The year 1903, whether reckoned by the Julian or by the Gregorian calendar, was ended before Russia realized that war was the only possible outcome of her protracted negotiations with Japan. It is the practice of diplomats to dissemble, and Russian statesmen, if they knew what the issue must be--and in my opinion very few of them even suspected war--hid it successfully from the Russian people. The Russian peasant neither knows nor is wanted to know anything of world politics or to take any interest in them; the military and civil officials have no voice in the direction of the foreign policy of their country and scarcely possess an opinion on the subject; Russian journalists are expected to express such declarations only as are indicated by official communications. The only articulate class, the only people in Russia who reflect the impressions produced by the absorption of news current in the world, is formed of those engaged in commercial and industrial pursuits. They are aware of the movements of the peace-barometer. To them the fluctuations in the stock markets, abroad and at home, showed the importance foreign speculators attached to the negotiations proceeding between Russia and Japan, but even the value of this indication was discredited by the great confidence the Russian merchant had in the ability of Russian statesmen to arrange with Japan, avert an immediate crisis, and force the issue at a season Russia would find favourable for war. In European Russia I met no one who wanted war; many who were opposed to it. The merchants and manufacturers had Manchuria as a free market for their goods; imports from Japan into Manchuria, like all sea-borne goods, were taxed, and high duties were imposed on foreign goods brought into Siberian markets by way of the Manchurian ports and railways.