CHAPTER XII
Our Countrymen in the Empire
“There are no two powers in the world—and there have been no other two in history—more distinct in character, less conflicting in interests, and more naturally adapted for mutual agreement and support than are Britain and Russia.”
It is in the full endorsement of these carefully-weighed statements, from a most experienced authority, that I wish to write this last chapter. Looking back upon the past to the days of Ivan the Terrible and Queen Elizabeth, and reviewing the situation in the Russian Empire to-day, and, above all, looking forward to our immediate future, it seems to me that our countrymen in Russia have had a real mission to fulfil, and have done it worthily and well.
They have, from the first, prepared the ground for what has come up for a great decision to-day, our splendid opportunity of having Russia for a friend. And they have not done it by working and planning, still less by scheming for it, but, just as we should wish our countrymen to extend our influence the world over, by being honestly and consistently true to their own nationality, and worthily representing British traditions and ideals.
There is one testimony, if I may venture without undue complacency to give it, to the estimation in which our nationality is held, which does not suggest that we are really considered, even by those who have of late so often glibly said it, to be degenerate and decadent and not fit to hold the possessions we have, or shape the destinies of the many peoples who own our rule. I have never met any one yet, of another nationality, who did not think it a compliment to be mistaken for an Englishman. It is not often that one can make such a mistake, but I have met Dutchmen and Germans, and Russians also, who just for a moment or two, from dress, expression, or speech have made one feel that they were fellow countrymen. Young Russians especially, though different in physique, for often they are built on huge lines and are enormously strong, after receiving an English education from a very early age, wearing English dress, being pleased to meet us, may easily be considered to be English; and I doubt if there are amongst them any who would not feel it a compliment to be so considered, while they would resent the same mistake being made with regard to any other nationality.
Englishmen, therefore, it will be admitted, have kept up the standard in Russia, and not let down the good name of their own country. When I was visiting the Troitsk Gold Mine, in 1912—a little short of three days’ and three nights’ journey, on the other side of Moscow—to spend Sunday and give them their first English services, the surveyor, when showing me over the mine and its workings on the Monday, told me that those large illustrated almanacks which we have, with a picture in the middle and information about Church and parish round the sides, and which are so often seen on the walls of the houses of our own working-classes, are also very popular amongst their own work-people.
“They are got up in the Russian style, of course,” he said, “with a Russian illustration, and so on; but you will be interested to hear that a great part of the paragraphs round it is given up to describing English ways and ideas, societies and arrangements, and always with appreciation and approval.”
It must ever be remembered that people who cannot leave their own country must judge largely of other countries by what they see of those who come from them. If English ideas, manners, and customs are held in favour and esteem in Russia and Siberia it can only be, therefore, because English men and women have worthily represented them there in business and commerce, by upright and moral conduct.
It does not usually fall to the lot of a bishop in these days, many-sided as are his sympathies, and various as are the claims made upon his time and attention, to see much of actual business and commercial life, nor have I seen much of the working of factories and workshops in the other countries in our jurisdiction; but in Russia and Siberia one of the most important parts of a visitation has been the going amongst the members of a staff while they were actually at work so as to get to really know them and their daily lives.