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84 their object, and that the ideals of Nicholas II should have remained a noble dream. The crushing of German militarism will make the dream of the White Tsar a glorious reality.

II the opinion of the average Englishman, Russia is identified with reaction. The Russian moujik we are told is a clumsy, unwieldy giant, who is only beginning to stretch his limbs. Russia moves as slowly as her own rivers, so sluggish that it is almost impossible to tell in which direction the currents move. Like most other ideas about Russia, this conception of a reactionary Russia is a delusion. So far from being stationary Russia is, perhaps, the most progressive nation in Europe, and her rapid advance has only been paralleled by the advance of America. Only two hundred years ago the Russian Empire was still plunged in utter darkness. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the Russian Government was of so little account that when Peter the Great offered to visit the Court of Versailles, he met with a polite refusal. To-day the successors of Louis XIV celebrate a visit of the Russian Tsar as a great national event.