CAN WE SAFELY AGREE WITH RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 23 November 1907, Page 4

CAN WE SAFELY AGREE WITH RUSSIA.

A treaty between Great Britain and Russia has been signed, but the terms are not yet known. Says the Saturday Review: "What the exact nature of this may be it is of little use to specu-j late; if it be not more original in itsj terms than the arrangement recently published between Japan and Russia, the world will not be greatly disturbed. But the relations between this country and Russia are very different from those which the Far Eastern war has imposed upon the racent antagonists, and wc may rather anticipate a change in Russian policy as its result so far as we are ourselves concerned than the stereotyping on an existing situation." THE PERSIAN PROBLEM. Examining places where there may bo a risk of collision with Russia in Asia, the Saturday Review says: "In Persia it has been for long apparent that the pressure must in the end bo great, because a large portion of the ctuntry is already practically under Russian control. In fact we have abandoned any claim to regulate the destinies of Northern Persia ever nee Lord Salisbury declined the loan which we might have advanced. We have always held that policy to be ill-ad-vised, though we must now accept the inevitable. But the advance of Russia further south-aould be evidently inadmissible. It is hardly necessary to argue that her establishment on the Persian Gulf would in the end be as dangerous to us as her absorption of Afghanistan. It would take us in flank a; a most vulnerable point, and would compel ns to double our naval force ii'those waters. We have therefore ti watch Mesopotamia and the Euphrates Valley as closely as Persia itself, and can clearly allow no weakening or our guard there. In the same way anything like a condominium in Persia is to be strongly deprecated; nothing cculd be so prolific in grounds of quarrel, and it might in the end saddle us with a possession which would have nothing but an artificial boundary to round it off. Persia indeed is a more fn-itful field for an agreement than any other part of Asia, and it is there that agreement is most desirable, but must also from the nature of things be least stable.

"There remains the East of Europe, and we cannot see rfiat there, any more than in the regions we have already discussed, the prospects for permanent arrangements are encouraging. Russia may be for the moment desirous of collecting her energies in order to settle internal disorders, and for that reason may be holding aloof for a time from external complications. Or it may be that she will now for a timo abandon the line of advance in the Fai East and concentrate her attention on the solution of the Balkan problem. THE POSSESSION OF CONSTANTINOPLE. "Not very long ago there was a good deal of loose and ill-considered talk about leaving Russia a free hand in Eastern Europe on condition of her agreeing to retire from her rivalry with us in Asia. In the first place, it is very difficult for nations to retire from situations which are the results of their geographical position; in the second, we cannot pretend to settle the affairs of the Near East with Russia alone; and in the third, those who talk glibly about 'letting Russia have Constantinople' fail to realise the predominant position in which she would at once be placed by the possession of that unequalled stronghold. Not only would it be a constant menace to the Eastern Mediterranean and to the nearest route to the East, but, with unimpeded access to tho Black Sea, the Power that holds both Constantinople and the Black Sea would have every facility for attacking its enemies and retreating to refit its ships in absolute, safety.

. '"Therefore in every direction in which Russia desires expansion we may be compelled to oppose her when it comes to the point. For the moment it may suit us both to pretend it is not so; the better relations she can establish with us the better we shall be pleaßed."