WE have heard so much of the “European Concert,” why not, for a change, call it the “European Hospital”? The term would be a novelty, besides being more appropriate; for there is certainly more sickness in the hospital than there has been harmony in the concert.

A hospital, indeed, it is which confronts us. With the Sick Gentleman at Constantinople we have been long familiar, but it now seems that we shall soon become on equally intimate terms with the Sick Lady at Vienna. Poor Greece, with a bandaged head, needs watchful and affectionate nursing.

France, “La belle France,” after a prolonged period of convalescence, has at last recovered sufficiently to “go for a change of air” to the banks of the Neva. But she is wise in clinging to the arm of her physician, because, though now in the convalescent ward, she has not entirely emancipated herself from the necessity of hospital regulations.

In the time of Nicholas I., our Tzar used to be described as the Chief Justice of Europe. Alexander III. won for himself the noble title of “Peace-keeper of Europe.” But now-a-days, if we are to adjust titles to realities, Russia could not be better ranked than as “Head Physician of the European Hospital.”

Quite seriously, that is our role, and we shall adhere to it.

What furious denunciations have been levelled against us because, in dealing with the refractory patient in the Eastern ward, we have refused, and still refuse, to substitute the role of executioner for that of physician! We have even deprecated surgical operations, preferring palliatives and sedatives to amputations.

For my own part, I could have wished, more than once, that the physician had given place to the surgeon. But, of course, I reluctantly have to admit that operations are dangerous, when the atmosphere is poisoned with the gangrene of international jealousy.

The Sick Gentleman now recognises that Russia is anxious rather to prolong his morbid existence than to precipitate the scramble for his inheritance. A Lord Chief Justice, no doubt, is much less of a persona grata to the Sultan than a Head Physician.

Our position in regard to the Sick Gentleman is beginning to be understood. Our relations to the Sick Lady are not even recognised. But they dominate the situation. Ladies, they say, are much more devoted to their medical men than are patients of the other sex. It is, therefore, only natural that the Sick Lady should cling to us with quite an embarrassing devotion.

Judging from present appearances, she threatens to depose the Sick Gentleman from the position he has held so long of being the most troublesome patient in the hospital.

With regard to France, Russia has been the same “friend in need” as a physician, with his tonics and his confident assurances, is to the patient just emerging from a tedious convalescence. Encouragement to take the health-giving promenade has not been wanting, and there is no one in the hospital—least of all in the French ward—who does not admit that the Russian treatment has been a marvellous restorative to the patient’s confidence and content.

On the whole, then, I flatter my patriotic pride with the conviction that Russia, as the Head Physician of Europe, will be not less successful than she has been as its Peace Keeper—not that the latter role has been given up. On the contrary, the responsibilities of the physician render more pressing the duty of keeping the peace.

 

I.—AUTOCRACY.

In all Russia’s practice as Political Physician, perhaps her most correct diagnosis and successful treatment have been in protecting the principle of personal government. It is particularly in this century that Russia has been witness for the truth of Autocracy. She has been assiduous in her attendance upon all those who were afflicted with the malady of Parliamentarism. And of all her patients these especially seem either so completely cured, or so thoroughly convalescent, as no longer to stand in need of a physician. Moreover, the plague of Parliamentarism has now, under the Röntgen rays of political experience, been so clearly traced that any recurrence of its virulent outbreaks can be promptly dealt with. Even in England this is now very commonly admitted, and had indeed begun to be recognised some time ago, as, for instance, by Carlyle, Froude, and Sir Henry Maine, whose opinion is endorsed by not a few distinguished living historians.

The rehabilitation of the monarchical principle is quite astonishing. The change of Western opinion on that subject is indeed almost incredible, even to those who have watched it year by year. And it seems to me that what has brought this most prominently before the public attention has been the Jubilee of Queen Victoria. But whatever the cause it is a veritable Revolution that has been accomplished.

When I first began writing in the English papers it was assumed on all sides that civilisation had signed the death warrant of the antiquated system of monarchical government. There was, about at time, much public protest in England against the influence which the Queen exercised on Mr. Disraeli’s Russophobe policy. This was regarded as intolerable, for English Constitutional Monarchy was claimed to be but a veiled Republic. I well remember that it needed an effort to admit, in the midst of my Liberal friends, that we Russians were as staunch believers in Autocracy as we were thorough sceptics of the virtue of Parliamentarism, even for countries where that system was reputed to be a success. “Mais, nous avons changé tout cela!”

Russian beliefs and Russian scepticism are now echoed in many parts of the world. In England, I am told, even by enthusiastic Radicals, that they have re-discovered the usefulness of a Monarchy. Jubilee historians gravely assert that Queen Victoria has been the mainspring of England’s action during all these sixty years. It was Her Majesty, we are told, who prevented war, in 1861, between England and the United States, and in 1864 between England and Germany. If such were the case, the only wonder is that the rediscovery of the English Monarchy has been delayed until the year 1897.

It is quite extraordinary how fond some people are of the practice of “making believe.” We Russians cannot understand the complicated system of endless wheels within wheels, of checks and counter-checks, of monarchs who do not govern, of Parliaments that cannot legislate, and of all the chinoiseries of Constitutionalism. We do not wrap up our Monarch in layers of cotton-wool to re-discover him after sixty years.

Really it seems as if the civilised West were coming to see that the Russian plan is the wisest. Formerly we used to hear, “The One-man Power is doomed. Down with the Autocrats! The only possible form of Government is by an Elective Assembly.” So everybody said twenty years ago. But who says so to-day? Look and see. It is a marvellous phenomenon, this subsidence of the dogmatic Republicanism of twenty years ago. The theory of Government by Elective Assembly is at a discount. Everywhere we find these assemblies discrediting the principles of Parliamentarism, endangering States by their corruption, imperilling Empires by their factions. And where are they doing good? Is it upon the Parliament that sits at Westminster, or upon the Queen who reigns at Windsor, that the average Englishman reflects with pride? Can any one with open eyes doubt that, whilst Parliament has sunk, the Crown has risen in popular estimation? And not only in England.

Nicholas I., the Quixote of Absolute Monarchy, made the maintenance of the Monarchical principle one of the chief objects of Russian foreign policy. No monarch was ever more of an idealist in his devotion to great principles, and there is no more imposing figure in the history of this century than the noble-minded Tzar, whom the Western Powers warred to an untimely grave. Yet his zeal for Autocracy was not unreasonably exaggerated. At the famous conferences with the Sovereigns of Prussia and Austria, at Kalisch and Töplitz, in 1835, it was expressly declared that there was to be no incessant intervention in the affairs of other nations—“not even with those of France if she, without injury to foreign nations, wishes to establish a Republic.”

Our chivalrous defence of the existing order and of the Monarchical principle did not extend to conspiracy against the liberties of nations. Nicholas I. no doubt fervently believed in his sacred mission to defend the Monarchical principle whenever that was in danger, and which in his time seemed everywhere to be threatened with destruction. His great grandson—Emperor Nicholas II.—no longer deems it necessary to lay stress upon that mission. Not because we have lost faith in Autocracy. We believe in it more than ever now that we see the principle of personal centralised power re-emerging from its long eclipse. But it is unnecessary to force an open door. The principle of Monarchy no longer needs a defender. The political knight-errant of the twentieth century is more likely to find Parliamentarism a fitting object for his compassionate protection.

Do you think that this is an exaggerated view? Well, look around. There is only one great republic in Europe. France, which in the time of the first Nicholas was the centre of revolutionary unrest, menacing established order, is now the staunchest ally of Nicholas II. What has Parliamentarism done for France? Her present strongest element of stability, of continuity, of prestige, is supplied by her alliance with Russian Autocracy.

Then cross the Vosges; go to Berlin. Who is master in the German Empire? There are Deputies in the Reichstag as there are sheep in the fold, but the shepherd is the Kaiser. Sometimes the sheep object to be shorn, or prefer to bolt along wrong roads, or refuse to be driven through the open gate. But it is the shepherd who leads, drives, and guards the flock. In spirit, the Kaiser is more imperious than the Tzar. His Ministers are but his pens. “L’Etat c’est moi!”

Indeed, the monarchical revival in the Fatherland has latterly been proceeding to extremes, and has this week culminated in Prince Henry’s apotheosis of his Imperial brother, with such surprising extravagancies as those of his “crown of thorns” and “the gospel of his hallowed person.” We believe in Autocracy, it is true, but, fortunately, we have never mistaken the Tzar for the Almighty!

Look at Austria! A Parliament is wrecking the Dual Kingdom. Who saves it from falling to pieces? The Emperor Francis Joseph. Without him, what is Austria-Hungary? Nothing.

In Scandinavia it is the same: Norway and Sweden are kept together only by the personal influence and prestige of the King.

At the other end of Europe even a child on the throne is more potent for the preservation of national unity than the influence of orators like Castelar, or statesmen like Sagasta.

Look, also, on Holland. Everybody has heard of the young Queen Wilhelmina, and of her great sorrow at not being allowed to ride a bicycle; but as to her Cabinet Ministers—they come and go, go and come; yet are there ten Englishmen in London who know the names of those distinguished gentlemen?

Perhaps the most remarkable examples of the rehabilitation of personal authority are supplied from the extremes of Eastern Europe and Northern America. The Hellenic kingdom is a Constitutional State. All the Greeks are politicians. The poor monarch is carefully denuded of personal authority, and his Parliament is all powerful. At Constantinople there is another system of Government: hateful, barbarous, Mahomedan, but based on the principle of personal authority. It is the monarchical system in its extreme and most repulsive shape. What we have seen this year has been the triumph of that detestable despot over the diplomacy of Europe, and over constitutionally-governed Greece.

Thanks to the influence of two Christian Autocrats, the Sultan was compelled to halt in his victorious march. But alike in diplomacy and in the field the One-Man Power has triumphed.

I have been reading Mr. Stead’s Despairing Democracy, and I was startled to see how the principle of personal authority is gaining ground even in the American Republic. I do not understand American politics, but I was much impressed by what a leading English statesman said to a friend of mine the other day. “Since Napoleon left Elba to resume the sovereignty of France, what parallel is there in History to the case of Mr. Croker, who, after sojourning in England for three years, returns and resumes in a moment the mastery of New York?” So that even New York and the Americans are evolving a kind of Autocracy.

Some years ago I ventured to write: “As believers in progress and in freedom we think that more progress and liberty is possible in Russia at the present time, by placing supreme power in the hands of an enlightened Autocrat, than by vesting it in an assembly which must be either elected by a minority of the people, or by a majority who can hardly read or write.”

In New York the majority can read and write, but the results оf Universal Suffrage seem to have brought the best Americans veiy much to the same conclusion.

The work of the Physician is indeed accomplished.

The cure is complete!

 

II.—AUSTRIA.

Austria—“The Sick Lady of Europe”—has long been one of the most difficult of all our patients. The fever which now convulses her limbs is but the return of an old malady. Although the symptoms are different, and we may have to vary the treatment, the Sick Lady will not change her Physician. It is with States as it is with human beings. When they are well they ridicule their doctor, but when seriously laid up they fly to him for aid. The best evidence that Austria realises her danger is her rapprochement to St. Petersburg. The Empire-Kingdom, when feeling well, carried on more or less pronounced flirtations with Germany and Italy. But once let storm-clouds gather on the horizon, and Austria rushes in haste to consult her Russian mentor. She is an old patient of ours, a very old patient, and the fact that she has been so long on our hands enables us to look calmly upon her present alarming symptoms. It is only the new practitioner, called in to a first case, who imagines that a bad fainting fit is an inevitable precursor of dissolution. We know better. Austria has had attacks of this kind before. But we have pulled her through, and thus the Sick Lady expects us to do so again.

When our Emperor Nicholas I. paid his visit to the British Court, the Queen wrote to King Leopold: “He asked for nothing whatever—he merely expressed his great anxiety to be on the best terms with us, but not to the exclusion of others; only let things remain as they are. He is very much alarmed about the East and about Austria.” And then Her Majesty described our Emperor’s fear about his patient so frankly that the historian substitutes a row of asterisks for her words. It would be interesting to know what was that suppressed passage. Probably it repeated the Emperor’s forebodings, expressed with his usual frankness, as to the fate of Austria.

But that was fifty years ago. We cannot keep on fearing for half a century without coming to some definite conclusion. The Austrian patient may be suffering from an incurable malady, but, at all events, the Sick Lady has a better chance of life than the Sick Gentleman. This, however, depends upon us. We have saved her before—perhaps even to our disadvantage; and if Austria “astonished the world by her ingratitude” in 1854, let us hope that that may have been partly due to the impossibility of adequately expressing her acknowledgements. “God be thanked,” piously exclaimed an Austrian statesman in 1846, whose remark is preserved to us by Baron Stockmar “God be thanked that Russia influences us now more than formerly, for without Russia there would be no longer an Austrian State.” Count Goluchowsky may soon be singing a similar “Те Deum,” for Russia once more “exercises her influence more than formerly, and in that fact lies the present hope of Austrian salvation.

Our enemies say that we cherish hostile designs against the Sick Lady, and they recall the famous saying, that Russia’s road to Constantinople lies through Vienna.

Russia has no wish to take any road whatever to Constantinople, but if she did, it does not necessarily follow that the Vienna gate would have to be forced by war. Did not the Emperor Nicholas review the Austrian army at Vienna, hailed as the saviour of Austria by the Sovereign whose throne he had re-established? Vienna may be the gate of Constantinople, but Austria may prove as friendly a door-keeper as the Sultan is of the Straits.

The condition of Austria has long been the subject of anxious attention. Who can ever forget Prince Gortchakoff’s witty saying, “Austria is not a nation; she is not even a State; she is only a Government.” Hegel said much the same in a kinder way: “Austria is not a nation—it is only an empire.” Lord Palmerston described it as an empire existing only on sufferance. Writing in September, 1849, the British Minister declared that “the Austrian Emperor holds Hungary and Galacia just as long as—but no longer than—Russia chooses to allow him. The first quarrel with Russia will detach those countries from the Austrian Crown. He holds his German provinces by a tenure dependent in a great degree upon feelings and opinions which it will be very difficult for him and his Ministers either to combine with or stand out against.”¹

The recent scenes in the Reichsrath and the fate of Count Badeni, show how sound was Lord Palmerston’s judgment. He was wrong of course—always wrong—in his views about Russia, but he was singularly right in his estimate of the difficulties with the Austro-Slavonic provinces.

The Austrian Germans have practically paralysed the Reichsrath. They have so long been the dominant power that they resent limitation, just as do Orangemen in Ireland. They fail to recognise that other populations (even though Slavs and in a majority) have a right to equal liberties and equal laws. It is nearly twenty years ago that the establishment of a Czech University at Prague “brought to a close,” according to an indignant German, “the German period of the history of Austria.” There is indeed no Austrian language—except a nasal slang in Vienna which even Germans understand with difficulty. There is no Austrian literature, no Austrian Church. There are Italians, there are Jews, who serve the House of Hapsburg, but there are no actual Austrians.

Still, there might have been an Austrian period, as Count Taafe defined it when he said: “Austria should be neither a Slavonic, nor a German State, but a centre of action between different nationalities, all equal in law, and all accepting no other limit for the exercise of their rights than is dictated by the necessities of the common-wealth.” Excellent indeed, but is it not evident that the centre of action, if not a Slavonic centre, must be—not the Reichsrath Babel but—Francis Joseph?

I am not the physician who sits by the Sick Lady’s couch. I am only an interested observer of the skill of the doctors, and of the obstinacy of the patient. But I venture to repeat, what I have frequently said before, that although in Parliamentarism equitably applied the ascendency of the Slav is secured in Austria-Hungary, I see no hope for her salvation by Parliaments. Neither does anyone else. Her only hope is Francis Joseph. And after Francis Joseph—who knows? “Après lui le déluge.”

But even an inadequate Caesar may be a better centre for the Austrian State than a Reichsrath, in which the German minority is in revolt against the rule of the majority. I do not worship nor trust majorities. But then I am not a Parliamentarian. To vow allegiance to Parliamentary Government, and then to obstruct the Parliamentary machine, so that it breaks down altogether, seems to me somewhat absurd.

Poor Francis Joseph! His task is hard enough; but how much harder will be that of his successors. Leaning upon the arm of his Russian physician, the Austrian Slav may expect from him something approaching to justice. From a Reichsrath, dominated by Obstructives, where Pandemonium reigns, surely there can be no hope at all!

The advantage of a Monarchy is that the position carries so much prestige that a third-rate man on a throne can do what the ablest man in a crowd would fail to accomplish. Of this Austria has many examples. When the Emperor Nicholas I. met the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria at Töplitz, in 1836, Ferdinand was little better than an imbecile.

Baron Stockmar wrote: “The state of the Emperor of Austria’s health became very generally known through the Töplitz festivities. Metternich gave his coat a little pull whenever it was necessary for him to walk, to stand, and to shake and nod his head.” Yet so great is the prestige of kingship, tlhat even poor Ferdinand—thus reduced to a mere wire-pulled puppet—sufficed to keep things going till the revolution of 1848.

Francis Joseph is no genius. He is an honest, kind man, broken spirit, and harrassed by domestic tragedies. But he suffices to counteract the mischiefs of the Reichsrath.

The Russian Physician is essentially conservative. Only in the last extremity does he resort to radical operations. He countenances no Revolutions.

Now that the Germans have killed the Reichsrath, might not Francis Joseph take its place? The provincial Diets would still exist. They might elect amongst themselves consultative delegates, the Emperor’s will, and not the vote of the paralytic Reichsrath would be supreme. What spectacle more encouraging for the close of the nineteenth century than if Austria, distracted by Parliamentarism, were to find a new strength and security by reverting to the principle of Central Autocracy and local self-government?

 

III.—THE OLD CATHOLICS.

So far as Russia is concerned there is, at this moment, a new craving for a reunion of Christendom, for which our Church has never ceased praying daily. The Greek Orthodox Church has missionaries in almost every land. In the Far East, in Japan, and on the western coast of the Western World, you will find a Russian episcopate. We are not active proselytisers, but we are, nevertheless, spreading “par la force des choses” through the world.

It is also not without significance, that the Russian Episcopate has this year sent fraternal envoys to this country. The Archbishop of Finland’s visit to England, during the Jubilee, was only a return visit to that of the Bishop of London, during the coronation, to Moscow. Still such exchanges of personal courtesies does sometimes a great deal of good, and serves many important causes.

In the settlement of the affairs, alike of the “Sick Man” and the “Sick Woman,” religion, and the Orthodox religion, plays a very prominent part. It is religious differences which have inflamed international feelings more than once.

I was interested and amused the other day to learn from an English friend, that he quite understood our position against Austria, “because” he said, naively—“I inherited the same feelings from Cromwell.” I was mystified, not knowing what Cromwell had to do with Austria. Upon this my interlocutor handed me an extract from one of the Cromwell speeches, which explained his meaning. It only needs the alteration of the word “Protestants” to “Non-Romanists” to apply to the present day:—

Look how the Houses of Austria, on both sides of Christendom, are armed and prepared to destroy the whole Protestant interests. Is not the King of Hungary the son of a father whose principles, interest, and personal conscience guided him to exile all the Protestants out of his own patrimonial country—out of Bohemia—with the sword; out of Moravia and Silesia? and it is the daily complaint which comes over to us, that the Protestants are tossed out of Poland into the Empire, and out thence, whither they can fly to get their bread. But it may be said this is a great way off, in the extremest parts of the world; what is that to us? If it be nothing to you, let it be nothing to you. I have told you it is somewhat to you. It concerns all your religions, and all the good interests of England.”

This is what all Russians feel when they hear of the way in which the Маgyars are persecuting the Greek-Orthodox believers who do not conform to Rome, and who cling to their nationality. Rome has often been the serious cause of our troubles. Ah, if only Francis Joseph had had the faith and the courage of a Döllinger, or a Gladstone, when the decree of Infallibility was forged in Rome, the reunion of a large body of Christians would have been at present already an accomplished fact, and the chief cause of the ill-feeling between Austria and Russia, would have disappeared.

I hope I may be allowed to repeat what I wrote in my book, “Skobeleff and the Slavonic Cause.”

“Take away that systematic persecution of the Slavonic countries, and that vast congregation of races which make up Austria and Hungary, and there will exist no more unfriendly feeling in any Slav, be he Russian or Bosniak, be he Eastern Churchman or any other churchman you like. That hatred of the Austrian officials towards a race who were supposed to remain always ‘ignored and oppressed’ was a crime and a mistake. Now, since there seems to be a slight hope of improvement, a slight attempt to do justice to the Slavs, there may also spring up a friendliness between the Russian nation and the ‘piebald conglomeration.’”

The persecution of the Orthodox Slavs still goes on in Galicia, but the poor Ruthenians find no help from their Emperor. Possibly, the crisis in Vienna and the revolt of the Germans may lead to a more reasonable policy. This is certainly to be desired in the interest of Religion and Peace.

But who knows what may happen when from Chicago, of all places in the world, comes the glad news that 30,000 Poles and Czechs have forsaken the errors and abjured the schismatic despotism of Rome? A few weeks ago they applied for a bishop who will govern and guide them in the true faith. If 30,000 Poles and Czechs in Chicago have opened their eyes to the sinister significance of the Roman innovations and have enrolled themselves among the Old Catholics, why may not a similar movement spread in Poland, Bohemia, and Galicia? The influence of America on Europe is not diminishing but rather increasing. The 30,000 of Chicago may soon become 300,000, perhaps many more! And who can estimate the influence of a great Old Catholic movement across the Atlantic?

On the 21st of last November the Rev. Mr. Kozlofsky was solemnly consecrated as bishop, at the Old Catholic church in Berne.

The ceremony was performed by Bishop Herzog, assisted by the Archbishop of Utrecht and the Bishop of Bonn (Dr. Weber). The American Plenipotentiary Minister duly attested the act of consecration.

The new year will find Bishop Kozlofsky in his new diocese.

Who knows but that, in this growth of Old Catholicism, there may be also found the open door to the reconciliation of Russia and Poland? On this subject, however, I prefer to quote a letter which my brother, General Alexander Kiréeff, addressed to the Novoyé Vrémia, after making, at Wiesbaden, the personal acquaintance of the Rev. Father Kozlofsky, with whose earnestly religious views he was greatly struck. My brother is deeply convinced that the best basis for understanding between Russia and Poland is Old Catholicism. He says:—

“There can be no doubt that the principal reason of the Russo-Polish discord, the difference in religion, may be traced to the enmity of Jesuitical Romish Catholicism towards Russia. Without this influence we should long ago have found some modus vivendi. Are we not of the same stock, Slavs? The main reason of our differences, the chief hindrance to our friendship, is not racial but religious. Our chief enemy and the evil genius of Poland is fanatical Rome! Who prevented Vladislav IV. from uniting Russia and Poland? Rome and the Jesuits! Who were the cause of the withdrawal by Jan Kasimir of the favours conceded to the orthodox by his brother? Those same Jesuits! Without the action taken by the Jesuits, the revolutionary movement of 1862-63 would never have reached such proportions. All this is very clear to those who have been trusted with the details of the matter.”

In what way is a reconciliation now possible?

The way is Old-Catholicism, that is to say, a wiping out of Popish infallibility and the influence of the Jesuits, thus purifying Catholicism, or, in other words, the same orthodoxy which prevailed before the parting of the churches in the West, and which was one with us in dogma, in spite of the difference of ritual and theological views.

My brother believes that the re-establishment of this Orthodoxy of the West in the Slavonic world is quite possible.

The Slav is, in general, not a fanatic (moreover, he seldom believes in the infallibility of the Pope); the Poles, however, are an exception, but their fanaticism has a background of politics. The most cultivated among the Slavs—the Czechs—remember Huss and Jérome of Prague, and hold the remembrance in high veneration.

Time will show whether my brother was too sanguine or not in his hopes. But why should the Pope be allowed to sever those whom Providence has united?²

 

IV.—THE SICK GENTLEMAN.

I regret as much as any one that more drastic methods were not employed at Constantinople. But to amputate limbs, a toe at a time, hardly seems to me in accordance with the methods of rational surgery.

Nevertheless, Russia has succeeded in inducing all Europe to adopt—in theory, at least—the policy of intervention. It is Germany, not Russia, who is the advocate of action; and the difficulties which Germany makes on the one hand, and that wretched black sheep, Turkey, on the other, in choosing a Governor for Crete, explains our refusal to act in Armenia without a definite and explicit mandate, which, as a matter of fact, was never forthcoming.

If the Sick Gentleman still shows some strength, that is only due to the deplorable weakness of the “Powers.” It is amusing to find that, whilst unceasingly urging the necessity of speed, their highest rate of actual progression has, according to Lord Salisbury, not surpassed that of a steam roller.

As to Lord Salisbury’s own action, however, although it was natural for Russians to complain of this in the past, yet to-day it seems entitled to more respectful recognition. Nothing, of course, can wipe out the past; Cyprus is still in his pocket. But in all the negotiations of the last year, Lord Salisbury has steadily promoted the cause of the Christian East. He even came to a practical plan. He says: “I should propose as a practical measure for at once bringing to an issue the question of the appointment of a Governor for Crete, that the six Powers should determine by their votes to which of their number they will entrust the selection of that officer, and that the decision of the majority should prevail.”

It seems that, unfortunately, his proposal was—not rejected, but—put on one side, and the six Powers must still be as unanimous as British jurymen, before they can step in any direction. This will not last. If it is persisted in, it will destroy the precious Concert, the danger of this can be easily traced in the last Cretan Blue Book. Russia, better than any other power, can realise the mischief that comes from insistence upon absolute unanimity. What is it but the old “Liberum Veto” that has wrecked the Polish kingdom?

That will be the fate of Europe also, if the change is not made which Lord Salisbury suggested, with a foresight which does credit to his judgment. Besides, decisions by unanimity are only praccable when, as with a British jury, they can be enforced by starvation, or, as Count von Moltke has reminded us was once the case in Poland, where unanimity was secured by stabbing the dissidents.

Alas! neither method of securing unanimity is available in the case of the European Concert.

 

MAKING THE BLIND TO SEE.

The crowning triumph of the Russian physician is in making the blind to see. As an oculist, his success has been so remarkable, that there is no need for me to do more than briefly allude to it.

For nearly a whole generation, the real Russia seems to have been invisible to the eyes of the European public. Now we have taught Europe to see. We have removed the scales from her eyes. Europe now not only perceives Russia, but has to admit also, that Russia is the greatest and most powerful State in Europe and Asia.

There is no need any longer for me, or any other Russian, to dwell upon our resources—both moral and material. Suffice it for me to quote a passage from a remarkable letter of the Westminster Gazette:—

“The Russian,” says its correspondent, “with the whole twentieth century before him, as I believe he has, has to work out his plans without a break, he may well afford to let the trivial questions which disturb others pass him by and give no thought. He has not yet made a god of commerce or of comfort. Increase of trade or fresh markets are not what he desiderates. His mission is mightier and grander than the selling of calico or Brummagem ware. It is the mission which Virgil, in verse that survived Rome’s empire, spoke of as Rome’s destiny; and as long as Rome stood true to that high calling, her empire which raised the humble was also able debellare superbos. Such an imperialism is very different from what we in the modern West have seen. It is an organic unity moving with giant tread over continents and bringing the stubbornest races and regions into order and productiveness. One hundred and thirty millions of human beings are now gathered under the banner of the Tzar. The marks of subjection are disappearing, or have already disappeared, in all parts east of the Dneiper. The work in Asia is triumphantly fruitful?”

I want no better testimony!

O.K.

(OLGA NOVIKOFF.)

1. Life of Lord Palmerston. By E. Ashley. Vol. i., p. 141.
2. To those who take any interest in the great Old Catholic movement I strongly recommend the Revue Internationale Théologique, edited with great talent and learning by Professor E. Michaud, at Berne, Switzerland. (17, Rue d’Erlach.)—О. K.