The historical bearing of the effects of the old civilization to the world may, perhaps, be best characterized by the one word—_unnatural_. Observe, first, the effect of the policy of land aggression on the internal affairs of Russia. The policy is costly. Hence the great incongruity between the economics of the people, which are agricultural, and the finance of her government, which would be too expensive even for the most highly advanced industrial nation. Hence, also, it is, perhaps, that the richer and more powerful her government becomes, the poorer and more discontented her people seem to grow. Her administration must naturally be maintained by the suspicion of her people and the suppression of their freedom,[101] and the suspicion and suppression must become more exhaustive as the disparity widens between rulers and ruled.[102] Under these circumstances, a constitutional régime would not be possible, for a free expression of the popular will would be hardly compatible with a form of government which seeks to strengthen the state at the expense of the nation. Again, consider the unnatural situation of an agricultural nation competing in the world’s market with industrial, trading nations which command a higher and more effective economic organization. If Russia would sell her goods, her markets abroad must be created and maintained by artificial means:[103] protective and exclusive measures must be pushed to such an extent as to distance all foreign competition, the interests of the consumer must be disregarded,[104] and those of the growing industrial nations must be sacrificed,[105] all for the sake of artificially promoting the belated manufactures in Russia.[106] From this unnatural state of things would seem to follow the Russian policy of territorial occupation and commercial exclusion in the East, and also her free use of the old-time intrigue in diplomacy; for it is Russia’s fortune that she would not be able to compete freely with the new, growing civilization, whose open arts she cannot employ to her advantage, but to whose advanced standard of international morals she must appear to conform. Her position forbids her to have recourse to an open policy and fair play, and yet she cannot afford to overtly uphold the opposite principles.[107] On the other hand, the new civilization, represented in the present contest by Japan, relies more largely upon the energy and resources of the individual person, whose rights it respects, and upon an upright treatment by the nations of one another.