The position in Russia is one of extreme political difficulty, which the convenience of the revolution for us and for the French Republic, intolerably compromised as we were morally by the obsolete tyranny of the Tsardom, must not lead us to underrate. A war cannot be carried on by a weak or divided Government; and an undivided Government means a party Government: that is, one that puts its own existence and cohesion above all other considerations, opposing all suggestions, good or evil, except on condition that it carries them out itself. This system was imposed on us by William III as necessary to success in his struggle with Louis XIV; and when Marlborough, not understanding it (like most of us today), attempted to drop it, he was forced back to it by the pressure of the same war. The point of it was, not in the least that men differ in opinion, and that the struggle between the Progressive and Conservative will always exist, but that the Cabinet must consist exclusively of sound party Tories or exclusively of sound party Whigs: the definition of a sound party man being one who places the retention of office by his party above all other considerations, political, moral, social, religious, or even personal.

This system is obviously a very questionable one both politically and morally. Like many other necessities of war, it is an abuse in peace; and outside the amateurs of the party game nine out of ten Englishmen, if asked whether King George should not be as free as Charles II to call on the best men to form his Government, irrespective of party, would unhesitatingly reply in the affirmative. Some of us would learn for the first time that such a course would violate the theory

of party government as well as its practice. Most of us would point out that we are at present governed by a coalition. But the coalition is itself a product of the very pressure that forced William III and Marlborough to abandon eclectic Cabinets. When the war came, it broke Mr. Asquith's Cabinet in two pieces, one of which split off at once by flat resignation, leaving the other in an anything but solid condition. The result was that Mr. Asquith was forced to take a step which in any less grave emergency would have taken away the breath of every political moralist. Finding, as William and Marlborough found, that without a solid majority for the war in the House, supporting a war Cabinet through thick and thin, the resolute prosecution of the war was impossible, he made a secret compact with the Opposition by which, in consideration of its supporting him in the event of too large a part of his own left wing deserting him, he agreed to drop during the war all legislation as to which the two parties were at issue. I invite the most thoughtful attention of the Russian leaders to the fact that this transaction, which at any other time would have placed Mr. Asquith in the position of a Minister who had secretly sold his party's principles and betrayed his followers in order to maintain himself in power, was accepted on all hands as inevitable and correct when it was disclosed some months later by Mr. Bonar Law in order to force Mr. Asquith to share the spoils of office with his Unionist supporters. A year earlier the scandal would have been as great as if General French had shot General Hindenburg, and picked the Kaiser's pocket. Under the pressure of war it was considered that Mr. Asquith was as fully entitled to do

it for the sake of defeating Germany as General French to fire as many cannons as he could find shells for at General Hindenburg, or General Smuts to seize the German colonies in Africa. The strain set up on the Liberal conscience would have wrecked any Government in peace. But the solidifying effect on the Government of the common danger produced by war was such that Mr. Asquith never found it necessary even to justify his action. He took it as a matter of course; and it was accepted both in Parliament and out exactly as he took it.

Accordingly we draw the moral that for Russia as for us a united omnipotent Government is a necessity in war. But this can be turned the opposite way with equal effect. If it be true that to win a war you must have a united omnipotent Government, it is no less true under present circumstances that if you want a united omnipotent Government you must have a war. We had that axiom in the eighteenth century from Russia on the authority of Catherine II: we had it in the nineteenth century from France on the authority of Napoleon III: in England we know it so well that no Englishman ever mentions it. And its present application is that if the Russian Revolution is to be saved from reaction, and the Russian Republic from disruption by the discontent of the working class and the diversity of the ideals of its own reformers, the revolutionary Government must fortify itself by a war, precisely as the French revolutionary Government had to. If there were no war it would have to make

one.

By a stroke of luck so fortunate that few good Churchmen will hesitate to describe it as Providential, the Russian leaders are spared the horrible necessity of cynically making war to save their country. The war is ready made

for them, largely by the folly of their discarded rulers; and the revolution has transformed it from a dynastic Pan-Slav war to a crusade for liberty and equality throughout the world. Yesterday the kings of the earth rose up and their rulers took counsel together against the Lord and His anointed. Today the democrats of the earth rise up and their leaders take counsel together against the kings; and in this holy war lies the salvation of Russia from anarchy. In England, in France, and in Italy we shout, not very convincingly, nothing is more to be dreaded than peace. But in Russia it is plain to every intelligent politician that peace is impossible, because peace with the foreign foe would let loose a civil war which, failing a Napoleon or Cromwell to establish a military dictatorship, might end in a White Terror and a few more disastrous years of Romanoff Tsarism.

that

Therefore if I were a Russian statesman I should say to my countrymen: "Do not fight one another: fight the Hohenzollern." There is a time for the ideals of Tolstoy; but today is the time for the warning of that still harder-headed genius Ibsen, which warning is that you keep far from the primrose path of ideals and look to your real welfare. For good or evil, the world has again committed itself to the ordeal of blood and iron; and though nobody with any brains worth talking about would have done such a thing, yet now it is done the result will depend on the quantity and quality of brain that can be brought to bear on the blood and iron. The revolution needs to be as crafty as Bismarck, and as free from idealistic illusions as Ibsen, if it is to weather such a storm. I do not ask the Russian leaders to trust us or any of the Allies; our history is not so disinterested as to give me the right

to make any such demand. I say, simply: Russians, look to your own interests, and you will find that they point even more emphatically than ours to pushing the war, even for the very sake of war, more resolutely than any dynasty. For the revolution has its back to the wall: it is the emperors who now seek peace.

Thus, whatever the Councils of Workmen and Soldiers may imagine, there is far more danger of the Russian revolutionary Government refusing to make peace when the moment comes for the rest of the Allies to consent to it than of its throwing away the

The Manchester Guardian.

German terror which is serving it so well at present. M. Ribot, in his dread of a Russian-made peace-a dread caught from us which may be called English measles-is forcing an open door.

The new régime in Russia will not be safely seated, for many a long day yet; and, until it is, the choice for it will be between war and Tsar, between military discipline and anarchy. If it does not choose war it will be very different from all previous successful revolutions in which the State power has passed to men not born and trained to govern.

Bernard Shaw.

On the day that I left hospital, with a month's sick leave in hand, I went to dine at my favorite Soho restaurant, the Mazarin, which I always liked because it provided an excellent meal for an extremely modest sum. But this evening my steps turned towards the old place because I wanted a word with Monsieur Joseph, the headwaiter.

I found him the same genial soul as ever, though a shade stouter perhaps and grayer at the temples, and I flatter myself that it was with a smile of genuine pleasure that he led me to my old table in a corner of the

room.

When the crowd of diners had thinned he came to me for a chat.

"It is indeed a pleasure to see M'sieur after so long a time," said he, "for, alas, there are so many others of our old clients who will not ever return."

I told him that I too was glad to be sitting in the comparative quiet of the Mazarin, and asked him how he fared.

Joseph smiled. "I 'ave a surprise for M'sieur," he said "yes, a great surprise. There are ten, fifteen years

that I work in thees place, and in four more weeks le patron will retire and I become the proprietor. Oh, it is bee-utiful," he continued, clasping his hands rapturously, "to think that in so leetle time I, who came to London a poor waiter, shall be patron of one of its finest restaurants."

I offered him my warmest congratulations. If ever a man deserved success it was he, and it was good to see the look of pleasure on his face as I told him so.

"And now," said I presently, "I also have a surprise for you, Joseph."

He laughed. "Eh bien, M'sieur, it is your turn to take my breath away."

"My last billet in France, before being wounded," I told him, "was in a Picardy village called Fléchinelle."

He raised his hands. "Mon Dieu," he cried, "it is my own village""

"More than that," I continued, "for nearly six weeks I lodged just behind the church, in a whitewashed cottage with a stock of oranges, pipes and boot-laces for sale in the window." "It is my mother's shop!" he exclaimed breathlessly.

I nodded my head, and then proceeded to give him the hundred-andone messages that I had received from the little old lady as soon as she discovered that I knew her son.

"It is so long since I 'ave seen 'er," said Monsieur Joseph, blowing his nose violently. "So 'ard I work in London these ten, fifteen years that only once have I gone 'ome since my father died."

Then I told him how bent and old his mother was, and how lonesome she had seemed all by herself in the cottage, and as I spoke of the shop which she still kept going in her front-room the tears fairly rained down his face.

"But, M'sieur," said he, "that which you tell me is indeed strange; for those letters which she writes to me week by week are always gay, and it 'as seemed to me that my mother was well content."

Then he struck his fist on the table. "I 'ave it," he said. "She shall come to live 'ere with me in Londres. All that she desires shall be 'ers, for am I not a rich man?"

I shook my head. "She would never leave her village now," I told him. "And I know well that she desires nothing in the world except to see you again."

Then as I rose to go, "Good night, M'sieur," said Joseph a little sadly. "Be very sure that there is always a welcome for you 'ere."

The next time that I dined at the Mazarin was some four weeks later, on the eve of my return to the Front. A strange waiter showed me to my

Punch.

place, and Joseph was nowhere to be seen. Indeed a wholly different air seemed to pervade the place since my last visit. Presently I beckoned to a waiter whom I recognized as having served under the old régime. "Where is Monsieur Joseph?" I asked him.

"Where indeed, Sir!" the man replied. "It is all so strange. One day it is arranged that he shall take over the restaurant and its staff, and on the next he come to say 'Good-bye' to us all, and then leave for France. Oh, it is drôle. So good a business man to lose the chance that comes once only in a life! He is too old to fight. Yet who knows? Maybe he heard of something better out there..."

As the man spoke the gold-andwhite walls of the restaurant faded, the clatter of plates and dishes died away, and I was back again in a tiny village shop in Picardy. Across the counter, packed with its curious stock, I saw Monsieur Joseph, with shirtsleeves rolled up, gravely handing a stick of chocolate to a child, and taking its sou in return. In the diminutive kitchen behind sat a little whitehaired old lady with such a look of content on her face as I have rarely

seen.

Then suddenly I found myself back again in the London restaurant.

"Yes," I said to the waiter, "it is possible, as you say, that Monsieur Joseph heard of something better in France."

And raising my glass I drank a silent toast.

No one who has lived in London through the various air raids can any longer believe the platitudinous pretension that human fear can only be

held in check by discipline and duty. Excitement, curiosity, sheer irresponsibility, the mysterious attraction of risk, the mysterious desire to

get to the center (to be "in it"), and the off-chance of being useful are each sufficient to overcome fear in the Cockney. The Londoner may call out for official protection, but he will not take common precautions. The authorities complain that if warning be given, it will be regarded as a signal to rush into the streets, see what can be seen, increase one's experience, add to one's memories, and have a tale to tell when it is over. Now it cannot be denied that there is a side to all this light-hearted pluck with which we have no special need to be pleased. On the other hand, how terribly ashamed we should be if it were otherwise-if the hostile aeroplanes could drive us all to our holes, empty the streets, and lead every man, woman, and child to take the precautions which it is the duty of all officials to scold and persuade them into. This light-hearted courage of the public must sometimes, we think, seem to those upon whom the fearful thunderbolt has fallen-those who have seen the shattered bodies of their children carried out from the débris of a ruined school-as callousness.

Common courage, the sort untinged by conscious sacrifice, has in it such a streak. There is so little refined gold in human nature. It glitters in the quartz. We must not expect to find it in the lump. Complete sympathy and careless courage are found in great natures only; but it must be remembered that the coward's sympathy is useless, even where it exists. Anyhow, there are vast numbers to whom the excitement of a new danger would appear pleasureable, and many others whose ordinary composure it is powerless to ruffle.

During the raid which took place on June 13th a young Lieutenant standing on one of the bridges read a motoring paper in the intervals of looking out for the raiders and listen

ing to the explosions. Women with babies in perambulators charged along the pavement apparently as merry as their infants, just as we have all seen nurses at the seaside run to avoid a big wave, and as though a wetting, not destruction, was what the roaring noise portended. Stout old gentlemen as well as boys climbed on to a wall to see what they could, instead of taking cover. "Hardly safe in the streets now!" said a workman, in a tone of something like exultation, in a 'bus, listening with a face of cheerful interest to the quick-traveling news which explained the thundery noise he had been describing. He was an elderly man, and seemed to feel that now he was "in it" like the youngest of them almost at the front as it were. A very real, if hardly conscious, desire to share the troubles of the soldiers lies very near the spring of this feeling, which is not, however, unconnected with the alert determination of the Londoner not to be bored, to enjoy whatever variety life sends him, even though it be the risk of death. We do not want to be grudging of praise, but we should fall into the danger of sentimentality if we regarded this state of feeling as wholly new or wholly fine. It is partly new and partly laudable, but something of the same kind caused our grandfathers to attend executions.

Another fact strikes us as bearing upon the fearless attitude towards raids which is betrayed in the streets. Deep interest in a scientific novelty plays its part, especially among mature people. Even righteous rage is for the moment masked by it. The ignorant share to a great extent the timespirit of the instructed. They know nothing about science, but they are fascinated, just as the scientific men are fascinated, by all mechanical means of defying what seemed the laws of Nature. Miracles may be over,