They have occupied the land and will
maintain that occupation; they do not want the return of the great
Russian princes who possessed lands covering provinces and were even
ignorant of their possessions. One of the causes which has permitted
Bolshevism to last is, as I have said, the attitude of the Entente,
which on many occasions has shown the greatest sympathy for the men of
the old regime. The Tsar of Russia was an insignificant man, all the
Grand Dukes were persons without dignity and without credit, and the
Court and Government abounded with men without scruples--violent,
thieves, and drunkards. If Bolshevik government had been ruin, no one
can deny but that a great part of the blame belongs to the old regime,
the return of which no honest man desires.

An error not less serious was to allow Poland to occupy large tracts
of purely Russian territory.

There remain in Europe, therefore, so many states of unrest which do
not only concern the conditions of the conquered countries, but also
those of the conquering countries. We have already seen how Germany
and the States which form part of her group cannot now any longer
represent a danger of war for many years to come, and that none the
less the victorious countries and the new States continue to arm
themselves in a most formidable manner. We have seen what an element
of disorder Poland has become and how the policy of the Entente
towards Russia has constituted a permanent danger.

But all Europe is still uncertain and the ground is so movable that
any new construction threatens ruin. Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria,
Turkey, cannot live under the conditions imposed on them by the
treaties. But the new States for the most part are themselves in a
sufficiently serious position.

With the exception of Finland all the other States which have arisen
on the ruins of the Russian Empire are in serious difficulty. If
Esthonia and Lithuania are in a fairly tolerable situation Lettonia is
in real ruin, and hunger and tuberculosis rule almost everywhere, as
in many districts of Poland and Russia. At Riga hunger and sickness
have caused enormous losses amongst the population. Recently 15,000
children were in an extremely serious physical and mental condition.
In a single dispensary, of 663 children who were brought for treatment
151 were under-nourished, 229 were scrofulous, 66 anaemic, and 217
suffering from rickets. The data published in England and the United
States and those