this will leave a profound effect upon the national consciousness, and
may even bring home for the first time to the people at large the meaning
of political freedom. Russia is so vast, so loose in structure, so
undeveloped in those means of intercommunication such as roads, railways,
newspapers, etc., which make England like a small village-community in
comparison, that it takes the shock of a great war to draw the whole people
together. That it has done so, no one who has read the papers during the
last two months can doubt. War, as a historical fact, has always been
beneficial to Russia; the Crimean War led to the emancipation of the serfs,
the Japanese War led to the establishment of a Duma, and the present war
has already led to surprising results. The consumption of alcohol has been
abolished, concessions have been promised to a reunited Poland, and,
except against the unhappy Jews in the Polish war-area, there has been a
subsidence throughout the Empire of racial antagonism. It is the hope of
all who love Russia, and no one who really knows her can help loving her,
that these beginnings may be crowned not only with victory over Germany in
the field of battle but with victory over the German spirit in the world of
ideas, a victory of which the first-fruits would be the firm establishment
of representative government, a cleansing of the bureaucratic Augean
stables, and a settlement of the problem of subject nationalities upon
lines of justice and moderation.

But whatever the outcome may be, let us in England be fair to Russia.
The road to fairness lies through understanding; and we have grossly
misunderstood Russia because we have not taken the trouble to acquaint
ourselves with the facts, the real facts as distinct from the newspaper
facts, of her situation. When those facts are realised, is it for us to
cast the first stone? Russia needs political reform, the tremendous task
of Peter the Great needs completing, the bureaucracy must be crowned
with representative institutions; but is Russia's need in the sphere of
political reform greater than ours in the sphere of social reform?

Look at our vast miserable slums, our sprawling, ugly, aimless industrial
centres, inhabited by millions who have just enough education to be able to
buy their thinking ready-made through the halfpenny Press and just enough
leisure for a weekly attendance at the local football match and an annual
excursion to Blackpool or Ramsgate; who