IV.--RUSSIA, CHINA, FRANCE--THEIR RELATIONS TO EACH OTHER AND TO THE WORLD
The Russian and Spanish races will furnish two absorbing problems of this century to Europe and the United States.
Let us take up the Russian question first.
There are to-day three great rivals in the commercial world,--the United States, England and Germany. We might add France in some branches of trade, and Japan in others. The commercial ambition of the United States will be, and that of England and Germany is, world-wide. What the natural rivalry between these powers will result in I need not undertake to predict. The laws of trade, however, are unerring, and the cheapest and best seller will eventually secure the customer. As the manufactories of England, Germany, and France close their doors before the keen business genius and competition of the Yankees, immigration to the United States will increase: a hegira of foreign labourers and mechanics will set in, which will greatly thin out, if not depopulate, the old countries of Europe of their best manufacturing ability. This result is inevitable under any conditions; but it must be regarded as separate and apart from the considerations to which allusion is hereafter made. The relations of Russia to this commercial question and to the general status of European affairs, are unique and of the deepest importance. Russia to-day is { 11} in the process of governmental and national development. She is not yet, in any complete sense, an integral, sympathetic, national whole, as are the United States, England, and Germany. Her government is still experimental. She is not yet a firm, stable, political unity, but is working with tremendous activity to build up and operate a plan of internal policy. At the same time she is developing a broad, well defined, ambitious, but not unnatural external career. She is now, as ever, grasping for contiguous territories. The _one_ policy is largely dependent for success upon the _other_. If she overcomes the fires of revolution that burn within her people; if she can, in spite of the diffusion of education and the principles of liberty, maintain the particular species of arbitrary government which now exists; if she succeeds in continuing a despotism, and can present an unbroken front to the civilised powers of the world, maintaining peace and order _within_, while she asserts and sustains her policy without,--in that event the external policy of Russia may become the second, if not the first, great and absorbing question of the century. If Russia does not succeed with her people; if discontent and revolution ensue; if the present dynasty is overthrown; if a new and different, government is installed in that country, or it is split up into different governments, her power as an international factor will naturally be so weakened and reduced that she may be compelled to agree to any territorial partition or adjustment which may be eventually fixed upon by the other powers, { 12} if they act together. In shaping their commercial policies, however, it will not be prudent for the United States, England, Germany, and France to rely upon the weakness of Russia's internal government, although its overthrow is an event by no means unlikely, engaged as she is in building and sustaining a political fabric contrary to modern tendencies and modern thought, and inimical to those nations which possess them. But the powers mentioned above must assume that her internal policy will succeed, and the probabilities of such success, at least for some years to come, make it important for them to act conjointly and promptly in matters pertaining to China, South-eastern Europe and Asia. No matter how they may diverge in other questions, upon the subject of China their true interests demand joint action. Under no circumstances, at least for many years, will Russia be a general commercial rival to these four powers. She has no ambition, for instance, in the direction of Africa, now covered by England, Germany, and France; nor has she any present intention of exploiting the fields of South America or Mexico. The sphere of her external policy embraces South-eastern Europe, Asia, and China, and in these fields she has always met and been checked by Great Britain. It is an absolute, indisputable fact of history, that but for the predominating influence and power of England, Russia would to-day be the complete master of China, Turkey, Persia, and other parts of Asia--in fact, of all Asia.