Another manager friend of mine told me that he had helped his people to become more sober by selling _vodka_ at his own stores at a lower price than that of the government. It sounds a strange way of doing it, no doubt, but the sale was restricted to Wednesdays and Saturdays. When, therefore, on the other days there came would-be purchasers anxious to have _vodka_, with the plea that there was a wedding or a christening or some other domestic festivity at which it would be needed just to complete the enjoyment, they were always told that they could not have it except on the stated days. This was not hardship, for the government shop was open, though the higher price was demanded there. This they would not pay and so went without it, and yet the christening or wedding passed off no less happily--perhaps even more happily; and thus, gradually, amongst the Russian staff, and through them the work-people, there grew up the idea that the results of _vodka_ were to be avoided. Nothing could be more encouraging than the experience of the management of this particular mine in trying, by example and discipline, to lift their foremen and subordinates of the staff out of what used to be thought a perfectly natural and pardonable weakness, but now throughout the empire is being acknowledged as a national sin. It will surely and easily be seen by any thinking reader that this initiative on the one hand, and responsiveness on the other, promise well for our future relations with each other, and explains, perhaps, how the Russian _Entente_ has passed quite naturally into an Alliance, which some of us hope and believe will be permanent and stable for many generations. Our _Entente_ with France has been indeed an _Entente Cordiale_, and it is now more cordial and friendly than ever; but it is not easy to conceive of anything in the future beyond an _Entente_ and Alliance. We can be real and staunch and faithful friends as becomes those who are near neighbours, but little else opens out before us. Is it possible to think of anything between ourselves and Germany, even when the war is over and many years have passed, except the gradual removal of sadly embittered feelings and outraged convictions and beliefs? Our ideas of what can rightly be called world-power and world-forces are so diametrically opposed that it passes the imagination of man to conceive what great world-purpose we and they could undertake together, for some time.