= Ma the resolute heart. For the old policy of waiting and seeing there is not a word to be said. British citizens have been foully murdered, and no vengeance has been taken. There is the central fact of our dishonour. The country which once was ready to go to war for Don Pacifico condones by its inaction the killing of Captain Cromie, a zealous gentleman who had served England well. It is not thus that a great name is established among the peoples of Europe. And even if our honour may be tarnished with impunity, prudence should have urged an instant intervention. Bolshevism spreads, as we have said, like an epidemio. Vires acquirit eundo. Day by day its menace comes nearer to us. It has swept over Hungary; it has stirred Bavaria into lawlessness; and Prussia, which begot it, as it begot most of the evils which distress our unhappy world, is ready to turn it to practical use. The longer it is allowed to flourish unchecked, the greater the armies that will be necessary to suppress it. Suppressed it must be, or civilisation will perish. It is a difficult thing to fight against what Burke called an "armed opinion," and Bolshevism is an "armed opinion." And our sentimental politicians have been ready not to fight against it but to treat with it. Had they turned back to the teachings of history, they would have been shamed into VOL. CCV.-NO MCCXLIII. taking up arms. We do not speak of such flippant personages as the conductors of 'The Daily Herald,' who in the first place deny that many murders have been committed in Russia, and then applaud the moderate (and lying) estimate of the Soviet Government as "the price of freedom." Freedom indeed! We would that we could pack Mr Lansbury, Mr Shaw, and Mr Ramsay Macdonald off to Russia, that these frivolous and well-advertised demagogues might discover what Russian freedom means. They would find out all that they want to know in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. We speak of the representatives of the great powers who conferred together in Paris, of Mr Lloyd George and Mr Wilson. These men, not having learned the rudiments of statesmanship, thought it would be popular to confer with the blood-stained assassins. They proposed a pleasant meeting at Prinkipo, where Russian gentlemen were to sit round a table with the murderers who had done their Tsar to death. The table would have been covered, we imagine, with blood-red baize, blood-red to match the colour of their master, Lenin's thoughts. And when their attempt to arrange this happy excursion failed, they sent a parcel of bleating journalists to Petrograd, who should bring the murderers and the politicians together. By hook or by crook they meant to come to terms with crime, and they used the same 3 B words which Burke put into may demand half a million. the mouths of the Allies, eager And remember, the work will to make peace with the mur. have to be done sooner or derers of Louis XVI. "Citizen later, or the tradition of a Regicides"-thus they are sup- gracious life will be utterly posed to address the sanguin- destroyed. That it will fall ary tyrant Carnot and his col- to France and England to do leagues-" whenever you find what is necessary there can be yourselves in the humour, you no doubt. America, which has may have a peace with us. too busily interfered in the That is a point you may al- making of Europe's peace, ways command. We are con- loudly disclaims responsibility stantly in attendance, and for Europe's troubles, and the nothing you can do shall duty of ourselves and of our hinder us from the renewal of faithful allies is plain to see: our supplications. You may we must combat with arms turn us out at the door; but the pernicious opinion, and we will jump in at the free Russia and Europe from window." And Lenin smiles, the worst tyranny of allas he sees his cold doctrine of the tyranny of untrammelled extermination march triumph- "liberty." antly east and west. "armed The overlooking of this duty To oppose this has the less excuse, because opinion" is more emphatically from the past we may learn our duty to-day than it was in the danger of the present. the time of the French Revol- Revolution, as we have said, ution. We are without the follows always the same defence of strong and wise course. That which devasGovernments. We live in a tated France in the eighteenth world wherein universal suf- century differs only in detail frage is esteemed a benefit, not from that which has reduced a ourse. We have subsoribed Russia from the position of a piously to the vile doctrine loyal ally to that of a pestilent that it is noble to shout with enemy. The domination of the the biggest crowd. And what Jew makes the present upif the biggest crowd be Bol- heaval more dangerous than shevist, and cry aloud for the any which preceded it, though shedding of better blood than there was a Hebrew element its own? The doctrine of uni- also in the Terror, for Jews versal murder will be speedily always fish in troubled waters. learned, and we shall witness And the French revolutionaries massacres in every capital. did their own foul work themEach month that passes adds selves. They did not enrol to the difficulty which con- mercenary Letts and Chinafronts us. Once fifty thou- men. For the rest there is sand men would have not much to choose between done the salutary work of them. Perhaps Russia has scavenging, which presently not thrown up any villains 1919.] Parallel of French Revolutionaries and Bolsheviks. so great as Carrier, who de- or the unspeakable Joseph Lebon, who turned Arras into a shambles. In the competition of infamy we need not award the prize. But if you desire an account of the happenings in Russia-an account which will match the White Book in accuracy turn to Burke's 'Letters on a Regicide Peace,' or Arthur Young's "The Example of France: A Warning to Britain,' and you will find it. You are asked to do nothing but change the names, and then you will see, rhetorically expressed, the same opinions as prevail in Russia to-day, you will mark the same crimes and the same blatant exouses for them. Take, for instance, this admirable summary of Arthur Young: "Her government an anarchy, that values neither life nor property. Her agriculture fast sinking, her farmers the slaves of all, and her people starving. Her manufactures annihilated: her commerce destroyed.. . . Her gold and silver disappeared, and her paper so depreciated, by its enormous amount of 3000 millions, besides incredible forgeries, that it advances, with rapid strides, to the entire stagnation of every species of industry and circulation. . . . Her cities scenes of revolt, massaere, and famine; and her provinces plundered by gangs of banditti." Is it France, of which he speaks, or Russia? In all respects the parallel is complete, and we 723 may measure what Russia will do by what we know that France did. The self-same ambition of dominating the world and foroing a universal acceptance of their views inspires the Bolsheviks and inspired the French revolutionaries. They were and are proselytisers all. We know what it is that Lenin has set out to do. Now hear Camille Desmoulins: "To create the French republic; to disorganise Europe, perhaps to purge it of its tyrants, by the eruption of the volcanic prinoiples of equality, . . . such was the sublime vocation of the Convention." There is no difference between them either of purpose or expression. They use the same phrases and befog their minds with the same false philosophy. The French revolution was profoundly influenced by the shot rubbish of Rousseau's obscene mind. The Russian revolution was perplexed by the futile doctrines of Bakumin. And as French and Russians thought the same thoughts and sought the same ends, they employed the same system. They had an equally blind faith in committees. Whatever was done was approved by a committee of some sort. There have been, either then or now, committees of defence, committees of watchfulness, revolutionary committees, committees of workmen and soldiers, and no good came of any of them. Camille Desmoulins, greatly daring, proposed a committee of mercy, we surprised to be told that at Koloman a boy aged 18, appointed commissioner and in charge of all the teachers, closed the school for a whole week because one of the masters gave a boy a bad mark. Here, in truth, is democracy carried to its logical conclusion. The boys, being more numerous than the masters, obviously have the right of control. That is in accordanee with the pure gospel. Yet we cannot but ask, Who shall control the boys? Quis custodes custodiet? and lost his head for his like a bear-garden." As little effrontery. And for some strange unfathomed reason committees are but bloodthirsty contrivances. When one or two revolutionaries are gathered together, they are intent upon the death of this man or that. They are worse in the mass even than they are one by one. The mildest of them, if any be mild, does not like to be left behind in the race for outrage. He casts his vote He casts his vote for slaughter, in fear also lest he himself should be asked to dance upon the end of a rope. In brief, in times of disturbance committees have a vast deal to answer for. And nowhere have they been so various and so frequently called together as in Russia. The word soviet will never lose its sinister meaning. Even schools cannot escape the plague, and a teacher from Moscow has given us an account which reduces the system to an absurdity. "Each "Each class has its committee," says he, "and as a rule the most popular boy is chosen to represent the others at the masters' meetings. The objects of the committees are-(1) To control the masters; (2) to arrange about the distribution of food, all the boys and girls being given a midday meal. This is, as a matter of fact, the only reason why they go to school." After this, we are not surprised to hear that "boys and girls are herded together, that there is no semblance of morality," and that "the classes are simply History teaches us, moreover, that a revolution can end only in a despotism, France never would have regained peace and her honour had not Napoleon come along to clear up the poor relics of the Jacobinism which he hated and despised. And if sanity is ever restored to Russia, she, too, must discover a despot. All government is in the nature of a superstition, and the superstition is deeper and in a higher degree necessary when the country gov erned is, like Russia, vast and simple. Millions of peasants, helpless and illiterate, oan be happy only in obedience and in an act of worship. Whatever the faults of the Tsar may have been-and they were venial compared with the orimes of Lenin and Trotskyhe was a true father of his people. In paying him homage the Russians had their best chance of real freedom; and though a Romanoff may not many years of fierce and desperate warfare. A peace commensurate with our sacrifices, or worthy of the men who fell for their country, would be too much to look for from our politicians, But at least the worst piece of hypocrisy which threatened our security-the League of Nations-seems doomed to be of no effect. It is reduced to the position of a play thing for Mr Wilson. For, though it is still as dangerous as its supporters dare to make it, though it aims at stripping honest self-respecting States of their sovereignty, it contains from the start the seeds of dissolution and death. new draft of the precious covenant contains one clause which will make it for ever ridiculous. The Covenant," thus runs the clause, "does not affect the validity of in The sit again upon the throne of Russia, none but an autocrat can undo the baleful work of the Bolsheviks. It is impossible for the Russian peasants to regard with superstitious awe a pack of bloodthirsty Jews who are intent upon filling their own pockets. A nation cannot live for ever upon starvation and the vain hopes fostered by a false idealism. And if an end be not put now to Bolshevism and all its works, a despot will surely arise to save the last remnants of the people. But at what a cost to us! A despot thrives best upon military adventure. The success of Napoleon cost Europe more than twenty years of bloodshed, and if Russia be permitted to follow the beaten road of revolution, this generation will not see peace. To a Russia united under a single soldier, all things might be possible. ternational engagements such We might be called upon to save Western civilisation from the incursion of unnumbered and well-drilled hordes. It might be our duty to defend India against the resuscitated Slav. Only one policy, then, That the Americans should is consistent with our honour safeguard what they deem their or our safety, and that is to own just policy is very right destroy Bolshevism before it and proper. But consider what has gathered greater strength. is the meaning of this fortuThe difficulty of this enter- nate clause. It nullifies by its prise to a tired country is large reserve the very existence great, but it must be faced. of the League and Covenant. If we do not face it, we If America marks out a proshall be branded with the vince of discussion which may shame of Captain Cromie's not be entered upon by the unavenged death, and we other powers, the lop-sided shall be compelled to substi- agreement becomes perforce a tute for a single campaign dead letter. Either we must as treaties of arbitration or regional understandings like the Monroe Doctrine, for securing the maintenance of peace." In this clause shines the salvation of Europe. |