played the part, not of a soldier, but of a policeman and executioner. Take another case. The Dissenters have built a chapel of their own, and will not permit the police to close it. The Uniats, converted to orthodoxy in the bishop's reports, and in them alone, continue to go to the Roman Catholic Church. both instances the troops are called out with unavoidable results -a struggle, followed by general knouting, and the billeting of troops on the offenders. In "And the escort duties to Siberia, and the prison guard? What subjects for reflection these must give! What victims of political and religious persecution he may find in his keeping! And the orders of the Government when revolution was expected, and the guards were put under the command of the police? No, gentlemen," continues the writer, "it is not the cunning of revolutionary propagandists that urges us to side with the Revolution; it is the Government itself-the Government which every hour makes its officers, gaolers, executioners, gendarmes, the servants of every swindler. "Every officer entering the service takes an oath of fidelity to the Tzar and the country. But is he pledged to serve the Tzar as representing the country, or to serve the country because it is the property of the Tzar? When the Tzar and the country are at open war, which side should an officer take? If you want to side with the country,' answer the partisans of the inviolability of military discipline, if you want to conspire, quit the service. You are not forced to wear the uniform. You serve by your own wish. Unless you resign your commission you must do what you are paid for.' Yes, and such a step would be quite reasonable did the army consist of officers alone. The malcontents would throw up their commissions, and organise themselves as a revolutionary force. They would give battle to their comrades who remained true to the Government, and the issue would be settled once for all. But the difficulty is that the officers who remain true to the Government will have over a million of soldiers under their orders; over a million of soldiers who are forced to serve, and cannot resign, while the officers who side with the nation will not be allowed to engage soldiers or recruits." I have transcribed these paragraphs because they are an authentic expression of the feelings and ideas of those military conspirators. Nothing could be more suited to give us a better assurance for the future. We may fairly hope that the Russian Revolution, once having begun this way, will proceed in the direction of open insurrection. It is the promptest, the surest,and however energetic it be,-the most human means to get rid of the present abhorrent system. And I know that among Englishmen this new phase of our revolutionary movement will meet with much greater sympathy than the former one. But I prefer to be quite frank. The difficulties Russian revolutionists have to cope with are enormous. With a much stronger tyranny against us than the Italian, whose struggle for liberty was the direst, we have to organise, on the soil of the enemy in a country swarming with spies, what the Italian patriots could prepare on friendly ground. Such work presents incalculable perils and difficulties, and the further the conspiracy extends the greater is the danger of its discovery. The revolutionary organisation which is growing now may incorporate hundreds of the military and thousands of civilians, and this only to be ruthlessly destroyed in its bloom, to rise anew and once more be destroyed; the dreadful test being repeated again and again, before arriving at the glorious and longed-for day of open battle. Now, will the Russian revolutionists persevere in the purely insurrectional way, without wincing or chafing, readjusting again and again the broken thread, unmoved by the enormity of their losses, or by the absence of palpable results? It may be so, but nobody can wager that so it will be. Russian people, though born in an icy country, are very nervous and excitable. The word of "terrorism" was already uttered by the most popular of our clandestine periodicals, and it will be not at all surprising if we hear now and then of violent attempts against the persons of various representatives of the Government. It is a dreadful thing to take in one's own hands to decide the life or death of men whose guilt would be better judged by the country. But it is the greatest injustice to set against Russian patriots as an accusation what is their dire necessity. No man or woman living in political conditions so entirely different from the Russian has a right to condemn them before knowing what these conditions are. And no Russian, however moderate he be, who knows and feels for the wrongs of his country, has condemned them in the past, nor will ever condemn them in the future. Here is poetically epitomised the deeply tragical position of Russians devoted to their country, expressed by the pen of our great novelist, Ivan Turgueneff, in his "verses in prose," under the title, THE THRESHOLD." "I see a huge building, in the front wall a narrow door, which is wide open; beyond it stretches a dismal darkness. Before the high threshold stands a girl . . . a Russian girl. #6 The impenetrable darkness is breathing frost, and with the icy breeze, from the depth of the building a slow, hollow voice is coming. "O you! wanting to cross this threshold, do you know what awaits you?' "I know it,' answers the girl. "Cold, hunger, hatred, derision, contempt, insults, prison, suffering, even death?' "I know it.' "Complete isolation, alienation from all?' "I know it. I am ready. I will bear all sorrow and miseries.' "Not only if inflicted by enemies, but by kindred and friends?' Yes, even by them.' 66 6 6.6 'Well, are you ready for self-sacrifice?' 'Yes.' "For an anonymous self-sacrifice? You shall die, and nobody, nobody shall know even whose memory is to be honoured.' "I want neither gratitude nor pity. I want no name.' "Are you ready . . . for a crime?' "The girl bent her head. 66 6 "The voice paused awhile before renewing its questioning. "Do you know,' said it at last, that you may lose your faith in what you believe now; that you might come to feel that you were mistaken, and have lost in vain your young life?' "I know that also. And, nevertheless, I will enter.' "Enter then!' The girl crossed the threshold, and a heavy curtain fell behind her. "A fool!' gnashed some one outside. "A saint!' answered a voice from somewhere." This vision is not to be found of course in the censured edition of Ivan Turgueneff's work. It appeared in the clandestine press, and Mr. P. Lavroff, to whom "The Threshold" was read by the author in the summer of 1882, at Baujiral, bears testimony to its fidelity to the original. STEPNIAK. (To be continued.) PARTY ORGANISATION THE CURSE OF THE COUNTRY. BY W. EARL HODGSON. "There is no political alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of leaden instincts."-MR. HERBERT SPENCER. IN a political crisis such as that which made the June of this year memorable, those who look below the surface of public bustle, and seek the source of partisan activities, must be shocked into an astonished perception that our social and political organism is seriously disordered. The bustle and the activities, such observers will find, have no direct bearing on their ostensible subject. The factions are not endeavouring to settle what is the best course by which the nation's interests may be promoted. Indeed, it is remarkable that during the whole course of the recent crisis we seldom heard of those interests at all. Just as a fool must now and then be right by chance, the partisan must sometimes be so hard-pressed that he forgets to be disingenuous; and thus we lately witnessed the prejudices and the spites of factions at work in perfect nakedness. It was not an inspiring spectacle. Everything was subordinated to the one engrossing question as to whether it would be in a triumph for Mr. Gladstone or in a triumph for Lord Salisbury that the incident would end. The same unseemly eagerness prevailed even in the higher orders of Conservatism: speculations as to whether the Tory leader would take office invariably revolved on the consideration as to what party advantage or disadvantage would be the result of his doing so. By stepping into the breach without regard to anything but his duty to Queen and country, Lord Salisbury read his followers a valuable lesson. In course of an essay on "Democracy and England," it was lately remarked that "the contest between Mr. Blaine and the President elect" was avowedly fought on no question of public policy, but simply as a duel of personal disparagement." The incident under review was not at all unlike the American affair; and no natural Briton can regard the similarity with indifference. Unless the inspired utterances of the Sclav press were only bombast, events leading up to what must be the most important epoch in our * Lord Norton, in the Nineteenth Century for February 1885. Essay on "Demo cracy and England," p. 336 imperial history had been marching with abnormal activity; but even the problem of India to be kept or lost was insufficient to allay the popular frenzy over the wretched questions that began with the disagreement as to whether the Pot-house Politician was better entitled than the Radical Teetotaler to be conciliated for the sake of his vote. Before it ended, too, the squabble was narrowed down to a still more trivial dissension. Despicable as they both are individually, the Pot-house Politician and the Radical Teetotaler are each of them roughly representative of two large portions of the community, whose relative taxations are necessarily the subject of grave consideration by the country's managers. It is not to the question actually at issue between them that I wish to direct attention; nor would I have the reader think that this article is to any extent a criticism either of Mr. Gladstone or of Lord Salisbury. What I desire to point out is the fact that the two great parties assumed to be conditioned by opposing theories as to how affairs of State might be best administered devoted so much of their energies to the question as to by what means the one could out-trick the other that so far as the masses were concerned the affairs of State were left to administer themselves. Many curious instances of my meaning rise up clamant for citation; but we will go to the fountain-head at once. How, during the bustle, did the masses regard the Throne? Were they filled with anxiety lest ministers, its servants, should fail to discharge their duties towards it aright? Let the advocate-in-chief of the late Government answer. It is thus that that journal adverted to the Queen's absence from Windsor when the government of the country was suspended:-"The practice of dragging the statesmen of the Empire six hundred miles into the wilderness merely because the Sovereign prefers coolness to heat, could not continue without exciting deep popular displeasure"!* Nowadays we are so habituated to thinking of the Monarch as a nonentity that it is probable few will see in those words anything worthy of special note. I propose to show, however, that there must be something radically wrong when as a matter of common-place experience the best Sovereign England ever had is thus insulted because, forsooth, she happened to be taking a well-earned holiday when in a fit of scheming petulance her servants resolved to forward their own adventurous fortunes by throwing her interests into confusion. As I shall hope to show by-and-by, the fever of partisanship that has of late been epidemic through the land is in reality a disease. To a philosopher like Professor Drummond it would afford many interesting symptoms of natural law at work in the moral world. Smitten down with a physical fever, people sometimes in delirium say things that, secret at ordinary times *The Spectator for June 13th, 1885, p. 770. |