The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-08-21

England, at this moment. 1t is by no
means certain that Russia could
not hold her own; while II
gland could not declare war against
Russia without evoking a counter dec
laration on the part of France; and the
French and Russian fleets combined
might quite possibly sweep the union
jack from the Seven Seas. If we re-
member that the Russian fleet. which
is superior TO any fleet I'm the world ex-
cept England's. has been wholly Great
ed in the last 20 years. and, further, II
we realize the plans of the Russian ad-
miralty for the immediate future, we
shall reach the conviction that. while
England is already counterbalanced by
France and Russia i'm naval power, 10
years will see her hopelessly left be-
hind. If she dared to strike now. she
might conceivably win; but If this OPP
~portunity is let go. IL will never re-
turn. 4 total destruction of her navy
at this moment wDul mean to Rus
STA some 20 years pOstponement Of her
ambitions; this at the very most. y
destruction Of England's navy at the
present m would mean imperial,
financial and commercial ruin. So
that. while the chances of naval success
are fairly equal. failure to Russia would
aAHaAAN 81 hhAAAI ~ ~ y 80 50"
England would mean final humiliation.
Al this point. the rumors Of Lord
S~allsbury's retirement are Of special
gravity; for Lord Salisbury fully un-
derstands these incalCulable risks: and
he is almost the only leading English
man who does understand them. He
sees that England's attitude of suprem-
acy no longer represents the facts,
and represents them less with every
year that passes. He understands that
the game of English domination is up;
he has shown this understanding. in
Venezuela, i'm Armenia, in Crete, in
Thessaly. The best thing that could
happen for England would be that
Lord Salisbury hould be spared by fate
TO lower the British flag in Chinese wa
tiers before the inevitable supremacy of
the Russian genius.
Let me illustrate what the growth Of
the Russian genius and empire means.
When John the Terrible died 300 years
ago Russia was a small and isolated
kingdom. cut off from the Baltic and
the Black sea and under the heel Of
the Tartars, the Turks, the Poles and
the Swedes. The dominions of the tsar
were about n tenth of what they are
to-day. Since then there have been IA
periods of conquest. The first of these.
under Johns son and successor, TheO-
dore, added Western Siberia, a region
as large as Germany, to the kingdom.
During the two protestorates which
followed, a vast tract to the North, in
Guiding the Yenese basin, was gained,
as well as a province South of Tomsk.
on the borders of china
Then came the present dynasty, the
house of Romanoff. The first two SOW
ereigns of this line, Michael and Alexis,
added the whole of Northern and East
ern Siberia to the empire, as far as
Behring'S straits and the Pacific. Since
then. Russia has never lost her hold on
the Pacific coast. Under the first Ro-
manor the Russian frontier in South
eastern Europe was pushed from the
Nolga to the Ural river, in the face of
the Tartar hordes; under the second.
the province of Poltava on the Dneiper
was won, with the first advance of
Russia's boundary to he west. Peter
the Great added the province round
the Gulf of Finland, where st. Peters
burg now and He also won Kan
Chatka and the mainland parallel to
the peninsula. The generals of the En-
press Anne conquered territory in
three ~regions-on the Dneiper; beyond