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20 means of spies watch every movement of troops, knowing that each of the Powers will attack its neighbour as soon as it sees its way to do so,—no agreement is possible, and every conference is either a stupidity, or a pastime, or a fraud, or an impertinence, or all these together.

It was particularly becoming for the Russian rather than any other government to be the enfant terrible of the Hague Conference. No one at home being allowed to reply to all its evidently mendacious manifestations and rescripts, the Russian Government is so spoilt, that having without the least scruple ruined its own people with armaments, strangled Poland, plundered Turkestan and China, and while specially engaged in suffocating Finland, it proposed disarmament to the governments, in full assurance that it would be trusted.

But strange, unexpected, and indecent as such a proposal was, especially at the very time when orders were being given to increase its army, the words publicly uttered in the hearing of the people were such, that for the sake of appearances the governments of the other Powers could not decline the comical and evidently insincere consultation, and the delegates met, knowing in advance that nothing would come of it, and for several weeks, during which they drew good salaries, though they were laughing in their sleeves, they all conscientiously pretended