That sort of
folly would be beneath notice if it did not distract attention from the
real problem created for Europe by a war in the Far East.
For good or evil in the working out of her destiny, Russia is bound to
remain a _Neant_ for many long years, in a more even than a Bismarckian
sense. The very fear of this spectre being gone, it behoves us to
consider its legacy--the fact (no phantom that) accomplished in Central
Europe by its help and connivance.
The German Empire may feel at bottom the loss of an old accomplice always
amenable to the confidential whispers of a bargain; but in the first
instance it cannot but rejoice at the fundamental weakening of a possible
obstacle to its instincts of territorial expansion. There is a removal
of that latent feeling of restraint which the presence of a powerful
neighbour, however implicated with you in a sense of common guilt, is
bound to inspire. The common guilt of the two Empires is defined
precisely by their frontier line running through the Polish provinces.
Without indulging in excessive feelings of indignation at that country's
partition, or going so far as to believe--with a late French
politician--in the "immanente justice des choses," it is clear that a
material situation, based upon an essentially immoral transaction,
contains the germ of fatal differences in the temperament of the two
partners in iniquity--whatever the iniquity is.
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