70 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-XI 



against her rivals who kept up better military prepara 

 tions. There may have been truth in part of this asser 

 tion ; but the motive of the great Russian statesman in fa 

 voring the conference was probably not so much to gain 

 time for the army as to gain money for the church. With 

 his intense desire to increase the stipends of the Russian 

 orthodox clergy, and thus to raise them somewhat above 

 their present low condition, he must have groaned over 

 the enormous sums spent by his government in the fre 

 quent changes in almost every item of expenditure for its 

 vast army changes made in times of profound peace, 

 simply to show that Russia was keeping her army abreast 

 of those of her sister nations. Hence came the expressed 

 Russian desire to &quot;keep people from inventing things. &quot; 

 It has always seemed to me that, while the idea under 

 lying the Peace Conference came originally from Jean 

 de Bloch, there must have been powerful aid from Pobe- 

 donostzeff. So much of good and, indeed, of great good 

 we may attribute to him as highly probable, if not 

 certain. 



But, on the other hand, there would seem to be equal 

 reason for attributing to him, in these latter days, a fear 

 ful mass of evil. To say nothing of the policy of Russia 

 in Poland and elsewhere, her dealings with Finland thus 

 far form one of the blackest spots on the history of the 

 empire. Whether he originated this iniquity or not is 

 uncertain ; but when, in 1892, I first saw the new Russian 

 cathedral rising on the heights above Helsingfors, a 

 structure vastly more imposing than any warranted by 

 the small number of the &quot; orthodox &quot; in Finland, with its 

 architecture of the old Muscovite type, symbolical of fe 

 tishism, I could not but recognize his hand in it. It 

 seemed clear to me that here was the beginning of reli 

 gious aggression on the Lutheran Finlanders, which must 

 logically be followed by political and military aggression ; 

 and, in view of his agency in this as in everything reac 

 tionary, I did not wonder at the attempt to assassinate 

 him not long afterward. 



