Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/81

 Russia and penetrated with great force of impact. At this time Adam Smith's famous work was by Imperial Command translated into Russian, and in St Petersburg there appeared a French translation of the work of the Spanish free-trader Jovellanos. Then too under French and American influence the foundations of Russian protectionism were being laid, and in the same first decade of the nineteenth century, along with the translation of Adam Smith's masterpiece, there appeared a Russian translation of Alexander Hamilton's Report on Manufactures, the manifesto of American protectionism, written many decades before the beginning of Friedrich List's propaganda.

At this time too there appeared at St Petersburg—and in German—a review, with the special object of bringing Russia into closer relations with the Near East, and with the characteristic title ''Konstantinopel und St Petersburg. Der Orient und der Norden''. This review, written in the tongue of our present foes, set before Russia very definite political and cultural aims. Subsequently the armed resistance shown by Germany to the realisation by Russia of these very aims was in no small measure responsible for the present great European War. The Near Eastern question would perhaps have been finally solved at the time of the struggle with Napoleon, if the Russian Emperor had not considered it necessary to continue the struggle on foreign soil, after the enemy had been driven from the Russian territory he had invaded. Many Russians,