own great wonderment, are beginning rather to pin our hopes for the future upon those whom we have hitherto considered reactionary, because they called themselves Conservative and aristocratic, but who, in this crisis of the fortunes of their country, resist a policy calculated to impair its supremacy. Thus, on a higher principle than that appealed to by the political moralists who direct the helm of State, may the best interests of morality be reconciled with those of their own country; for it is by maintaining the supremacy of England that the principle which is identified with her institutions, her traditions, and the aspirations of her people, can be best secured in the interests of that universal society of which she forms part, and towards which she undoubtedly has moral obligations and responsibilities. The party which seeks to evade them, whether upon specious theories started by _doctrinaires_ ignorant of international conditions, or upon penny-wise and pound-foolish grounds of economy, are in reality the party of reaction; for they are the best allies of reactionists, and are playing into their hands, as no people have better reason for knowing than the Russians, who have observed with dismay the sympathy of your Prime Minister with ‘the divine figure of the North,’ as he has styled our ruler, and his methods of government; while from our point of view, the party of progress in England, let them call themselves Conservative if they so please, are those who, true to the grand traditions of the country, are determined to keep it in the van of freedom, not merely because its wealth and prosperity are due to that absolute civil and political liberty which imposed no check upon individual enterprise or achievement, but because with the preservation of its greatness are bound up the most cherished interests of the human race.” “Come, Ivan,”I said, laughing, “you have wound up with a peroration as much too flattering to my country as you were too uncomplimentary at the start. For an ‘old idiot,’ you have ended by giving her a pretty good character.”