So much for the first of the two reasons commonly adduced to prove that Russia is an undesirable ally. I trust I have said enough to show that the idea of her being the great modern stronghold of barbarism, ignorance, and tyrannical government is very far from the truth. Now I come to the second reason--that she has repeatedly threatened our interests in the past and is sure to threaten them in the future because she has an insatiable territorial appetite. That Russia has a formidable territorial appetite cannot be denied, but it ill becomes us Britishers to reproach her on that score, because, if we may judge by results, our own territorial appetite is at least equally formidable. Like her, we began our national life with a very modest amount of territory, and now the British Empire is considerably larger than the Empire of the Czars. According to recent trustworthy statistics, the former contains over 13,000,000 square miles, and the latter less than 8,500,000. To this I may add that the motives and methods of annexation have a strong family resemblance. Both of us have been urged forward partly by rapidly increasing population and partly by national ambition; and both of us have systematically added to our dominions, partly by colonization and partly by conquest. As examples of colonizing expansion we may take Siberia and Australia, and as examples of expansion by conquest we may point to Russian Central Asia and British India. Fortunately for the peace of the world, the two spheres of expansion long lay wide apart. The Russians, as a continental nation hemmed in by no natural frontiers, naturally overflowed into adjacent thinly peopled territory and spread out very much as a drop of oil spreads out on soft paper; while we, being islanders with an adventurous seafaring population, chose our fields of colonization and conquest in various distant regions of the globe. Thus, until comparatively recent times, we had no occasion to come into conflict with our rivals, or, to speak more accurately, the two nations were not rivals at all. Now, it is true, we have approached within striking distance of each other, and there is some danger of our coming into hostile contact. Of this danger and the possibility of averting it I shall speak presently, but meanwhile I must make a little digression in order to anticipate an objection that may be made to the foregoing remarks.