In reading Baron Heуking’s very interesting pamphlet, what struck me particularly was that he seemed too reticent about the causes which separated the Letts from the Baltic nobility. If the reports are true— and in this instance they seem to be perfectly true– that the Letts and the Chinese proved the best allies of Trotsky, Lenin, and their soi-disant Russian ally, in committing no end of horrors against the Russians, the question of the Letts would be very important, as it would explain how far the Baltic barons were wrong or right in being rather severe on the Letts. At the present moment the bare facts of the case are indispensable for forming a fair judgment.

Now, with regard to the question of the Baltic nobility, I remember that already my parents used to say that these people were devoted to the Tsar, but not always to the Russian people and the Orthodox Church. Though many of them were entirely russified in their life, to say that the Baltic provinces were superior to other parts of the country occasionally wounded the feelings of some patriotic Russians. Certainlу many of the Balts were Orthodox, and married Russians.

The difference of creed and religious ideals are infinitely more important in Russia than amongst people who pride themselves with being international, and I shall be more frank still: some Russians, like myself, simply hate that word ‘‘international.” One of the qualities which attracts me in the English people is the fact that they are not afraid of being national, as has lately been so well demonstrated by General Page Croft and his friends in National Opinion. But to say that every Balt remains insensible to Russia simply because he has a German name is, again, untrue and unfair. Many amongst them, I repeat, marry Russian Orthodox women without grieving their neighbours, bring up their children in the Greek Orthodox creed, and in times of war and real danger to Russia they know how to fight and how to die for our people.

In this connection I may mention General Kaufmann, and many others who belonged to the state religion, a fact to which I can personally testify, as he was present with me at the baptism of a little girl in Petrograd, who became at the same time his godchild and mine; and I may quote with regard to him what is written by Mr. Stephen Graham in his interesting and valuable book “Through Russian Central Asia’’ (p. 62) In describing Tashkent, for instance, he says:

“The Kaufmann Square is, I suppose, the noblest position in the new city, all the avenues and prospects being used to frame the monument which stands there. This is the statue of General Kaufmann, who took possession of the land for the Russians. On one side of the monument is a fierce, dark, enormous two headed eagle in stone. But between its claws this year a live dove had its nest. From behind the eagle General Kaufmann stands and looks over his new-conquered country. On the other side of the monument there is the following inscription:

“‘I pray you bury me here, that everyone may know that here is true Russian earth in which no Russian need be ashamed to lie.’—-From a letter of General Kaufmann.”

Surely this was the life and a crowning of the life of a Russian patriot.

With regard to the alleged deportations from Riga and elsewhere, it can only be said that the fact of there being prisons everywhere in the civilized world proves that unfortunately there are criminals also in the Baltic Provinces who deserve punishment, and therefore, though you live in the Baltic Provinces, that does not ipso facto, make you an angel.

Naturally there are innocent jokes on both sides, and the position of the Germans in Russia was once the subject of a famous joke of a Russian General, who when the Emperor said, “What can I do for you?” replied. “Make me a German.”

But in moments of serious danger these little differences seem to disappear entirely, and when the curse of Bolshevism fell upon unhappy Russia one of the representatives of the Baltic Provinces showed his passionate protest against the horrors committed in Russia.

In the chapter on “Bolshevism and Pusillanimity,” Baron Heyking shows that to him these calamities have no nationality or geographical importance. He sees in Bolshevism a terribly running sore, for which the only cure is the surgeon’s knife. Particular attention might be drawn to this passage:

“In point of fact, Great Britain has very much to gain or lose in Russia. If by the failure of the Allies to render Russia adequate assistance the Germans are enabled to penetrate Russia, they would have at their command a field of almost unlimited natural resources, agricultural and mineral, and unrivalled opportunities for supplying a population of 180 millions of inhabitants with manufactured goods.”

When, however, the author speaks of 180 millions in Russia, I am sorry to say that this was the number before the war. How many losses my country has endured through battle, privations. Bolshevik murders, and “disannexations” since then cannot be estimated before peace is definitely introduced into Russia.

He points out a very important fact, that the Bolsheviks are trying not only to destroy Russia, but also to undermine the financial credit of all European countries by distributing bogus banknotes, remarkably well imitated by specialists in that difficult work.

It was realized a long time ago with us that no country can live if she loses entirely her credit. Coquetting with Bolshevism when it takes this infamous shape is a mad self-destruction.