As this important line has now been completed, and other strategic lines are in contemplation, the question arises whether Russia meditates an attack on India.  It is a question which is not easily answered.  No doubt there are many Russians who think it would be a grand thing to annex our Indian Empire, with its teeming millions and its imaginary fabulous treasures, and not a few young officers imagine that it would be an easy task.  Further, it is certain that the problem of an invasion has been studied by the Headquarters Staff in St. Petersburg, just as the problem of an invasion of England has been studied by the Headquarters Staff in Berlin.  It may be pretty safely asserted, however, that the idea of a conquest of India has never been seriously entertained in the Russian official world.  What has been seriously entertained, not only in the official world, but by the Government itself, is the idea—­strongly recommended by the late General Skobelef—­that Russia should, as quickly as possible, get within striking distance of our Indian possessions, so that she may always be able to bring strong diplomatic pressure on the British Government, and in the event of a conflict immobilise a large part of the British army.

The expansive tendency in the direction of the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean was considerably weakened by the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the rapid development of an aggressive policy in the Far east.  Never, perhaps, has the construction of a single line produced such deep and lasting changes in the sphere of Weltpolitik.

As soon as the Trans-Siberian was being rapidly constructed a magnificent prospect opened up to the gaze of imaginative politicians in St. Petersburg.  The foreground was Manchuria a region of 364,000 square miles, endowed by nature with enormous mineral resources, and presenting a splendid field for agricultural colonisation and commercial enterprise.  Beyond was seen Korea, geographically an appendix of Manchuria, possessing splendid harbours, and occupied by an effete, unwarlike population, wholly incapable of resisting a European Power.  That was quite enough to inflame the imagination of patriotic Russians; but there was something more, dimly perceived in the background.  Once in possession of Manchuria, supplied with a network of railways, Russia would dominate Peking and the whole of Northern China, and she would thus be able to play a decisive part in the approaching struggle of the European Powers for the Far-Eastern Sick Man’s inheritance.

Of course there were obstacles in the way of realising this grandiose scheme, and there were some cool heads in St. Petersburg who were not slow to point them out.  In the first place the undertaking must be extremely costly, and the economic condition of Russia proper was not such as to justify the expenditure of an enormous capital which must be for many years unproductive.  Any superfluous capital which the