CONCLUSION 305 



expedition was a success ; business relations were 

 established between the two powers, and have con- 

 tinued without interruption ever since. There is, 

 however, very little eagerness to trade with Russia 

 to-day, notwithstanding that our markets are being 

 taken away from us by foreign competition, and that 

 by importing Russian raw products we would be 

 enabled to fight our comm,ercial battles with much 

 greater effect. It is very clear that this lack of 

 enterprise is due in the first pla.ce to a peculiarly- 

 distorted form of national independence and, 

 secondly, to insular prejudice. There is hardly a 

 person in the British Isles, whatever his degree of 

 intelligence or historical equipment may be, who does 

 not consider himself qualified to pronounce judgment 

 upon Russian affairs. I have endeavoured to show 

 in the foregoing chapters that neither the people nor 

 the Government of the country deserve a hundredth 

 part of the journalistic venom which is daily distilled 

 for them in Great Britain. On the other hand, it 

 is not good policy to permit our pharisaical notions 

 of what is and what is not the proper method pf 

 running the Government coach to interfere with our 

 commercial operations, or to allow prejudice to inter- 

 fere with business. One hundred years ago a display 

 of tliese ethical idiosyncrasies on the part of the 

 British mercantile world would have seriously inter- 

 fered with the commercial developments of the 

 country, and it is doubtful whether Great Britain 

 would have reached the exalted commercial position 

 which she holds to-day. If we inquire into the 

 sources of our commercial prosperity we will find that 

 blind, unreasoning prejudice has had no placei among 

 them. Justice and equity, and an attitude of absolute 

 straightforwardness towards his customers and 

 clients, are a business man's best commercial assets. 

 Ruskin objected to a statement by Adam Smith that 



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