The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎640r] (170/239)

PEACE AND INTERNAL POLITICS : A LETTER FROM RUSSIA. 139
America and to please Japan. Yesterday, the important piece of
news was given to inquirers that Russia had no intention of
appointing plenipotentiaries. She had no intention of making
peace. But to show her reasonableness, she would be very
pleased to learn the terms expected by Japan. She would
appoint representatives, not plenipotentiaries, who would listen
to and report anything Japan had to say. The Emperor would
be very glad to hear it, as a matter of abstract interest. The
fact that Russia had been beaten on land and sea was of no im
portance. She was the aggrieved party; Japan had begun the
war; and Russia must continue her projects for inflicting chastise
ment. But the essential problem : whether the war had to be
abandoned and an abatement of Japan’s preliminary demands
secured; or whether the struggle could be hopefully continued in
case Japan proved too exacting, was left altogether out of account.
Such were the conditions yesterday. To-day, the Foreign Office
announces that it has agreed to appoint ‘ ‘ plenipotentiaries ’ ’ in
name. But the function of these plenipotentiaries is still not to
consider terms of peace, but to hear what Japan has to say, and
report it to the Emperor. If the terms are not altogether im
possible, Russia, as the result, may consider the possibility of
negotiating for peace. At present she is doing no such thing.
And so on, in the same lofty strain.
Thus, while the Empire’s military prestige and civic tran
quillity are dead, or bleeding to death, the diplomatic policemen
are discussing remote issues of intellectual interest, and refusing
flatly to consider facts before their eyes. Their attitude, of
course, may change before anything written in St. Petersburg
can appear. Peace may be assured. But, chiefly as the result of
the unpractical, obscurantist policy which Russian statesmen apply
in all cases of peril, both well-informed natives and foreigners
here are gloomy beyond words. Though the Ministers and
official advisers of Nicholas II. have been in favour of peace since
the fall of Port Arthur, it is known that only two have the courage
to advise payment of the price which peace entails. M. Witte,
and the supposed maker of the w'ar, the Viceroy Alexeieff, who|
after vainly offering his resignation, now says boldly that’there
is no more Far East so far as Russia is concerned, and that the
dream, dissipated as the result of his own support of MM. Beso-
brazoff, Abaza, and Co., must be abandoned for ever.
The pessimists argue that the very nature of Russian Govern
mental ways militates against peace. The war, they say, can be
continued, though inefficiently, by inertia, whereas the conclu
sion of peace demands wits and wills. For General Linievitch
to be driven in rout to Kharbin, for Vladivostock to fall, for