Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/159

 movement might, in the great complexities of the Russian Empire, again assume largely a Provençal form; and as for the questions of administration, local government and so on, I think they might be solved in connection with the general tendency of decentralisation within the Empire. I do not wish to say anything absolutely definitive about the Ukrainian movement, because I am not entirely convinced by the very strong arguments of my friend Dr Struve; and at present I should like to leave the question open.

As to the White Russians, their dialect is so little different from Great Russian that it is hard to imagine that a White Russian movement of any considerable extent could arise. There is an incipient movement which is now being used by the Germans as a means of propaganda in Vilna, because the Germans wish to emphasise even minor distinctions within the Russian nation.

Coming to the non-Russian nationalities, in the north-west, we have Finland. I simply cannot discuss at length the Finnish question in the short time we have this morning, but there are two or three things I should like to say. First of all, Finland is mainly populated by the Finnish people, who are composed of three Finnish tribes, who, driven there by the northern movement of the Slavs, in their turn drove the Lapps to the far North. The Finnish people of Finland are not isolated. Their territory is geographically and geologically distinct from the neighbouring Russian territory, but they themselves as a people are by no means wholly isolated. In fact, they became a unity as the result of the competition between Sweden