Ir will be a remarkable, and not the least important, outcome of the war if, as well as tightening the bonds of Anglo-Japanese friendship, it should open the door to an understanding between Great Britain and Russia, As the world grows older and wiser, after every great war there comes an intenser feeling that the waste and sorrow of the conflict ought to have been avoided that it must not at all events, be repeated. Prince von Bilow was, in fact, merely giving utterance to what with thoughtful people has become a commonplace, when, in the course of interviews, which he seems to have welcomed as opportunities for making overtures all round, he said, taking AngloGerman relations as a special case, that to talk of the inevitableness of warfare.between civilised nations is nonsense. There are other fields for the-exercise of that spirit of emulation which is the vitalising force of the world than'the battlefield, fields equally or: more honourable, where the joy of rivalry; may be as keen, the generalship as brilliant, the results as decisive as at: Mukden or Lisoyang, without -the brutality of human slaughter. The rough and ready methods of force'are antiquated in this refined age; they were pardonable before the nations had grown' to know one another, and to have interlocking interests, but the more closely those interests are interlocked,.the greater the mutual knowledge, the more unforgivable becomes reference to the sword as arbitrator. 'Sweden and Norway are, affording, at the moment an example of. the better way of settling international disputes. The world applauds them, both sides emerge with honour, and, they will be more united in' real sentiment than ever.
It has been the fashion to regard Anglo-Russian relations as inevitably antagonistic. Till recently there
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.