sm, and, so
fighting, delivered France from an instant defeat.

Lord Carnock may justly be said to have prepared Russia for this
ordeal--for a true friend helps as well as gives good advice. But it
would be a total misjudgment of his character which saw in this great
work a clever stroke of diplomatic skill.

Lord Carnock was inspired by a moral principle. He saw that Russia was
tempting the worst passions of Germany by her weakness. He felt this
weakness to be unworthy of a country whose intellectual achievements
were so great as Russia's. He had no enmity at all against the Germans.
He saw their difficulties, but regretted the spirit in which they were
attempting to deal with those difficulties--a spirit hateful to a nature
so gentle and a mind so honourable.

He had studied for many years the Balkan problem. He knew that as
Austria weakened, Germany would more and more feel the menace of Russia.
He saw, over and over again, the diplomacy of the Germans thrusting
Austria forward to a paramount position in the Balkans, and with his own
eyes he saw the Germans in Bulgaria and Turkey fastening their hold upon
those important countries. If Russia weakened, Germany would be master
of the world. A strong Russia might alarm Germany and precipitate a
conflict, but it was the world's chief fortress against Prussian
domination.

For the sake of Russia he worked for Russia, loving her people and yet
seeing the dangers of the Russian character; hoping that a
self-respecting Russia might save mankind from the horrors of war and,
if war came, the worse horrors of a German world-conquest. This work of
his, which helped so materially to save the world, was done with clean
hands. It was never the work of a war-monger. No foreigner ever
exercised so great an influence in Russia, and this influence had its
power in his moral nature. I had this from M. Sazonoff himself.

Such a man as Lord Carnock could not make any headway in English
political life. It is worth our while to reflect that the intelligence
of such men is lost to us in our home government. They have no taste for
the platform, the very spirit of the political game is repellent to
them, and they recoil from the self-assertion which appears to be
necessary to political advancement in the House of Commons. No doubt the
intelligence of men like Mr. J.H. Thomas or Mr. William Brace, certainly
of Mr. Clynes, is sufficient for the crudest of our home needs,
sufficient for the