The _Russian Governmental_ policy made no distinction between the Poles and her Russian subjects who were thirsting for social regeneration. So the Russians discovered for themselves that they had to seek the friendship and collaboration of the Poles. The wide horizon of the modern Russian movement will not permit the exclusion of a single capable member of the Tsar’s great realm from the benefits of the future. Not only the Russian people, but the whole of Russia had to be won over to the cause of the great ideal. The regeneration of Russia was to herald the regeneration of the whole of the Slav race, and the Poles as Slavs had a right to help in this work. The Russians have always said that they are very fond of the Poles, but that they are not sufficiently _Slav_—they ought to be Slavicized. The Russian Government sought to accomplish this by violence, whereas the _Russian people_, represented by the Russian revolutionaries, chose the better path of mutual understanding and respect. Of course, the official policy of the Holy Synod is still in force, and although the constitutional manifesto and the Duma have brought about certain changes, these are at present quite unimportant. The Poles, however, are winning an increasing number of friends and advocates among the Russians, who are pleading for equal rights and a constitution for Poland. Moreover, the times have changed, and when Russia was confronted by the present great European crisis the Poles displayed a marvellous loyalty, which has, perhaps, unintentionally brought them nearer the realization of their dreams than they have ever been before. The Manifesto of the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaievitch is the greatest event in Polish history since the partition. The hardest lot of all has befallen those Poles who have been most loyal to their race. I mean those who came under Prussian rule. For whereas Polish Slavdom is tolerated in Austria, and actually encouraged in Russia, in Prussia it is remorselessly ground down under the iron heel of Germanism. Germanization is carried out by Prussian rule, aggressively, in a strictly military sense. It is not a question of political tactics—no opinion at home or abroad is considered; there is nothing but frank coercion. Germany’s ambitions are only too well known—they have been advertised loudly enough, and they have been expounded again quite recently in General von Bernhardi’s notorious book, “Germany and the Next War”—a book written with all the brusque insolence of which only a German is capable. If Germany’s future programme includes the Germanizing of the whole of Europe, it is surely superfluous to relate in detail how she strove to Germanize a people under her own rule—it is one of the blackest chapters in the histories of oppression.