Review «f Reviews, 1/ll/lS. 



MY FATHER. 



86.ti 



M. MARTENS. 



M. POBYEDONOSTZEFF. 



PRINCE HILKOPF. 



although you were utterly unable from 

 temperament, education or environment 

 to accept his eloquent vindications of 

 the necessity for secluding the Russian 

 peasant from the perils of a heretical 

 propaganda 



WAR IMPOSSIBLE. 



Amongst others we met Jean de Bloch, 

 the canny Warsaw banker, a man of 

 Jewish origin, born in Poland, but a 

 Russian s ibject. Father used to call 

 him the Russian Cobden, as in many 

 ways he reminded him of that most 

 famous of all English economists, who 

 was also a statesman. His book, " The 

 Future of War," created quite a sensa- 

 tion at the time, and some people erro- 

 neously attributed the issue of the Peace 

 Rescript to an interview the banker had 

 with the Tsar. Just as Lord L\'tton 

 predicted the end of war by tl. ^ dis- 

 covery of Vril, so M. de Bloch demon- 

 strated in his book that, owing to the 

 marvellous improvement in the deadli- 

 ness of modern weapons, war had be- 

 come practically impossible. The Boer, 

 Russo-Japanese and Balkan wars since 

 then have showed the eminent economist 

 wrong, but many of the theories he ad- 

 vanced in his book have proved correct. 

 He was a most charming man person- 



ally, but his theories of modern war en- 

 tirely obsessed him. 



THE tsar's companion. 



I remember Prince Ouchtomsky and 

 father sitting far into the night discuss- 

 ing China and Eastern Asia. Father 

 expanded at length a scheme whereby 

 the Dowager Empress and the Powers 

 could agree upon appointing a trust- 

 worthy w^iite man as the foreign secre- 

 tary of the Chinese Empire, cnrough 

 whom negotiations should proceed in 

 all matters relating to foreigners. A 

 counsel of perfection he admitted, but 

 something ought to be done to prevent 

 the one anti-military people of the 

 world being forced by the Powers into 

 creating a military system. Ouchtom- 

 sky knew China intimately, and was a 

 great personal friend of Li Hung 

 Chang. He accompanied Nicholas H. 

 when Tsarvitch, on his Asiatic tour. 



Prince Hilkoff, both in appearance 

 and manner, looked more American than 

 Russian. He was exceedingly frank 

 about the construction of the Siberian 

 railway, on which he was engaged. 



THE SCOTCH ACCENT IN RUSSIA. 

 The Russians are great linguists, but 

 I could not understand how it was that 



