scheme.

And whilst the menace of this "push towards the East" is steadily
growing, whilst he who directs it from Berlin holds in his hand all the
strings of the puppets who can help to advance it or pretend (as part
of the conspiracy) to oppose it, what is great Russia doing, the mighty
Tzar, and France?

They tell us that Russia is abandoning her interests in the East and
that the Tzar is dreaming of giving Europe a lasting peace--a peace
chiefly favourable to the economic and commercial development of
Germany and to the increase of her influence.

Russia and France seem scarcely to realise that the only force which
can drive back the tide of Germanic invasion is the Slav power,
organised and firmly established in Europe. A Balkan league including
Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro, a southern Slav kingdom, a
Bohemia-Moravia, these might hold the German power in check and give to
Europe the necessary equilibrium. France has an interest as great as
Russia's in the organisation of this opposing force, but she does not
realise the fact. Just as the Athenians stretched out their hands
towards the power of Rome, deadly in its fascination, even so there are
culpably blind patriots among us who dream the monstrous dream of an
_entente_ with Germanism. As well might one, to escape the flood,
throw oneself into the rising ravening torrent. Before long, Germany
will be the ruler of Austria, of Hungary, Turkey and Holland, and we
shall have prepared no counterpoise to this encroachment, we, the
Allies of the great Russian people, who, even though they may
eventually succumb to the fatal attraction of Asia, might first help us
to secure our racial psychology and to establish bonds between our
Gallo-Latin soul and the soul of the Slavs.

The Germans are establishing themselves comfortably and permanently in
China. There lies before me an extract from the first number of a
newspaper published by the Germans in China under the title of _The
German Asiatic Sentinel_. This official organ of the Kiao-chao
territory appears every week with six pages of articles and
advertisements. It is strange to find in it advertisements of the most
diverse description, from that which commends brown Kulmback beer, to
that in which two young German merchants seek to correspond, with a
view to marriage, with good-looking young German girls of good family.

When one remembers the solemn investiture at Kiel of Prince Henry of
Prussia, as lea