The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday March 5, 1891. ENGLAND AND RUSSIA.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 578, 5 March 1891, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Thursday March 5, 1891. ENGLAND AND RUSSIA.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou alm’st at be thy country’s. Thy God’s, and truth’s.

A few days ago the alarmists created a little “scare” by reliable information that the Russians were massing troops in a way that was menacing to the frontier of India. The jpformaiion was particularly emphasised as being “ reliable,” because the venerable bogey has been used so often as to become quite limp and lifeless if some new color is not given to the decaying monster. Well, that was done, but in the talk about Federation, strikes, and other important matters, there has been quite »forgetfulness in sustaining ths interest in the great desire of some

nation to be flying at the throat of one or other of its neighbors. The result is that the bogey has again crumbled away, until a scarcity of the exciting news makes it necessary to revive the alarming myth. In the serene atmosphere that now prevails it maybe wise to direct attention to an article that appeared in a recent number of the Spectator, when commenting on the travels of the Czarewitch :—“ Selfinterest would drive the Russian and the Englishman into an alliance of centuries’ duration. Impelled through a hundred years by a force outside their own wills, to an unceasing advance, now made with a rush, and now again kept up at only glacier speed, but never arrested for a day, Great Britain and Russia have at last arrived at a position in which, if they could but agree, the whole continent of Asia—that ancient ‘ Oriental world ’ which, if we are to count heads, as Radicals do, is the world, with a right to rule the remainder—would lie prostrate and powerless at their feet. There is nothing in Asia, not even the Chinese mass, which, were the two Powers united, or did they even understand and trust each other, could resist them for a week ; nothing, indeed, unless it be the Tibetan Lamas, secure in their icy plateau and their invincible ignorance, which would even make the attempt. From the Hellespont to Corea they would be unquestioned lords : and if they were not too oppressive, or too determined to ‘ regenerate ’ earth in about a week, Asia, with her seven hundred millions, would sink into a slumber which might last till America and Australia broke the spell. Every motive which could impel conquerors, civilizers, or even tyrants, drive the two Powers towards the alliance ; their subjects would welcome it as a relief from a nightmare; their ‘spheres of influence’are marked out as if by destiny; and yet we all know that it will not be, that the mutual distrust is incurable, and that when Lord Landsdowne shakes his Imperial guest by the band both will equally recognise that between them stands an impalpable but impassable wall of separation.” Mr Stead quotes these remarks in his journal, with the following characteristic note: —“ I print this admission with some complacent satisfaction. For twenty years I have been preaching, in season and out of season, the doctrine of the Anglo-Russian alliance. I was treated first as a traitor, then as a madman. Now I note that my contention is supported by every consideration of mutual interest, but is only opposed to ‘ manifest destiny.' That is all fee faw fum. Having now secured this admission that I was right in principle, that my policy is rational and just, and that any other is incompatible with the interests of the two nations, I may well thank God and take courage. We shall see the AngloRussian Alliance yet, despite all this pessimist fatalism.” There are many thoughtful men now falling in with the views of the writer just quoted, and possibly if the sensationalists will lie low for a while there will be a gradual crystallizing of opinion in that direction, both in England and in Russia.