The measure in which our Eastern frontier is to be advanced will depend on the military situation, and in particular also it should be determined by strategic considerations. As far as the rectification of the eastern frontier of Posen and Silesia and the southern frontier of East Prussia is concerned, a frontier zone, accessible to German colonisation and as far as possible free of private ownership, must be created. This German frontier zone will protect the Prussian Poles against the direct and excessive influence of Russian Poland, which will perhaps attain its independence. Moreover, in this connection, we have no hesitation whatever in drawing special attention to that ancient territory in the Russian Baltic Provinces, which has been cultivated by Germans for the last 700 years. It is sparsely populated, its soil is fruitful, and it therefore promises to have a great future as a field for colonisation, whilst its Lithuanian, Lettish, and Esthonian population is derived from a stock alien to the Russians, which may prove a reliable source of that supply of journeyman-labour which we so urgently need. We based our demand for land for colonisation from Russia on two grounds—the need for erecting a "boundary-wall" and the need for maintaining the increase of our population. But, in the third place, land is the form in which Russia’s war-indemnity ought to be paid to us. To obtain an indemnity from Russia in cash or in securities will probably be just as impossible after this war as it proved after the Russo-Japanese war. On the other hand, Russia can easily pay an indemnity in kind. Russia is excessively rich in territory, and we demand that the territory which Russia is to surrender to us in lieu of a war-indemnity shall be delivered to us for the most part free of private ownership. This is by no means an outrageous demand, if we bear in mind Russian administrative methods. The Russian population is not so firmly rooted in the soil as that of Western and Central Europe. Again and again, right up to the early days of the present war, Russia has transplanted parts of her population on an enormous scale and settled them in far distant provinces. The possibilities of the scheme here proposed must not be judged in accordance with the modest standards of German civilisation (_Kultur_). If the acquisition of political control over territory is to bring with it that increase of power which we so urgently need for our future, we must also obtain economic control and have in the main free disposition over it. To conclude peace with Russia without ensuring the diminution of Russian preponderance, and without acquiring those territorial acquisitions which Germany needs, would be to lose a great opportunity for promoting Germany’s political, economic, and social regeneration, and to impose upon future generations the burden of the final settlement with Russia—in other words, Germany