The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1915. RUSSIA'S GREAT FUTURE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 40, 18 February 1915, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1915. RUSSIA'S GREAT FUTURE.

The war and its influence on .Russian life are subjects interestingly dealt with by Aylmer Maude in a London journal at the end of December. The life and social system of Russia, he says, plainly show the effects of former wars. The Russian Empire itself resulted frond invasions which compelled scattered Principalities and Republics to consolidate themselves round a Tsar for mutual protection from the devastating hordes of Tartars who overran the land with fire and sword. Again, we are told that how close, in the past, has been Cue connection between Avar and the Tsardom is indicated by the fact that those Russian sects which repudiate war as a sin repudiate the Tsardom also; and, together with it, they usually repudiate all government employing force, and adopt the attitude either of non-resisting or of violent anarchism* of which there is so considerable a tinge in the Russian character. Mr Maude very truly remarks that many people in time of peace have a tendency to regard government as an evil Christians should decline to have anything to do with, on the principle that one cannot touch pitch without being defiled. But war at once makes people feel that if they do not all hang together it may easily happen that they will all hang separately, and that to get tilings done organisation and leadership are necessary—the very thing which, in the absence of urgent danger, they were disposed to decry. Jt is shown also that while the evils of war are enormous, it is not an unmitigated evil, and this unifying effect it produces on a nation is one of its chief mitigations. Referring finally to the Czar's great Empire, the writer says :—A contented Russia—when it has secured access to a warm-water port—will be free to develop along constitutional lines. The Tsardom, rooted in force, may be modified ; and the country's future triumphs may be internal and pacific, instead of external and bellicose. It was the present Tsar who called the first Hague Conference into existence. It was Germany that prevented that conference from doing more than lay the foundations of an international tribunal to which the strongest Powers, in future,, may have to submit. A satisfied Russia—neither threatened by powerful rivals nor debarred from free access to the oceans of the world—would no doubt be disposed to join others in supplying forces to uphold the decrees of an International Tribunal ; and freed from foreign preoccupation, Russia may advance in the arts of peace, as well as in social, political,' and economic achievements, in a way 1 that will astonish the world. !