OUR GROWING FRIENDSHIP WITH RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 296, 24 May 1915, Page 3

OUR GROWING FRIENDSHIP WITH RUSSIA.

COMMON AIMS AND MUTUAL , INTERESTS. ! (By Harold Williams.) | Petrograd. > One of the rich gains of the war is the new intimacy between Russia and lingland. We have taken the great pl'i'igc. We are allies now. We are fighting side by side in a life and death struggle. And in the light of to-morrow's intimacy it is strange to look back over the lash few years and to note the gradual breakdown of the old hostilities and misunderstandings, the growing sense of common aims and mutual interests, the cautious approaches, the occasional chills the doubts, the hopes, the attractions and replusions, the alternation of eager interest and comparative indifference that have marked the slow developement of Russian relations since 1903. It was written that we should l-e friends. ' The forces of history were steadily drawing us together,, though only a few far-sighted politicians realised this distinctly, and frank'y and unhesitatingly accepted all the circu instances. For most the main i-s'iic was obscured by innumerable minor ensiderations. We did not q.iite understand Russia, and Russia did not quir.o understand us. It was natural that this should be so. Russia and England are both n big and c.ii.'kk": ti'u ir, in< (.01 more than the stnk; a pe>i i.r the mere expression of food ".ill Ik ft:ju-=t liu.tual litcrosts •i.i 1 compete y 13 establish h common understanding. In time of peace, too, we ai-j a:! 'lispcnui among a variety of sepai ata interests and activities, we see in part, we jmliie' in part, and we miss the significance of the whole. And in justification of the perplexity of Englishmen it must lie added that Russia, during the years of dawning Anglo-Russian friendship, was passing through an internal crisis, that her energies were diffused and divided, and that the riddle of her development was one that. frequently reduced her own politicians to despair.

Till". BARRIER OF GERMAN^ But after all the main barrier between us was Germany. This is clear as daylight now, but it is curious to think' how long and how successfully Germany prevented the development of a natural friendship between the greatest land power and the greatest empire on the seas. As between England and Germany on the one hand, and Germany and Russia on the other, there wns an odd disparity of sympathies. !n England Germany made her bid to advanced liberals, in Russia to reactionaries. Those groups in England, who were most strongly opposed to reaction in Russia, and for that reason shrank from association with the Eastern Power, were the very groups which were most ardently promoted to rapproacliment with Germany. But in Russia it was the reactionaries who stood for and were supported by Germany, and at many critical moments of Russian history it was the subtle diffusion of German influence that defeated reforms which enjoyed the sympathy of English Liberals. One of the "chief aims of German policy was the weakening of Russia, by the maintenance of a wholly abnormal state of affairs, by the promotion of a perpetual conflict between revolution and reaction. The close co-operation between St. Petersburg and Berlin was most clearly marked in the systematic thwarting the aspirations of Poland, but it affected in various ways almost all the departments of Russia's internal administration.

On August 1 Germany declared war on Russia, and on the following day the Czar declared Russia in a state of war with Germany. A new era was opened up in Angl'o-Russian relations. The German harrier has been removed for the time being. The most powerful factor in the estrangement of England and Russia has been eliminated. An unexampled opportunity has come for uniting the energies of two great people in the work of European reconstruction. Now it would be fatal if, through carelessness or impatience, or want of thought, or excessive attention to minor considerations, either Englishmen or Russians were to fail to rise to the height of this great opportunity. So far the prospects are very good. Comradeship in arms warms the blood and stimulates and broadens thought, anil Anglo-Russian friendship has made great strides since the war began. No announcement of Russian victories has aroused such enthusiasm as that which swept the country when the news came that England had decided to join in the Avar. And just as the splendid achievements of the Russian army have been registered in letters of gold in England, so Russian correspondents in the West write glowing descriptions of the organisation of our army, the appearance of our men, and their exploits in the field.

SILENCING ANTI-ENGLISI-I TALK. But there are certain dangers, of Which the Germans are waiting to lake every possible advantage. Ami the chief is the danger of mere piiysicul and mental weariness leading to Ruction and to a reversion of former habits of thought. Something of tiu ki'.id was noticeable in Russia a f.ho.'t tini2 ago, mostly among idlers in the capital. There was a good deal of ioi';lni:king talk about England not having dme her share in the war, and s/if.llowminded people with no opinions of their own seized on'this as a «ul>|ect nf conversation because it looked deen i'iid knowing and independent. This, in itself, would not have mattered vety much for after all the world will never lie rid of vapid babblers. The trouble was that there was a purpose at the bottom of all this gossip. The pro-Gcr-iiinns wire skilfully encouraging the epigrams, gave form to the sneers, and saw to their circulation. Their agitatation never penetrated very deeply. Tt did not all'cet the masses of the people, and the intelligent and well-informed indignantly opposed it. But it was a very good' thing that Sir George Buchanan made his clear and strong statement of the English position when lie did. It cleared the air. Tt brought the thoughtless to their senses. It aroused a new mood, and, it must be said, started a new mode. 1 asked the other day after a dilettante politician, who had particularly annoyed his English friends by his loud harrangues against our military arrangements.

"Oh!" was the answer, "He is a great Anglophile now because it's chic." There is one very interesting aspect of this anti-English talk. The people j who started it were not only proI Germans. They were reactionaries. That is to say, those who want to keep ! Russia apart from England, those who wish to keep her backward, forn\ a coterie, whose secret sympathies are for I Germany. They are the people who fear ' the defeat of the Kaiser because the Kaiser has been one of the chief pillars of >the regime by which they profited. I think this is a point that should not be lost sight of by those Englishmen who are anxious about the internal situation in Russia. German agents i are always certainly making the very most of all rumors of defeat in Russian interna! affairs. It is their 'way of agitating in England. It is their way of playing on the feelings of reformers, their special method of chilling with doubt our enthusiasm for our new ally. I do not mean for a minute to suggest that all unfavorable reports and rumors about the Russian situation emanate from Germany. The German method is rather more subtle than that. Tt puts forward the part as the whole. It assures you that because certain internal problems have not been solved, because certain bad administrative methods still persist in some departments of Russian public life, therefore • Russia lias not changed and will not change. It unsettles you, it smothers your hopes in doubt, it makes you suspicious. Ar.d it is particularly necessary at a time like this to separate the facts from the German interpretation and arrangements of the .facts.

It is perfectly true that the concessions that might very easily have been made have not been made, and measures have been taken that might very well have been postponed or not taken at all. But to say this, and to elaborate it in detail is not to state the Russian internal situation as it really is. In fact, it would be simply to fall into a grave error of perspective. These relics of the past are not Russia. Russia is with England heart and soul, ill spite of the whispered insinuations of a small pro-German coterie. And Russia is living richly, greatly, the whole 111tion is being morally regenerated by the unexampled effort and sacrifice, in spite of the persistence of some of those ■ administrative abuses whose maintenance is so clear to the heart of that some coterie of pro-German. The atmosphere of Russian public life has never been so healthy and stimulating as it is now. Tile nation is at the front. The whole nation is at war. That is the cardinal fact in Russia, existence at the present moment, and not the malignity or the stupidity of some incorrigible jack-in-ollicc.

RUSSIA'S SOCIAL ACHIEVEMENTS. Then there are positive achievements to be set down to Russia's internal account. The abolition of the vodka ltionopoly, for instance, means more for the real progress of the Russian people than a hundred purely political reforms, for it removes a blight on the naturally keen intelligence of the Russian people which thwarted and endangered all sound reform. And for another valuable achievement you have only to look. at the extraordinary extension of public initiative almost insensibly brought about by the war. Who could have dreamed a few months ago of the rise of such organisations as the All-Russian League of Towns which are providing relief for the victims of the war, and incidentally attacking with sucees many social problems'' I'.nergies that have slumbering or repressed have been suddenly liberated, and the war is proving a splendid school of organisation and discipline for thousands who have hitherto been shut out from public affairs. The majority of people are not talking politics, they are not thinking very much about politics. They are engaged in what is for the present a much more healthy and necessary occupation; iliey are doing ,t,o the utmost their share of the nation's most urgent work. 'And think of the immense educative effect of the war upon all those millions who are fighting in the army wandering through strange lands, mixing with strange peoples, and looking steadily into the face of death! The war is, in fact, a new Russia in the making. This is the real internal situation, and it is one with which Englishmen can only helirtily sympathise.