It would be tremendously to the advantage of Germany to have the big Russian empire split up into separate states, and the German government has worked assiduously to encourage the Finnish people in their secession policy. Finland is such a Mecca for German agents, and so many Finns are in the pay of these agents, that the provisional government last July practically shut the grand duchy off, marooned it, so to speak, from the rest of the empire. A traveler cannot go to Finland from Russia without special permission obtained from the war ministry. A resident of Petrograd could not go down to one of the numerous and charming Finnish seaside towns near the capital, even for a week-end visit, without such a permit. I have spent some time in Finland and know a great many people in Helsingfors, the capital. I tried to get a permit to stop in Helsingfors on my way out of Russia, but the war ministry refused to grant the permit. When the traveler left Russia for England or the United States, for any country, for that matter, he had to take a certain train leaving Petrograd at 7.30 o’clock in the morning, and he left that train just once before he reached the frontier. That once is at Beli Ostrov, for the customs inspection. After that the traveler was a prisoner in his train until he reached Tornea, where he was finally inspected and convoyed across a narrow stretch of water to Sweden. That was the attitude of the Russian provisional government toward Finland. The grand duchy is rightly considered one of the greatest menaces to the future integrity of the empire. It is rightly considered by Germany a hope for the future of Germany, and it may very well be that the German navy expects and hopes to follow up the conquest of the Baltic port of Riga with a conquest of the Baltic port of Helsingfors. Finland detests Russia to such an extent that she is apparently blind to the danger of a friendship with Germany. For fifty years she has hated and feared Russia, and she apparently cannot get it into her head that the thing she hated and feared has gone forever. I have observed this state of mind in Poles as well as Finns. They have hated Russia so long that they cannot stop all at once. The Finns have hated Russia so hard that they would not even look at the Russian soldiers quartered on them by the old government. I spent the winter of 1913 in Helsingfors, and it was one of the sights of the place to me to watch the Finns cut the Russians in the street every day. A regiment of Russians marched through the streets, bands playing, swords clanking, feet tramping, a gorgeous sight. But the soldiers might as well have been invisible phantoms for all the notice taken of them by the Finns. They walked quietly along, attending to their business, conversing or chatting with their neighbors, never looking at the Russians. In fact, it was a point of honor with the Finns never to look at a Russian. As for speaking