of impatient protest on the part of thinking Russians.  Without in any way ignoring what has happened in Persia, we have every right to point to the essential fact that Russia has of her own accord raised the question of nationality and thus set in motion vast forces which are already shaking Europe to its foundations.  In proclaiming as one of her foremost aims the restoration of Polish Unity, Russia did not, it is true, commit herself to any concrete project of autonomy.  But whether her action represents genuine feeling on the part of the Tsar and his advisers, as M. Gabriel Hanotaux so positively asserts, or whether it was originally a mere manoeuvre to prevent the Polish question being raised against her, it is at least certain that Russia has entered upon a new path from which it will be very difficult if not impossible to recede.  The Russian Poles, under the leadership of M. Dmowski, have rallied loyally round the Tsar; and there are many signs that the long-deferred Russo-Polish rapprochement is at length on the point of fulfillment.  Here economic interests play their part, for in recent years the district between Warsaw and Lodz has become one of the chief industrial centres of the Russian Empire, and its annexation to Austria or to Prussia would place a tariff wall between it and the South Russian markets upon which it chiefly depends.  The Poles of Galicia, having enjoyed the utmost liberty under Austrian rule, have naturally been almost immune from the discontent so noticeable among their kinsmen in Russia and Prussia, and have indeed for a generation past formed the backbone of all parliamentary majorities in the Austrian Reichsrat.  But even among them the first faint signs of Russophil feeling have been noticeable in the last two years.  This is partially due to the encouragement given by the Austrian Government to the Ruthenes in Galicia, but also to the disintegrating effect of universal suffrage upon the Polish political parties, the growth of democratic tendencies at the expense of the Austrophil nobility, and the consequent increased influence of the Poles of Warsaw.  Though the Polish parties in Galicia issued declarations of loyalty to Austria at the beginning of the war, and though their franc-tireurs are fighting in the Austrian ranks, there is a growing perception of the fact that the only serious prospect of attaining Polish Unity lies in a Russian victory.  Austria, they argue, might, if successful, unite the Russian and Austrian sections (at the expense of the former’s economic future!), but never the Prussian; and Prussia, out of loyalty to her ally, could at best add Russian Poland to her own territory:  Russia alone can hope, in the event of a victory, to unite all three fragments in a single whole.  However profoundly they may differ on points of detail, all Poles agree that the first essential is the attainment of that unity without which they may at any moment become, as now, the battleground of three great Empires, and which provides the key with which they themselves can unlock the portals of their future destiny.  Should their dream be fulfilled, the valley of the Vistula, restored to geographical unity, may soon play an important part in the political and economic life of Europe.