the record of the Maritime Customs, during the past sixty years, proves that this can be done without infringement of China's sovereign rights and without friction. Given a Central Government in possession of regular revenues, and with the moral and financial support of the united Powers behind it, the restoration of normal fiscal relations between Peking and the provinces should follow in time. The introduction of an efficient disciplined service of railway police, with a stiffening of foreign officers, would serve, at the outset, to check the activities of brigands on the one hand and, on the other, to restore the revenue-earning capacity of the chief trunk lines. Gradually, as the nearer provinces came into line, the customs system of book-keeping and accounts might be extended to the Lekin and Salt Collectorates and to the working of mines and other Government-controlled enterprises.

The problems involved are serious, no doubt, for all such reforms would naturally be opposed by those whose interests lie in perpetuating disorder and discontent; but those who know China best are likely to concur in the opinion that, given firm united action by the Powers concerned, the thing could be done, with untold benefit to the Chinese people. But so long as the attitude of each or any of the Powers is determined (to quote Mr. Amery again)" by fear of precipitating a scramble among conflicting Powers for predominance in this or that part of the country," so long will the moral force of united purpose and goodwill-essential to the initiation of these reforms-be lacking. In its absence, the Conference must perforce content itself with half-measures which strike at surface evils and leave untouched the root of China's troubles.

At this moment of writing, the proceedings of the Tariff Conference, briefly reported in the press, strike a curious note of concerted detachment from the realities of the situation. To the observer at a distance they are certainly more remarkable for the things that are left unsaid than for those that have come under discussion. Were it not for the grim realities, there would have been something of Gilbertian humour, and at the same time something typically Chinese, in the spectacle presented by the representatives of the Powers, solemnly discussing tariff revision, while all around and about them the latter-day mandarins, who have made of civil war a lucrative profession, agreed to comply with the Government's request and politely abstain from hostilities, so as not to

disturb, with their alarms and excursions, negotiations that promised to be worth something in ready cash. There has never been a more striking object lesson of the utterly sordid nature of the Tuchuns' rivalries; seldom an incident so eloquent of the truth, that without moral and material help from the friendly Powers, there can be no hope of restoring peace and prosperity to the long-suffering Chinese people. Yet, so far as the dignitaries in Peking assembled are concerned, it would appear to have had no special significance, nor any bearing on the subjects under discussion.

As I have already had occasion to observe however, in three years many things may happen, and it may be that the apparent detachment of the Conference from realities represents a general recognition of an ominous new feature in the situation which has arisen since the Washington Conference, viz., the activity of the Soviet Government in fomenting disorders in China. The presence of "Red" agents and troops at Canton and in Mongolia, their tightening grip on the Chinese Eastern Railway, their successful intrigues with General Feng-Yu-hsiang and other Chinese war-lords, and their widespread propaganda of unrest among the students, all point to the possibility of a serious crisis in the near future. In the event of the defeat of Marshal Chang Tso-lin and an invasion of Manchuria by Feng Yu-hsiang and his Russian auxiliaries, Japan would inevitably be compelled to intervene for the protection of interests which the Powers have recognised and which are vital to her national security. These interests, and her strategic position on the Asiatic mainland, were established by her entente with Russia in 1910-a pact which defined each nation's sphere of influence and economic penetration in Manchuria and Mongolia. Since the Great War, Japan's policy in China has obviously been determined to a great extent by the necessity of watchful waiting upon events in Russia. Like Great Britain, she has been patient under severe provocation on more than one recent occasion. But should the influence of the Soviet Government, availing itself of the sordid strife of factions in China, become predominant at Peking or threaten to disturb the peace and good order of Manchuria, she would undoubtedly be prepared to meet the situation with the only effective argument, viz., horse, foot and artillery-in which event political idealism would probably cease to be fashionable at Washington.

Thus history repeats itself and once more the shadow of Muscovy lies darkly across the northlands of Cathay, and as it was in the beginning, so it is now: diplomacy at the capital continues to talk solemnly of surtaxes and sovereign rights, but of that shadow and its portent, there is no word. For at Peking, as in La Mancha," they speak not of halters in the house of the hanged."

Dec. 10th, 1925

J. O. P. BLAND

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VOL. 243. NO. 495.

ALEXANDER I OF RUSSIA

Le Regne D'Alexandre Ier. By K. WALISZEWSKI. 3 Volumes. Paris: Librairie Plon. 1925.

WHETHER

WHETHER by design or by a happy chance, the third and last volume of M. Waliszewski's history of the reign of Alexander I of Russia was published shortly before the centenary of the death of the Emperor, which occurred at Taganrog on the Ist of December, 1825. Such a centenary is in any case a convenient, if conventional, occasion for reviewing the life's work of a man who by his genius, or by the accident of his position, has influenced the destinies of the world, and for estimating the nature and extent of such influence. In the case of the Emperor Alexander such a review is particularly timely; for it is only the present generation that has begun to reap the full harvest of what Alexander sowed-some wheat, perhaps, but largely tares.

If Alexander still has a living interest for the world, this is not because of any great qualities in him either as a man or a ruler. Fate or, as he would have preferred to say, Providence, made him the main instrument in the overthrow of Napoleon; but in the temple of fame he has found no niche beside the man he overthrew. Yet few rulers-perhaps not even Napoleon himselfhave more profoundly affected the actual world in which we live. To him we owe largely, if not entirely, the existence of the League of Nations; for-as M. de Bernaerts pointed out in his presidential address at the opening of the first Hague Conferenceit was the example of " the august author of the Holy Alliance which inspired the famous rescript of Nicholas II, and so set in train all those efforts towards the international organization of peace which culminated in the Covenant of the League. To him we owe the existence of the Monroe Doctrine; for it was against his proposal to extend the sphere of the Holy Alliance to the New World that this doctrine was first directed. To him, too, if M. Waliszewski is to be believed, is to be attributed the responsibility for yet another modern development, this time sinister and menacing; for it is to the principles of government applied by Alexander, and adopted by his successors, that M. Waliszewski

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ascribes the triumph of Bolshevism and the nature of its rule in Russia.

The character of a ruler whose activities have produced such varied and wide-spread effects is worthy of study; and in Alexander's case the study is not easy, for his character was so complex as almost to defy analysis. In one thing only does there seem to be any general agreement in the judgments passed upon him by his contemporaries: all who came in contact with him praise his handsome presence and the charm and simplicity of his address. Behind this smiling mask, however, all was mystery: an irritating and alarming riddle which men interpreted according to their prejudices or their predilections. Certainly he was man enigmatic: this autocrat, who brooked no opposition to his will, yet proclaimed himself the champion of liberty and the rights of man; this libertine, who addressed the world in the language of der religious exaltation; this apostle of peace, who boasted that at his nod a million men would stand to arms. To some he seemed a master of the politic arts of simulation and dissimulation. Napoleon affected to despise him as a mere play-actor, the "Talma of the North;" called him "a shifty Byzantine" and described him as "unimaginably false." For Metternich he was a dangerous madman, to be humoured. Castlereagh, too, thought that his mind was 66 not completely sound," but was convinced of his sincerity. "Either he is sincere," said Castlereagh," or hypocrisy certainly assumes a more abominable garb than she ever yet was clothed in." The Emperor, he said, had “grand qualities," but was "undecided and suspicious." In this judgment Castlereagh came nearest to the truth; for Alexander's religious emotions, for what they were worth, were real enough, and it was his indecision and his suspicion which largely explain the contradictions of his language and his policy.

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Suspiciousness was inevitable in an autocrat who had mounted the throne over the body of his murdered father, and knew himself to be surrounded by plots and intrigues. His chronic indecision was partly due to what M. Waliszewski calls " the double-working of his mental mechanism," which was the outcome of the contradictions of his early training. Of the strange assortment of tutors provided for him by his grandmother, the Empress Catherine II, two only exercised any permanent influence over his mind : Marshal Soltikov, who trained him in the traditions of the