The Dominion SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1918. THE NEW PHASE OF THE EASTERN PERIL

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 229, 15 June 1918, Page 6

The Dominion SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1918. THE NEW PHASE OF THE EASTERN PERIL

The Eastern question is one that .has disturbed the .peace of--Europe for generations. A profound student of history has said'that it has exercised a, powerful influence upon the world's history for 500 years. But the Eastern question is really much older than 500 years, for it runs back into the remote past. In the wars of the Greeks and the Persians, in the struggles of Rome with Macedon, and in the conflicts of the Crescent and the Cross—lslam and Christianity—we have phases of this eternal question". In our day the Eastern question, like the Irish question, has been hard to.define. Lord Beaconsfieu), in his smart way, remarked, with regard to the latter question, that one said it was physical and another spiritual; it was the absence' of the .aristocracy and the absence of railways; it was the Pope and it was potatoes! The Eastern question lias the changing character of the-.lrish. Before th« present war the whole of the Eastern question might have been defined as the "problem of filling up fhe vacuum created by the gradual disappearance of the Turkish Empire from Europe." To-day it means ibis and it mean? very much more For a time in this war a Germanised Turkey was.a serious menace to Bvitain as an. oversea-..Empire. The Pan-Gcrmanists had schemed before the war to use Turkey as the assassin tpowcr to stab Britain in Egypt, capture the Suez Canal, incite the Mohammedan millions to revolt, and'leave India suspended in the air. But this phase of the Eastern peril is a thing of the past. This miserable fag of Germany was smashed up in Egypt, defeated in Mesopotamia, and hurled out of Southern Palestine. The Eastern question to-day is much larger than Turkey. No doubt .a Germanised Turkey would be a- menace to the peace and prosperity of Europe, but a Germanised Russia would be. a menace tp the peace and prosperity of the world. -A'Germanised liussia would be a new and terrible phase of the Eastern question.

This new and larger Eastern peril has been exercising for months the minds of thoughtful students of contemporary history and oS lovers oJ the Russian people. Professoe I. Y. Simpson, who has expert knowledge of the Russia of to-day, writes in the April number of the Forimijhthj Review in a most alarmist way on this subject. He says regarding Germany:

Having bleil Belgium white ami carried on the war by means of the coal ami iron fields of Northern Vrance, eho might well declare herself prepared to evacuate, these regions, consent to the restoration of Serbia and .Montenegro, and even surrender parts of Alsace and Lorraine. For along with these very conditions she will have asserted her control over the whole of Austria-Hungary, obtained political and economic domination over Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Turkey, and with her way through Asia Minor to Central Asia more assured than ever, bo much more powerful than before, especially if Russia is in her hands. Quite apart from the question of her colonies, for us to accept such terms would be to accept defeal. A peace by negotiation with the present German spirit will be no pence but a sword.

Fur the last ton clays the telegrams from Europe and America have abundantly confirmed the warning words of Professor Simpson. Mr. Harold Williams, one of New Zealand's sons who has won high distinction in journalism, and is now an authority on Russian questions, said the other day : "The Americans may pour, in millions on' the AVeslern front, we may. rout the Ger-

mans, but apart from the reconquest of llussia for the Allied cause we Cannot win the world war. Gcvinan ambition is aflame with a new dream of the East, and the Kaiser is hastily gathering in the Tsak's heritage, with all its inexhaustible resources of the Eurasian plain." Piercing cries for help are also coming from the sanest and best of llussia's sons. The Constitutional Democrats declare that-the Kussian democracy stand true to the cause of the Allies, and they would welcome the aid of an Allied military expedition to save the country from tho Bolshevik anarchy. A member of the Kercnsky Cabinet is now in America and is on his way to Europe to plead with the Allied Powers to save llussia from German' domination. The Eastern peril to the sacred cause of freedom and righteousness is thus as real as the Western* peril. The Allied Powers will have to shoulder heavier and greater responsibilities before the day of a righteous peace dawns. Gladstone long ago described the rule of King Bomba of Naples as "the negation of G'od exalted into a form of Government." This phrase describes the rule of Germany's Russian fag, the wretched Bolshevik Government. The United Press Agency reported the othct day that "the financial and industrial life of llussia is completely I disorganised. The Bolsheviki arc .ruling by means of the foreign bayonets. The population of Petrograd is getting an eighth of a pound of bread a day." This impossible Government is doomed to destruction. Northern Russia, in-which it reigns, produces little food, and a starving populace are rising in revolt. Tho railway system of Russia is utterly disorganized and lha transport of food is possible to a very, limited extent. Not long ago in Moscow it was reported that nearly 6000 locomotives were laid up for repair, and that two and a half millions fewer wagons had been loaded than during the corresponding period of a There is an old saying that when the tale, of bricks becomes heaviest then comes Moses. Those warnings and cries for help will likely lead to Allied military intervention; and Japan may be the executive officer of the Allies in Siberia. America is doing something on..peaceful lines. Her Ambassador has left Vologda for Petrograd, and' a. hundred American railway specialists are on their way to Vologda ito reorganise the Russian railway system; and, unless this is done, famine.will stalk through.tho land. For the time being the Kaiser's Eastern ambitions have been gratified beyond his wildest dreams, but, to' use a vulgar saying, he has "bit off more than he can chew." There is a "vaulting, ambition which o'orleap.s itself and falls on other side." The Plapsbukgs have found in their ramshackle Empire the Slav races to be as difficult to govern as "a.bundle of hissing snakes"—to use. the vivid phrase of Dr. William Barry; and Uie Potsdam gang in Russia will have no easier task in their efforts to Germanise the, Slavs there. Meanwhile the Russian millions are the victims of the anarchist arid the despot, of w.hom it may be said:. Earth wearies of- them; and the long Aleck sufferings of the" heavens <loth fail; AYoo for weak tyrants when Hie sLr'iijj Wake, struggle mid prevail!