M. Delcasse, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, has gone
to St. Petersburg, and the Continent is anxiously dis- cussing the object of the visit. The semi-official reason, which is probably the true one, is that M. Delcasse is anxious to persuade the Czar to visit Paris during the Exhibition of 1900, and thus to give public evidence that the Franco- Russian Alliance still holds good. That is quite a good reason, but the quidnuncs will have it that there is also another,—viz., a project for a coalition of the Continent to limit the graspingness of Great Britain. We do not see how that vast proposal would be helped by a visit from a diplomatist who may be turned out of office to-morrow, and would rather suggest that M. Delcase4 wishes as his secondary object to study the great per- sonages of the Russian Court, to ascertain how far the Alliance may be relied on, and to learn quietly if there are any facts of importance which Russian Ambassadors will not tell him. He will discover, we imagine, that far-reaching military plans are not in favour with the Czar, whose per- sonal " fad " is expansion in the Far East, that there is a strong indisposition to pull chestnuts out of the fire for France to eat alone, and that if Paris wants anything con- siderable of Russia, Paris must not close her purse-strings as she has recently been doing. The peasants are getting rid of Russian stock.
