PEACE OR WAR?

Waipawa Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 781, 26 May 1885, Page 2

PEACE OR WAR?

Despite the pacific negotiations, and the reassuring despatches that wo have of late received in connection with the Russian disagreements with England, the cablegrams which came to hand on Saturday, once more throw a new light upon tho situation. From them it would seem that peace is not absolutely established ; iu fad the lull which at present exists

may prove to be nothing but an empty truce after all ; and the difficulty in settling the Afghan boundary question, may yet have to ho determined by war. In the face of this, it is reassuring to read authoritative accounts of the weakness of our possible'em my. The Economist thus descants on the financial position of Russia : The recent condition of Russia has been one of chronic deficit. Even in time of war she has been quite unable to pay her way, and that not because the Government have been wanting in their efforts to raise a revenue sufficient to cover the expenditure, but because the country has not been able to respond to the demands made upon it. ... Russia is even now

living upon credit, with the result that year bj year her debt is growing bigger and its burden becoming heavier. Want of money never stopped a nation that was bent upon going to war, and in an emergency Russia can fall back upon the printing press, and manufactuie papermoney. . . liy doing so she will, however, pave the way to future bankruptcy. Our contemporary adds that although interest on Russian bonds was paid during the Crimean war, that nalion would not now be able to do so, in the event of a war with England. Again, an exchange supplies us with an extract from the Broad Arrow, in which that paper discusses tho dangers that Russia would have to face :—The sacrifice which war would entail upon this Empire, would be very great, but it would be tenfold greater in the case of Russia. It seems to have escaped the attention of philo-Russians, in discussing the elements of this crisis, that the campaign would not be confined to the hills of Afghanistan. Whilst she was engaged in concentrating troops before the Robat Pass, it would become her duly to provide for a counter British naval demonstration in Europe. What would that demonstration mean ? It. would mean the blockading of the Baltic ports, the possible seizure of Batoum ami other Russian ports in the Black Sea, and the concurrent and consequent paralysing of the maritime commerce of Russia. Has Russia weighed those contingencies ? Doubtless she has not w holly allowed them to escape her notice. But can she presume for a moment to look upon them with the equanimity of conscious superiority to tho dangers which they entail. What is Russia’s position upon tho seas? She lias no position. Her ironclad fleet is poor, arid could he disposed of by three or four of our ironclads. She certainly could not hope to give us battle successfully. It is true that she possesses a few fast cruisers, which might harass our commerce ; but here again we possess in our mercantile fleet the elements of an easily convertible squadron of cargo and passenger carrying ships of war. The Russian cruisers would lx*, swept as easily from the seas as we should secure the complete investment of every port which Russia possesses. It is not easy, therefore, to see what Russia would gain from war, but it is easy to see what she would lose by it. As far as we are concerned in the European share of the struggle, we should he masters of the situation. We should he in precisely the position where we arc strongest on the ocean. It would not be necessary to land a single British soldier on any point of Russian soil. Up there in the arctic regions of the Asiatic world we should again be Russia’s equal, and something more.