TOPICS OF THE DAY.
AN UNDERSTANDING WITH RUSSIA.
WE feel the heartiest sympathy with Sir Edward Grey in his plea for a friendly understanding with Russia. Such an understanding has been advocated by us again and again, and we are delighted to see a statesman of such weight, as well as promise, put the matter so clearly before the nation. Sir Edward Grey, be it noted, does not give his plea any party complexion. He does not, that is, in the good old partisan manner, declare that we do not come to the desired understanding with Russia because we have a Unionist Government in power, and because Unionists naturally hate what is good and love what is evil. Instead, he fully admits that this Government is anxious to establish good relations with Russia, and infers, what we believe is perfectly true, that the country as a whole would welcome such a triumph of diplomacy. But he goes on to ask how is it that we seem always unable to arrive at an understanding with Russia ? His explanation as to the cause, and we think it a very true one, is that Russia distrusts us and does not believe in our goodwill. Further, he suggests that ever since the Crimean War Russia has distrusted England, and believed her to be the essential enemy of the Slay. That this is the foundation-stone of our failure to get on better with Russia we cannot doubt. Our diplomatists are always inclined to assert that it is impossible to come to an understanding with Russia because Russia will never give us an opportunity, will never show herself trustful and friendly,—will never meet us half way. In fact, they argue that it takes two to make a friendly under- standing, and that Russia politely but stubbornly refuses to accept our advances.
That superficially and in appearance this is true enough, we do not deny. Nevertheless, we venture to say that this difficulty is not an insuperable one, and that in spite of Russian suspicions we might, if we took the trouble and went the right way about it, convince Russia that we are not her natural enemy, and that it is quite possible, and also quite worth while, for her to put matters on a friendly footing. But the first thing neces- sary to coming to an understanding with a former enemy is to come to an understanding of him and his aims and aspirations, and also of the causes that inspire his prejudice and his enmity. Let us first consider, then, why it ie that Russia distrusts England, and regards her as an essential enemy. The first cause is that for the last fifty years, partly owing to accident and partly to what Lord Salisbury so happily called "an antiquated diplomacy," Russia has always found us in her way. She has never, so to speak, opened her door with the intention of going out without finding us blocking up the road. Sometimes we have driven her back altogether. At others we have only looked cross and called her names, but always we have stood, or appeared to stand, in the way. It was we, she feels, who beat her back in the Crimea. It was we, she holds, who thrust ourselves between San Stefano and Constantinople and prevented the cross reappearing on the dome of St. Sophia. [In reality, of course, it was the Austrians who compelled Russia to bring her spoils to the Berlin Conference for redivision ; but Russia forgets that, and thinks only of our meddling to save the Turk.] Again, it was England who interfered in the conquest of Central Asia, and it is England who in Persia, and still more in China, is in the way of Russia. No doubt it might be easy, if we could get Russia to listen, to prove to her that we were not in the past as hostile as we seemed, and' that now, at any rate, all desire to tread on Russia's toes and to drive her back has ceased. But Russia will not listen to such proofs, and instead dwells upon the character of our diplomacy, which, towards her, has always seemed narrow, grudging, and unfriendly. And assuredly the tradition of that diplomacy has been most unfortunate. We have always been quite sincerely anxious for an under- standing, but yet this desire has gone hand in hand with the administration of plenty of diplomatic snubs and pin- pricks. One party here has been quite as bad as the other. Look at the Penjdeh incident. Take, again, the small, hut none the less typical and instructive, episode of Ritoum, when Lord Rosebery was Mr. Gladstone's Foreign Secretary. Russia in 1886 resolved to get rid of her promise made at Berlin to maintain Batoum as a free port, and she did so contrary to her perfectly clear and.
explicit engagements. That was not nice behaviour, no doubt, but how ought it to have been received by us, granted that we were anxious to come to a friendly under. taking with Russia ? Having decided that we did not mean to fight Russia over her action, surely we ought to have said We will make the incident an opportunity for showing our goodwill to Russia. We will tell her that we are delighted to show our desire to be friendly with her by raising no sort of objection, and by refraining in any way from accusing her of a breach of faith.' Such action would have given Russia her way, but it would at any rate have caused no illwill, and left no sting. Instead, however, of turning our wise decision not to make Russia's action a cams belli into an occasion for a friendly act, we did the stupidest of all things. We swore, but acquiesced ; we barked, but did not bite ; we consented, but looked. unpleasant. Lord Rosebery, that is, let Russia have her own way, but wrote a smart despatch which greatly irri- tated and annoyed the Russians—all the more, doubtless, because they were, in fact, in the wrong—and made people here say, with all that disagreeable frankness for which we are famed,—' What liars these Russians are.' No doubt Lord Rosebery's phrases were exceedingly clever and cutting and satirical, but when you are giving in those are the very qualities you want to avoid. The Russian Government had weakly said that Batoum was declared a free port, not by any general agreement of the Powers, but by "the spontaneous declaration" of the Emperor, and that, therefore, there was no breach of treaty. Lord Rose. bery's reply was very neat and sarcastic. He answered that "even granting the doctrine, which, as far as her Majesty's Government are aware, is an entirely novel one, that the spontaneous declaration of his Majesty the late Emperor is not to be considered. as binding because it was spontaneous, it cannot be denied that its embodiment in the Treaty placed it on the same footing as any other clause in the instrument." That is very pretty despatch-writing, but can we wonder that Russia, which, like all bureaucratic autocracies, is a good deal moved by amour propre, does not take such language as an invitation to a friendly understanding ? But it may be said this is an old story. Unfortunately, our diplomacy since then has hardly been more encouraging. We do not believe that in essentials we have done any- thing to injure Russia in China, but we have contrived to give her the impression that our whole object has been to stand in her way. Surely, when we knew she was going to move in the Far East, and when we wanted to keep on friendly terms with Russia, we ought to have asked ourselves,—' What is the maximum of concession we can make in China to Russia ? ' and when we had settled that, we should have gone to Russia and told her plainly to take it, not against us. but with our goodwill. Instead, we have tried the policy of concealed intentions, have clung doggedly to one non-essential point after another, and have only yielded inch by inch matters which in our hearts we did not really deem essential. We do not really mind Russia having Manchuria for her own, and coming to the open water, and getting this or that con- cession, but let us pretend we do, and. threaten and abuse her as she advances, and who knows but we may be able to keep her from doing things which if we showed her our hand we should have to admit were not matters we greatly cared for.' That has been our policy, with the result that though we have not gone to war with Russia, we have managed to convince her that we are her enemy, and that we cannot be trusted for a moment when we profess to wish her well.
But we shall be told All this deplorable misunder- standing is due really to Russia, not to us. If she had been frank and loyal, and had not tried to " do " us, we could have come to terms with her. It is her tricky ways that prevent an understanding.' Possibly this accusation of trickiness is to some extent true, but it does not, to our mind, in the least exonerate our diplomatists. On this hypothesis Russia is a cunning, deceitful Power, who will not speak out, who will not tell you what she wants, who assures you that she does not in the least want such-and-such a thing, and then grabs it, —in fact, a Power who will not do business fairly and squarely. Very well ; then it is the business of the diplomatist to study that Power, to get to know its aspirations, desires, and essential policy, and then to decide whether its aspira- tions can be carried out without undue injury to British industries. If they can, and granted of course that the object really is to come to a friendly understanding, our Government should not wait for Russia to move, but should, in order to clear up any misunderstandings that may have arisen as to British interests,' state that Russia will in no way interfere with our rights if she does such-and-such things. Probably Russia as sincerely believes our Foreign Office to be tricky and faithless as we believe hers to be, and with as little cause, but we do not want to enter upon this question. We prefer to assume that Russia is as impossible to deal with as is averred, because, as we have said, that by no means excuses our Government from having given the impression that we are the enemy of Russia. But even as we write it is rumoured that our Government are, at the eleventh hour, trying to come to terms with Russia. We sincerely trust they are, but we would implore them if they are doing so, to give Russia frankly the maximum of conces- sion at every point, and not to try to fob Russia off with the least rather than the most. Very likely on many points Russia will for the moment take far less than we could, if pressed, safely yield her. And here is the temptation for our diplomatists. They will be inclined to think they have scored if they can rub their hands and say We have done capitally ; we went into the negotiations prepared to do a great deal more for Russia, but as she did not ask for more, of course we did not press it on her.' In such a case that is not really wise action. We ought to make, not Russia's demands, but our ability to yield, the measure of our concessions. If we want a friendly understanding with Russia we should give to her, not as little, but as much, as we can, which is, after all, what one does in dealing with a friend. Only in this way can we possibly get safe ground for an under- standing. After all there is no reason why we should not come to terms with Russia. She is the great land- Power, while we are the great sea-Power, and our political aspirations and interests do not really clash. We do not want dominion in China, though we do want trade, and Russia, though she wants dominion in North China, does not want to kill our trade there any more than she does in the Baltic or the Black Sea. Surely, then, we ought to be able to come to terms. Let us hope that those terms may ultimately give Russia access to ports on the Pacific, on the Persian Gulf, and on the Mediterranean. If we continue friends with Russia they will be capital places of trade. If we go to war with Russia we shall at last have places to strike at, and shall be able to do some hurt to our antagonist.
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