s burst out with a bitter
laugh--

"'The Emperor! You may be quite sure the Emperor does not know what goes
on, or we should not be here a day longer.'"

The people are wholly loyal, and regard their ruler as embodying a
government which is in their own interests as being his children. There
can be no doubt that this is the feeling throughout the empire, however
difficult it may be for some classes in our community to believe it.

For instance, as it has been pointed out,[11] "When not long ago in the
House of Commons it was debated whether or no the King should pay a
visit to the Emperor of Russia, and some one suggested that were the
visit to be cancelled the immense majority of the Russian people would
regard it as an insult, and that the Russian peasants bore no ill-will
towards the Emperor, but rather complained of the results of a system of
government which in the last few years has undergone, and is still
undergoing, radical change." When such arguments were brought forward
some of the Labour Members nearly burst with ironical cheers. Here, they
thought, was the voice of officialdom, Torydom, and hypocrisy speaking.
Now turn to the facts. When Professor Kovolievski was elected a member
of the first Duma in the government of Karkov as an advanced Liberal
Member, he, after his election, asked some of his peasant electors
whether he was not right in supposing that had he said anything
offensive with regard to the Emperor at his meetings there would have
been no applause.

"'We should not only have not applauded,' was the answer, 'but we should
have beaten you to death.'"

There is nothing of the merely sentimental in this feeling that their
government is, and ought to be, paternal in its character. Every Russian
peasant drinks it in from the first, for he gets his training in the
_Mir_ of his native village. It is there he learns what family and
social rule really mean, and they are identical. His home is ruled by
his father, the village by the elder; and everything is as
constitutional and as democratic as it can be, or is anywhere else in
the world. The children have their rights, but look up to and obey their
father. They are free and responsible in village life, but yield to
their elders. It is natural, therefore, and no other view is even
possible, for men brought up in such surroundings to look outside the
village and regard the State as a whole in the same way. There too they
feel that they have full ri