JAPANESE VICTORIES. 393 



SO far attended the Japanese arms becomes perfectly 

 intelligible, and further victories are indeed to be 

 anticipated. Local conquest may well prove to be the 

 reward that awaits the Japanese ; but whether such 

 success is destined to be productive of lasting material 

 result depends neither upon the generals of Japan nor 

 upon the Russian armies in the Far East, but upon 

 the internal condition of the Russian empire. 

 " Russia," say her supporters, " will never give in ; 

 she will carry on the war for years if need be, 

 and, by sheer brute force and stamina, wear out her 

 antagonists." That may be, though it rests neither 

 with the admirer nor with the critic to decide. How 

 long the heart of the Russian people, stirred to action 

 by repeated reverses in a war in which they have no 

 interest and which they do not understand, will bear 

 with a governmental system beneath whose iron heel 

 they have long been crushed, is not for the boldest 

 vaticinator to foretell. Be it remembered only that 

 it is in the heart and fibre of the people in the last 

 resort that the fate of nations is fast held. 



