The Press Saturday, October 12, 1918. Germany and Russia.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16341, 12 October 1918, Page 8

The Press Saturday, October 12, 1918. Germany and Russia.

Even if tho war were to end to-morrow by the unconditional surrender of Germany there would remain as serious a problem as_ ever confronted European" statesmanship, namely, tho settlement of Russia, ihe grievous difficulty of which is mainly due to the wicked policy pursued by Germany since the revolution. Germany has never cared —is incapable of caring, or even of considering how anybody outside Russia could care—for the welfare of that distracted, country. Her one thought has boen to use the fires of the" revolution for German purposes, and to this end she has encouraged the Bolsheviks in their insane conduct. -Now we are told • that Germany is contemplating the overthrow of tho Bolshevik Government and the establishment ofi a Cadet Government under M. Paul Miliukoff. This report is the more easy to believe in view of recent statements by leading Germans. A few weeks ago the Berlin "Tageblatt" referred to tho current talk concerning Miliukoff's desire to find 6ome rapprochement with Germany and mentioned as an open secret that he had conferred with the German Ambassador at Kieif, to whom he said that ho and his friends would willingly coriio to an agreement with Germany if the Brest-Litovsk Treaty were revised. Since it appears to bo a pretty general opinion in Germany that the Treaty must undergo revision in any case, the report concerning iGermanv's latest intentions may be well founded. Fn August last many German writers were growing anxious about the situation in Russia, which was being made more unfavourable to Germany by the Allies' intervention. Some of them wrote menacingly of tho Moscow Government's incapacity or unwillingness to keep the Allies out, and all agreed that Germany must take eomo vigorous action. The "Frankfurter Zeitung". was deeply concerned over " the political menace to the work ac"oomplished at Brest Litovsk": "That "work, with its many obscurities, never " contained a guarantee of permanence, " and the events of the last few months "have made holes in it everywhere. " If £he Entente widertaking wetro to

"lead to the collapse of the Soviet Go"vernment, which concluded the treaty "of peace, and still relies upon that " treaty, as Lenin has often said, there " will remain very little of tho peace. "•The task which seemed to have been " accomplished will face German policy "once more. It will bo still more difficult than it was the first time." The necessity for vigorous action by Germany was put very strongly by Herr Paul Rohrbacli. He said that tho Bolsheviks were ruining great Russia, and) destroying absolutely the very roots of any possible danger to Germany from Russia in tho future. This was all very satisfactory, he said, from one point of view, but the balance was on the wrong side:—

"It is clear that we have no interest in a state of Jiaos in the former Russian Empire, nor even in chaos and disorder 'n Great Russia._ How can we secure our relations with Finland and the Ukraine, from which we expect so much economic advantage; and how can order exist 111 the Caucasus, in Turkestan, and in Siberia, without which world-economic relations are impossible, if between us and them 80,000,000 Great Russians are living in a permanent state of disorder anc} anarchy? Evor clearer become the efforts of tho Entente to organise Great Russia for itself and ap-amst the Central Powers. If they suocee:led only gradually, what real value would there then be in the attractive prospect of a German 'new road to India' by way of tho Ukraine and the Caucasus and bv way of the Black Sea and Persia—with a Great Russian bloc on our flank and 111. our rear, developed by America, influenced by England and America and hostile to us?" '

Not a word, it will foe seen, that suggests that any concern is felt for the Russians themselves. If chaos and misery in Russia served German interests, the maintenance of that chaos and misery would he regarded by Germany as obviously the right polipy. If it suits Germany to destroy the Bolsheviks, destroyed they will be. But tho time is fast approaching when the German power for evil, in Russia andl everywhere else, will be broken, and Russia's hope is in the fact that when, after infinite suffering, her wounds are healed, she will be free from the bonds of her cruellest enemy.