to stimulate production and to revive the industries which, under State control, had fallen into decay.

The Bolshevik Government has been compelled to face the fact that four years of Communism in practice has shown a decrease in production in everything except in political agitation, which has increased immeasurably. It has now recognized that discontent has taken hold of every class and that the suppression of private enterprise and of the idea of personal possessions has been responsible for the economic breakdown. With characteristic pliancy the Government is now endeavouring to meet this situation in order to be able better to reach its real and neverchanging goal.

In spite of all contrary opinions and assertions, it is probable that Communism will be able to maintain itself in Russia for long, and that Communistic Imperialism will no more relinquish its expansionist tendencies than did Czarist Imperialism up to almost the last moments of its existence.

The ways and means of attaining these ends are different and the nature of the weapons has changed, for Communism is more adaptable and more subtle in its methods. But a fight to a finish has been declared on the entire " Capitalistic bourgeois " world, and in this fight there never can be, and never will be, any compromise. There will certainly be pauses, as in battle, to regain strength and breath, but any real peace is both theoretically and practically impossible. Economic agreements with the outside-world there can be in fact, there must be, for exhausted and faminestricken Russia needs the rest of the world far more than the rest of the world needs Russia. But beyond such agreements no further rapprochements can be expected while the present order reigns in Moscow.

Though it is against the opinion of the world, it is stated here that at present there are no signs discernible of the fall of that order.

There is in Russia only one organized party-the Communist or Government Party with a wonderfully complete and detailed machine for the control of the country. Organization has enabled a comparatively small body of determined men to maintain itself in power for nearly four years against numerous internal and external enemies.

Since all printing-offices are Government property and only work for the State; since Government institutions alone are empowered to issue the paper on which news can be printed, the Press is limited to Communistic party

organs. The secret police, or Tsche-Ka, with the right to inflict the death penalty at will, are everywhere. If the Moscow Dictatorship had no other power at their disposal than this machinery, the terror it inspires undoubtedly forms an important factor against internal unrest.

Peace is above all the supreme demand in Russia. If the masses have peace and can satisfy their hunger, they will incline to accept their lot, though it may be no very bright one. The Russian, it must be remembered, is modest in his demands. He makes no great claims on life, nor does he ask for any political freedom, for he has never known it.

The few months in 1917 which might have shown signs of his fitness for such freedom have demonstrated clearly to the world that Russia is not "ripe" in the political sense, and that at present it is only an "iron hand" that can govern her.

The knout is again in power.

When the bare necessities" of life are no longer lacking, then contentment will reign again among the "moujiks.

Where it was formerly the "batoushka" Czar who gave the order, it is now the Red Comrade Lenin.

A RECENT RESIDENT IN RUSSIA

A FEW weeks ago I read in the In Memoriam column of the Morning Post a notice in memory of Commander Cromie, R.N., the British naval attaché who was murdered by Bolsheviks in 1918 in Russia, and whose death is so far unavenged. On Wednesday, October 12th, I read in the same column the three following notices:

SMYTH.-In proud and loving memory of two most gallant brothers, BrevetMajor G. Osbert Smyth, R.F.A., murdered October 12, 1920, at Dublin; Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel Gerald Ferguson Smyth, R.E., murdered July 17th, at Cork.

SMYTH.-In loving memory of Brevet-Major G. O. S. Smyth, D.S.O., M.C., R.F.A., shot in Dublin on October 12, 1920..

Ubique quo fas et gloria ducunt "

WHITE. In reverent and sorrowing memory of my adored son, LieutenantColonel Alfred Philip White, D.S.O., two Bars, East Surrey Regiment, late Commander 1/5 South Staffordshire Regiment,

"The Hero of Bellenglise," September 29, 1918,

who was foully murdered when in the Public Service in Dublin, October 12, 1920.

My brave, my noble boy, my pride.

"Blessed are the pure in heart:

For they shall see God."-St. Matt. v. 8.

-MOTHER.

On an inner page of the same issue (page 7, column 6) I read of the laurel wreath that had been placed at the base of the Cenotaph in Whitehall-a short hundred yards from No. 10 Downing Street-bearing the following inscription:

"I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain, and they cried with a loud voice, saying: 'How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 22

2

And then, on the evening of that same Wednesday, I read, in the bright luminary of the Cocoa Press, the Star

(October 12th, page 1, column 6), an article by their "Political Correspondent " headed "Premier's Tea Party," with a sub-head "Cigars of Peace.' It told me how, after the first meeting of the Peace Palaver was over, "the Premier genially asked the Irishmen, as well as his own colleagues, to stay for tea"; and then, after a puff laudatory for one of the Premier's servants, it went on, under the cross-head " Cigars all Round":

The Irish visitors made themselves at home, and for twenty minutes the tea party proceeded not only without formality of any kind but with the utmost cordiality.

Conversation was general, and although smoking is not permitted during Cabinet meetings, the Premier handed cigars all round and the whole company "lit up."

There was no question about the "hospitality of the British Government." The little diversion was a personal gesture of the Prime Minister, and was appreciated by the Sinn Feiners as such.

PREMIER AND MICHAEL.

The Premier and Michael Collins appeared to strike sympathetic chords, a fact which was pleasantly apparent to everybody in the room.

What a delightful picture-the King's Ministers and the murderers of the King's servants smoking the pipe of peace cheek by jowl! It only wanted the presence of Lenin, Trotsky-Bronstein, Litvinoff-Finkelstein and a few of the Bolshevik-Jew assassins of Commander Cromie to make the party complete!

Though in these post-war days one should not wonder at anything our wonderful Government does, a Georgianat any rate a Lloyd-Georgian-Minister being, like the père de famille, "capable de tout," I could not help feeling a mild surprise in regard to two points when I read the pleasing story of this love-feast. We know that Mr. George is a pious soul who knows his Bible well, for he is fond of quoting Scripture, more particularly when he is among his own "Welsh hills" and wants a good stirring peroration to wind up a speech to a chapel-going audience. And so I wondered if he had quite forgotten two texts from the Bible-one that speaks of "innocent blood crying out from the ground," and another (from Revelation) Without are dogs and murderers."

A moment's consideration, however, has convinced me that I have really no grounds for wonder or amazement. We can always trust our beloved Premier to run true to form. With him it is simply a case of case of "the dog has returned to his vomit." Those who are eager to clasp the

hand of the Bolshevik Jew who murders by the million can have no qualms in embracing Sinn Feiners, who, so far, have only been able to murder by the hundred.

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There is another wonder, however, that will not down, and that is that among those who stayed to break bread in this company was Mr. Winston Churchill. Now we know that for nearly three years past His Majesty's Ministers have eaten dirt as their steady diet and seem to thrive on it, but we do remember that, almost alone in the Cabinet, Mr. Churchill made a spirited and statesmanlike protest against the recognition by this country of the Bolshevik murderers of Moscow as the Government of Russia. We remember, too, that as a young man Mr. Churchill held the King's commission and wore the King's coat on his back. Before he was a Cabinet Minister he was an officer and a gentleman." Accustomed as we are to seeing the King's soldiers betrayed to their death by Politicians, we cannot think without a shudder of treachery against our soldiers by one who has himself served in the British Army, for treachery of the blackest is this ghastly farce of a Peace Palaver that is giving De Valera, the gallant Mexican Jew, the very thing he wants, time-time to raise, arm and train new forces and yet further to consolidate his grip on Ireland. But there is another and more cogent reason why Mr. Churchill should hesitate to sit at meat with Collins and his fellow-assassins. For a short-a very short-time during the late war Mr. Churchill served in France, and for the greater part of that short period he commanded a battalion-the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliersin the same Division-the famous 9th (Scottish) Divisionas that very noble gentleman and gallant soldier LieutenantColonel G. F. Smyth, D.S.O., one of the two brave brothers whose murders are recorded in the In Memoriam notice at the beginning of this article. Gerald Smyth was foully done to death in cold blood on July 17, 1920, in the County Club, Cork, by a dozen bravoes of the I.R.A., and when those heroes reported their exploit to their superior officer, Mike Collins, who was then on the run," that worthy is reported to have congratulated them with, "Well done, boys! Sure, 'twas a great piece of work, bumping off that bastard!"

Smyth's was a name to conjure with in the 9th Division, where he first commanded the 90th Field Company, Royal Engineers, and then, from October 1916 till he got a Brigade in October 1918, the 6th King's Own Scottish Borderers, which replaced Mr. Churchill's battalion, the