AN ANGLO-RUSSIAN ALLIANCE.
THERE is very little, we fancy, in the notion of a Russian alliance with Great Britain. Even if the Goloss, the Russian journal which is advocating that policy, as an alter- native to the alliance of the Three Emperors, is inspired, and correctly interprets the mind of the Russian Foreign Office, the difficulties in the way of any working agreement between London and St. Petersburg are so great as to be almost insuper- able. In the first place, British statesmen are not at present prepared for any Continental alliance at all. Alliances imply the possibility of sacrifices, and they are not willing to make sacrifices for any object, present or future, not manifestly essential to the interests or honour of Great Britain. If they were, they would ally themselves with France, which alone can give them serious help all over the world. They wish for peace, no doubt, but an alliance to guarantee peace in Europe implies a promise to attack any one who breaks it, and they have not made up their minds whether they would wish to attack, or whether, if they did wish it, the country would permit them to do so. They might, they acknowledge, defend France if wantonly assailed or if threatened with extinction, but to pledge themselves in advance to defend France would be a display of resolution to which they are unequal. No trustworthy alliance could be formed by men in such a mood, and any agreement to act would only end in increasing our national reputation for self-seeking. In the second place, whatever statesmen might agree to do, the country would not sanction an agreement to enforce peace against all Powers under all contingencies. No Parliament likely to be elected would sanction the project attributed to the three Emperors of guaranteeing permanently the existing territorial situation in Europe. We should not attack France for revindicating Alsace and Lorraine. Time may sanctify the Treaty of Frankfort by reconciling the conquered districts to their destiny, but at present opinion in England regards Alsace and Lorraine as it regarded Lombardy and Venice,—as provinces unjustly held in subjection against their own consent by a foreign foe, and France is considered to have just as much moral right to release them as Piedmont or Italy had to release Venetia. That may be an ignorant view, or an irrational view, or even an immoral view, but it is the view held by the British people, and held strongly enough to prevent their acting cordially against France until she asked for more than the restoration of her own. This exception interferes materially with any broad resolve to keep the peace every- where in Europe, and as to keeping it as between Germany and Russia, we have almost as little interest as power to do any- thing of the kind. We could not stop Von Moltke on his way to Moscow, and do not see why we should. Russia can take care of herself very well, and if she cannot, it is certainly no business of ours to protect a Power which is, on the whole, and in Europe, hostile to all the ideas which Englishmen hold sacred. Serfage is ended in Russia, but a good deal besides serfage has also to end before Englishmen and Russians can be friends cordial enough to make sacrifices for each other's sakes.
In the third place, British statesmen, reasonably or un- reasonably, fail to see how any trustworthy guarantee of good faith can be obtained from Russia. The Goloss says the Russians do not want India, believes that the conflict of the two Powers in Asia harasses both, and suggests that each should agree to leave the other alone. Well, there are very few Englishmen who are not sensible that an honest agreement between England and Russia to act together in Asia would tran- quillise that continent, enable Europe to control China, and place the whole continent outside that Empire under a civilising influ- ence. With France admitted into the agreement, which would be easy, Russia might organise her Central-Asian conquests into provinces ; Britain could pursue her work in India careless of danger from the North, and therefore with her present garrison ; and France might go on occupying the great Indo- Chinese Deltas, upon which she seems to have set her heart. But an agreement of that kind requires time, and long time, and where is our guarantee that it will be kept for a long time inviolate ? To allow Russia to advance for twenty years till she had reached the summits of the ranges which divide India from Central Asia—and that, according to the transla- tion in the Pall Mall Gazette, is her own idea of her own natural boundary—would, without some guarantee of good faith, be madness. The Czar of that day might say that the Treaty had grown obsolete, like the Treaties of Vienna; or bur- densome, like the Treaty of Paris ; or impossible of execution, like the agreement to evacuate Khiva when the Khan had been punished, and might declare it null and void by a decree. The Treaty of Paris was at first torn up just in that frank way. The risk of such an end to all arrangements would be exces- sive, for be the Czars as faithful as they may, they must remain under the pressure of two nearly irresistible desires. They must want to possess the means of checking or punishing English interference with the grand passion of their people, the possession of Constantinople ; and they must want to secure the sovereignty of some great revenue- producing country on the Asiatic continent. They can- not waste five millions a year upon the Steppes for ever. The first desire might, no doubt, be obviated if the Bosphorus and Dardanelles could be effectively neutralised, and Russia thereby allowed free way to the Mediterranean, for that would give her nearly all she can hope from the pos- session of Constantinople ; but the second can never be satisfied except by an agreement which we are powerless to make, and which would hand over Persia, or Northern China, or Japan to St. Petersburg. No other territory than one of these would yield them a surplus sufficient to pay the expenses of garrisoning Central Asia, which now press so heavily upon the burdened Treasury of the Empire. The temptation to the masters of the Steppes to acquire some fertile and thickly populated region to the Southward is con- tinuous and nearly irresistible, and will always create in Anglo-Indian minds a dread of allowing Russia to approach too near. As to allowing her to ascend the Himalayan slopes, as the Goloss suggests, we could not allow it to Holland, or Portugal, or any power capable of lending to Sikh insurgents a dozen artillery officers or a battery of Krupp guns. It is very easy to say, as the Goloss would say, that the Russians would keep their pledges in spite of temptation ; but nations are not always or altogether free agents, and treaties with Russia are apt in the course of years to become" visibly impossible of exe- cution." What pledges is she to give stronger than those in spite of which she is placing war-vessels on the Black Sea and gar- risons in Khiva? Some guarantee would have to be given before Great Britain could feel the confidence without which Treaties intended to endure for long periods are almost valueless, and where is a valid guarantee to be found? The only solid one would be the occupation of Persia by Great Britain. We could fill up the great Isthmus with an Indian population, organise a native army, and make the advance of an invading force from the North into India absolutely impossible, by threatening its communications from the flank ; but this occupation would not be permitted by St. Petersburg, where Persia is regarded as one road to the Turkish territory, and would not be accept- able in London, where men already feel overburdened with the care of so many lands. Bat what other guarantee is there con- ceivable except a steady adherence by Russia to her engage- ments, which in twenty or thirty years would again revive the broken confidence of English diplomatists ? That would be the best guarantee of all, but thirty years is a long time to wait, when an alliance is wanted now.
But why should alliance with Russia in Europe involve alliance with Russia in Asia? Just because the Russian Court and its newspapers always want to make them dependent, always want to turn amity in Europe to account to neutralise enmity in Asia. There would be no difficulty in establishing an entente cordiale with St. Petersburg, say for five years, till France had recovered herself, and the balance of power was restored, if Russia would not employ the time in pushing up to the summits of which the Goloss talks. But she would so em- ploy the time. The Government might be as honest as a Russian Government can be, might be sincerely desirous to do nothing which would weaken the alliance, but its agents in Asia would suppose that Britain was equally desirous of keeping on good terms, and would be unable to miss so golden an opportunity. They would press forward and forward, and the communities be- tween India and Khiva would be more and more disorganised by the pressure, until at last the Indian Viceroy, who would know truths carefully concealed from St. Petersburg, would declare that England must either fight, or allow Russia to march her boundaries with his own. In all human probability, the alliance would go to pieces just when it was needed, or to maintain it we should have to submit to a sacrifice which it certainly is not our duty voluntarily to encounter. It is far better surely to meet each case as it arises, to support Russia when, as recently at Berlin, she is clearly in the right, and to leave ourselves free to resist when, as in Khiva, she is clearly in the wrong. We do not need an alliance all over the world just yet, and if we did, there would be other competitors with offers to be considered.
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