When that time comes, then I can see Germany will say, Now we will step in; we will, by both the open and subterranean methods which we have developed and cultivated, now exercise our power in the country. We will re-establish, possibly in the same form, possibly in some new form, the autocracy which we in this House hoped had gone forever; and you will have in a Russia shorn of some of its fairest provinces set up again an autocracy far worse than the old autocracy, because it will lean upon a foreign power to continue its existence. Then, indeed, if that prophecy came to pass--and I most earnestly hope I am in this a false prophet--all our dreams of Russian development and Russian liberty would be gone. Russia under this Government would be a mere echo of the Central Powers; she would cease to be a make-weight in any sense to German militarism. She would have lost all that initiative, all that power for self-development that we so earnestly hoped the revolution had given her. A GLOOMY HOROSCOPE I admit that this picture is dark and sombre. Will anybody have the courage to say he can draw a horoscope for the future more likely to be fulfilled, if Russia remains, as I fear she is at this moment, absolutely helpless in face of the German penetration? It all turns upon that. If Russia could only rouse herself now and offer effective resistance to the German invader, that might give her a national spirit and sense of unity, and make her future far more splendid than her past. Therefore the question will inevitably be asked: Can any of the Allies give to Russia in her extremity that help and that sympathy of which she so sorely stands in need? It is help and sympathy which the Allies desire to give, and not invasion and plunder. I agree that there may be circumstances, prejudices, and feelings which render assistance in the East by the only country which can give it in the East a question of difficulty and doubt--a question which must be weighed in every balance and looked at from every point of view; but that the Allies--America, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan--should do what they can at this moment to help Russia, if she fails to help herself, through the great crisis of her destiny appears to me to be beyond doubt, and I will not reject, a priori, any suggestion which seems to offer the slightest solution of our doing any good in that direction. THE LOYALTY OF JAPAN