THE INCREASE OF RUSSOPHOBIA.
THE German Government has allowed its Press to state demi-officially that the recent agreement between Germany and Austria has been reduced to writing, and that although strictly defensive in object, some of the clauses in the Protocol appeared so inimical to Russia, or so calculated to excite Russian susceptibilities, that the German Emperor hesitated to sign the paper. He did, however, at last sign it. At the same time, Lord Salisbury delivers a speech full of menace against Russia ; fresh preparations are made for strengthening India against her ; and newspapers in the con- fidence of the Ministry talk of the tremendous danger hanging over civilisation from Russian action. It is full time, there- fore, for moderate men to ask themselves what all this means, and why half the world should be banding itself to resist Russian aggression. Why is Russophobia just now so accentuated that Mr. Urquhart, were he alive, might boast that the first kings and diplomatists in Europe are among his disciples ? What has Russia done or gained within the last ten years, that she should be dreaded with so sharp a terror ? She has not overthrown a great kingdom, or fined a country in three years' revenue, or discovered a new wea- pon, or displayed military power entirely beyond previous calculation. Germany has done those things, but Russia has not. On the contrary, she has shown that it was difficult for her, owing to inherent faults in her organisation and her Government, to defeat a barbarous and declining State like Turkey, to disperse soldiers not more numerous than her own and much less trained, and to traverse provinces in which two-third of the population heartily sympathised with her objects. There was nothing whatever in the Turkish war to induce Europe to believe that Russian troops were specially formidable, or that the Czars had changed their Any from a few corps d'elite, backed by a numerous and brave, but not mobile Militia, into a homogeneous army of the German type. As a result of the war, Russia acquired a slice of Armenia, which, as yet, will yield neither revenue nor soldiers; and an influence in the Balkan peninsula, which has already been transferred to Austria. So far from being nearer Constantinople, she is farther off, for the States of the Balkan are strong enough, if they please, to resist her, and independent enough to seek protectors whose interests are not hers. In Europe, she is at least three times as weak as she was in 1869, for Germany has arisen in the interval ; and in Asia she has acquired nothing ex- cept some deserts occupied by hostile Mussulmans, and the bitter hatred of the fighting Turcoman tribes. She has pro- bably even lost, for Kuldja was worth more than the province she has acquired, and in surrendering Kuldja she gave notice to all Central Asia that China was her enemy. Indeed, according to English Tories, she has lost more than this, for she has provoked Great Britain to an action which ended in India acquiring a scientific frontier, an unassailable boundary, behind which, according to the Times, the huge penin-
sula "has become an island." During the ten years, her army has become more costly; her Treasury, as the Pall Mull Gazette declares every week, has been ren- dered bankrupt ; the spirit of revolution has spread till no Russian statesman is safe, and Nihilists dictate terms to Generals ; and her Sovereign has sunk into a kind of hypochon- driac despair. Where, in all this, is the increase of strength which should make first-class Powers tremble in their shoes, and induce statesmen to form wild ideas of tripartite alliances, in which England, with her handful of soldiers, is to guarantee Austria, while isolating France, and all the rest of the dreamy, hat dangerous devices of the hour ?
We have no love for Russia whatever, except when her people, driven by an impulse higher than their Court, expend themselves in the effort to liberate South-Eastern Europe from Asiatic domination, and give the Christians of the East a respite from torture and humiliation. We believe her polities1 organisation to be bad, her upper class corrupted, and her people still s teeped in ignorance as great as that of our own rural labourers. We can conceive circumstances under which it would be the duty of all Europe to resist an aggressive movement from Russia,—a march forward such as that which, with Austrian and German help, absorbed Poland. But this elevation of Russia into a sort of dark Genius or Afreet, full of diabolical intent and of supernatural power, fills us, we confess, not only with disgust, but with doubt whether even statesmen can be trusted, when once their passions or their fears are fairly aroused. Here is an alliance completed which isolates France, the right arm of Western Europe, and Lord Salisbury, pitching away the entente cordiale as of no importance, applauds it, because it may annoy and humiliate Russia. And here is England, in defiance of the most common morality, wasting her children and her treasure in an effort to conquer independent clans on a plateau in Central Asia, which she does not intend to keep, lest, perchance, Russia should at some future period acquire an •influence there. Let her acquire influence. Our Empire in
India will not be shaken by that, any more than German influence in Prussian Poland is 'shaken by Warsaw ; or if it is, we can fight Russia, without wandering so far from our base that the mere march of the troops to their fighting- ground costs more men and money than the rest of the cam- paign. The Russians, according to lying rumour," have taken Merv,"—and all England is in commotion. Why ? Because Mery is only 400 miles from Candahar, and 600 miles from India. Well, how many miles is Russia from Berlin ? The strength of States, the possibilities of conquest, are not measured by these absurd calculations of distance, but by their advancing and resisting power ; and the advancing power of Russia is not increased, or the resisting power of India diminished, because Russia has another few hundred miles of desert to garrison and defend. Let her attack India at the Suleiman, and half her army will perish merely in getting there, every mile that we advance being so much diminution of her toil and expenditure. One would think, to read the journals of to-day; that Russia could, with one hand strike down Prince Bismarck, and with the other -fling Lord Lytton into the sea. It is a spectre Europe is raising for itself, and then trying to keep out by raising substantial fortifications. It is really not too much to say that the whole Teutonic race on this side of the Atlantic is at this moment expending half its energy and a third of its surplus earnings, in order, not to lay a ghost, but to wall one in.
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