of Russia, could complain of "the incessant attempts of the cabinet of St. James's to interfere in the relations of Russia with Turkey and Persia," to support, that is, those governments against inroads from the Czar.
So it comes about that, very largely owing to the wealth, the diplomacy, and the arms of England, we are witnesses in our own day of a resurrection of the world outside Europe. South America no longer lies open to the first comer, whether purveying a Monroe doctrine or not. Asia is refusing to be made the mere running track of Christendom. Everywhere the European pathfinder is warned away, finding his trespass barred and prosecution threatened, not so much by a European neighbour as by a local magnate. Europe halts, or has to proceed with infinitely more cautious steps.
The third measure which this country is taking outside Europe, calculated to arrest continental animosities, is cultivation of friendship with the United States, who are now evidently preparing to take a hand in external affairs. This has been one of the main legacies of the last few years of the nineteenth century, for, since 1896 and the Venezuela crisis, when the two countries seemed not far from war, Lord Salisbury steadily laboured for better relations. We have done everything possible, so far. For instance, it had been one of the cardinal axioms of British policy that no first-class power should control the Sound, the
