CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6140, 29 March 1898, Page 1

CURRENT TOPICS.

! It is a far cry from the. coming Lytte.lton to St Petersburg of . but the political sentiment the slay. of the Czar's capital gives vital significance to a statement which the Premier made at Ijy ttelton on Saturday. Mr Seddon spoke in glowing "terms of the unity of British peoples and of the certainty that they would always for all practical purposes stand shoulder to shoulder in the world, and the perpetual policy of Russia shows that this is a necessity which all British people should eep steadil y in mind in their own interest and in that of civilisation. It is upon the Anglo-Saxon and the Slav that the future of .the world is, in the main, to depend, and it is the duty of the AngloSaxon to see that his part in the great diama is not a minor one. Our cablegrams show how Eussia is playing her game in China, and an article recently contributed by the Rev Dr George Washburn to the , Contemporary Review dwells on the inevitableness of Russian ascendency in \ Europe. Dr Washburn shows that the conflict between the Germans and the Magyars is rapidly bringing the Slavs together in Austria, while Eussia has brought Bulgaria, Se^viaand Montenegro into alliance, and is preparing the way for Slavic rule in Macedonia. There is no question abont the coming of the Slav in south-eastern Europe. This era of peace, so-called, is working out changes more momentous than many a great war. It is clear now that the Slav, and not the Greek, is to inherit the eastern empire. This does not necessarily imply the speedy extension of the Eussian empire to the Adriatic; but when the time conies for Eussia to take Constantinople, the southern Slavs must inevitably come under her rule, and the coming of the Slav will, in the end, mean the coming of Eussia. What Russia may be or may do after she takes Constantinople, the Czar himself could not tell us, but, as Dr Washburn shows, the Slavic race is still in its. youth, and as the race becomes more united, more enlightened and more self-conscious, it will be less likely to yield to Western influences. This is already manifest in Russia. It is more Russian to-day than it was in the time of Alexander 11., and there is nothing in the more liberal acts of the present Czar which is inconsistent with a still more distinctively Slavic development. All this shows how necessary it is, and how wise it will be for colonists, on their part, to keep their sentiments and sympathies in tune with the strong inter-Imperial note which the Premier struck in the speech which he made at Lyttelton on Saturday night.