Review of Reviews, 119ji/U. 



History of the Month. 



223 



London, July. 



The great event which made last 

 The Growth ^^^^^^ notable in the history of 

 Brotherhood, human progress was the visit of 

 the editors of the leading papers 

 of Germany to England. It passed off with a success 

 far greater than any of its promoters ventured to 

 hope. Here again, as in the case of the visit of the 

 burgomasters, Mr. Haldane proved a friend in need. 

 A.l difficulties were overcome; and, when our jour- 

 nalistic guests left our shores, they looked back upon 

 eight days of almost ideal enjoyment. " Every- 

 thing,'' exclaimed one worthy editor, lapsing into 

 English in the exuberance of his enthusiasm — 

 " Allcs ist tip-top !" Heaven smiled upon the visit, 

 for weather more brilliant and delightful never glad- 

 dened an English midsununer. From the King, 

 who ordered them to be entertained as Royal guests 

 at Windsor Castle, down to the audience at the 

 Plymouth Music Hall, which stood up and cheered 

 the German National Anthem, they were received 

 with a wann-hearted welcome which was worthy of 

 British hospitality. The "results of eight days of 

 sight-seeing and of festivity- were summed up by the 

 editor of the Gcrmania in a simple but memorable 

 phrase : " We came as guests, we depart as friends.'' 

 From first to last not one discordant note was 

 heard, and a desperate effort made to exaggerate 

 and misrepresent the significance of three lines tele- 

 graphed by a London correspondent to the Cologne 

 Gazette was made the occasion for a felicitous de- 

 claration by the editor of that paper in favour of an 

 international entente cordiale, including France. The 

 German editors' visit has not, of course, established 

 ' the millennium, but it has helped thitherward. 



The 



The visit of the German editors 



International ^^'^^ preceded by a visit of French 

 Picnic. precepteurs, who were also Royally 



received and entertained as honour- 

 ed guests, more especially by the learned institutions 

 and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 

 There seems to be some hope that these ancient 

 foundations may renew their youth in a somewhat 

 unexpected way by becoming the banqueting halls 

 in which the nation will entertain distinguished 

 guests from other lands. The Lord Mayor of Lon- 

 don has been visiting the Milan Exhibition and 

 hobnobbing with the Syndic of Rome. The inde- 

 fatigable Dr. Lunn's band of municipal students 

 have last month been entertained with lavish hospi- 

 tality in Austria and Hungarv. A travelling com- 

 pany of Engli-sh journalists have been entertained 

 by the King of Sweden. Paris has again been in- 

 vaded by friendly visitors, representing Lancashire 

 Co-operators, who were received by the President, 

 and the Municipality of Keighley who were enter- 

 tained at the Hotel de 'Ville. There has been a 

 friendly descent on Hastings by 800 French in- 



vaders, in\ited by the entente cordiale to visit the 

 scene of England's conquest by French invaders of 

 another sort, and the cry is " Still they come." It is 

 natural under these circumstances that the agita- 

 tion in favour of the Channel Tunnel should be 

 revived. The arguments in. its favour would be 

 irresistible if it were not for the liability on the 

 part of our people to go crazy under the adroitly 

 applied lash of the alarmist. Hitherto the scare 

 of impending invasion has always been allayed after 

 a time by the comforting reflection that sea-sickness 

 guards the silver streak as loathly dragons used to 

 defend a castle moat in the romances of chivalry. 

 B.ut if once there was a ro'adway undersea, t';. > 

 alarmist would have it all his own way, nor wO-;'d 

 he be happy until he had built one niew " Dread- 

 nought '■ for ever)- mile of 'the length of the tunnel. 



When it was announced a month 



« i^n* •,- ago that the British fleet would 

 Anglo-Russian ?. „ , ^ ^ r a 



Entente. '^isit Cronstadt on September 3rd 



everyone was delighted at such an 

 outward and visible sign of the rapprochement be- 

 tween the two partners who between them dominate 

 Asia. But since then the report of the Duma upon 

 the massacres of the Jews at Bialystok has been 

 published. This report bluntly declares that the 

 outrages were ordered, organised, directed, and exe- 

 cuted by the police authorities, who are of course 

 under the direct control of the Minister of the Interior 

 at St. Petersburg. As a result a great many people 

 are declaring that the naval visit to Cronstadt must 

 be countermanded. It is admitted that we cannot 

 interfere in the internal affairs of Russia, but it is 

 asked why should we make haste to clasp hands till 

 dripping with blood of massacred innocents. It is 

 true that the Kaiser had no such scruples, but 

 when he clasped the Sultan to his breast on the 

 very morrow of the Armenian massacres, civilised 

 man evervwhere felt sick and ashamed. But if we 

 were to countermand the visit of the British fleet 

 to Cronstadt as an expression of our indignation at 

 the massacre of the Jews at Bialystok, it would be 

 so ostentatious a condemnation of the Russian 

 Government as to provoke the strongest resentment 

 among the rulers of Russia. To send the Russian 

 Government to Coventry may be very magnificent, 

 but it is not very diplomatic. What would we think 

 and say if the United States sent us to Coventry 

 for the' floggiJig and hanging of fellaheen in Egypt ? 



The state of things in Russia shows 

 Isit the signs of improvement. If it is 



Beginning of ", , , ^ u r ^u 



the End? ^^^r the darkest hour before the 



dawn, then a.ssuredly the dawn can- 

 not be far off. For the general disaffection which 

 has pervaded all classes of the civil population 

 begins at last to make its appearance in the army. 

 The mutiny in the guards of the Preobrashensky 

 Regiment at Peterhof was a potent not to be mis- 



