Afghanistan are put forward by imaginative individuals. Compromise about Persia, for example, is possible, but most difficult to arrange, while compromise about Afghanistan is more or less hopeless. Nothing, for instance, would convince the Indian Government that the time had arrived when it would be safe to admit Russian influence into that kingdom. All arrangements with Russia, moreover, must be in the nature of tentatives until we know more clearly what course events will take within Russia itself. The Damn has not been elected yet, and of the ideas which will govern the Duma in the region of external politics no person outside Russia itself has as yet the faintest idea. The one thing certain is that the border provinces of Russia are the most discontented, and the most difficult to manage. The internal event of the week in Russia is a serious riot in Moscow, in which a hundred citizens were injured ; but there is nothing in the accounts as yet published to distinguish the affair from many other riots of the same type, the police interfering in a strike, the populace defending the strikers, and the Cossacks charging on strikers and bystanders alike.
