Review of Heriexcs; 20J2/06. 



History of the Month. 



121 



the arrest and execution of redhanded revolutionists. 

 It would be as foolish to condemn the men of the 

 " Movement " as it would be to criticise seriously 

 the delirious ravings of the inmates of a fever ward. 

 What Lowell said about the French Revolution is 

 equally applicable to the " Movement " in Russia : — 



As flake by flake the beetling avalanches 



Build up their imminent crags of noiseless snow. 



Till some chance thrill the loosened ruin launches. 



And the blind havoc leaps unwarned below. 



So grew and gathered through the silent years 



The madness of the people. 



It is •" the madness of_ a people ' that we are 

 witnessing in Russia. We should not forget that we 

 have seen the same thing in England when Jack 

 Cade came to Cannon Street in Henry the Sixth's 

 reign. Shakespeare has immortalised his famous 

 decrees. The Russian Revolution is Jack Cade 

 redivivus in the twentieth century. Demos Tyrannus 

 is an apt pupil of the autocracy against which he is 

 in revolt, and it will go hard with him, but he will 

 better the instruction of his despots. 



In the midst of the Cimmerian 



Glimmerings of darkness there are faint glimmer- 



Lii,ht. ings of light. To begin with, the 



Tsar stands firm and refuses to 

 budge from his Liberal programme, despite all the 

 horrors of anarchy. Count Witte is still in his seat. 

 The elections for the Douma are to be pressed on 

 with all speed. Petersburg refused to rise. The 

 organisers of armed revolt are under lock and key, 

 and the manufacturers of bombs are blowing them- 

 selves up so often by accident that the habit of 

 carrying high explosives in your coat-tail pocket is 

 likely to go out of fashion. In time it is to be 

 hoped that the saner Liberals will recover their 

 sens* s sufficiently to recognise that the whole statute 

 book cannot be revolutionised in a month, and that 

 the one hope of civilisation in Russia is the Douma. 

 Xo matter how inadequately it may be constituted, 

 it will be a rallying point for the forces of law and 

 order and liberty. That is why the Anarchists hate 

 it. That is why every man with a wife to protect 

 and children to feed should rally round the Govern- 

 ment in its i fforts to get the Douma elected. 



One of the novelties of C.-B.'s 

 The Revival programme was the promise to ap- 

 the Caial P°^ n t a Royal Commission to ex- 

 amine into and report upon the 

 possibility of utilising our wasted resources in the 

 shape ot internal waterways. The Canal in Britain 

 has been practically extinguished bv the Railway. 

 The Railways have bought up the Canals for the 

 purpose of getting rid of a dangerous competitor. 

 ( )ther nations are more sensible, and every year the 

 improverm nts and upkeep of their canals figure 

 among their most profitable investments. It is prob- 

 able that the introduction of motor tugs for the slow- 

 moving canal horse will enable the canals to de- 

 liver heavy goods with much greater rapidity than 



has hitherto been attempted. Imagine what Hol- 

 land would be without its canals, and then ask 

 whether we have been wise in practically ignoring 

 the internal waterway as a means of economical 

 transit for heavy goods. C.-B.s Commission may 

 be expected to give a pretty decisive answer to all 

 that. 



The appointment of Lord Car- 

 Where is Mr. rington as Minister of Agriculture, 

 Rider Haggard ? eoupled with C.-B.'s emphatic de- 

 claration in favour of land reform 

 and the return of the people to the country, point? 

 to immediate action. Mr. Rider Haggard ought to 

 be despatched at once to report upon all that has 

 been done in this direction in Denmark, Holland, 

 Belgium, and Bavaria. The Recess Committee 

 some years ago went over this ground, and their 

 report was the basis of the Irish Agricultural De- 

 partment, where Sir Horace Plunkett has been 

 doing such admirable work. There is no more 

 capable agricultural commissioner than Mr. Rider 

 Haggard, and he has quite recently done < xo-llent 

 work in his report on Canadian Colonisation. It is 

 to be hoped that Lord Carrington will have de- 

 spatched him to the Continent before Parliament 

 assembles. 



In the manifesto of Sir Henry 

 For the Campbell-Bannerman he gave a 



World's Peace, conspicuous place to the promo- 

 tion of peace arbitration and the 

 reduction of armaments. Among the means which 

 lie ready to the hand of the new Liberal Adminis- 

 tration is the appropriation of decimal one per cent, 

 of the money voted every year to the Army and 

 Navy to provide a fund for levying war against war. 

 It is high time that the task be undertaken of pro- 

 moting international good feeling (r) by the prompt 

 dissemination of the accurate information necessary 

 to check the machinations of those who are working 

 for war. and (2) by the provision of the small but 

 necessary fund required for the purpose of showing 

 international hospitality to the representatives of 

 other nations. The French entente would have been 

 marred at its inre-ption had it not been for the 

 public-spirited munificence of the then Mayor of 

 Portsmouth, who supplied from his own purse the 

 thousands necessary to provide adequately for the 

 reception of the French fleet. We ought, for in- 

 stance, to invite the Inter-parliamentary Union to 

 Westminster, but there is no fund to cover the ex- 

 penses, and hitherto no British Government has 

 been willing to follow the example of other Govern- 

 ments in placing the legislative halls at the disposal 

 of the Inter-parliamentary Union. The entertaining 

 of royal visitors has long been recognised as one of 

 the essential means of promoting international fra- 

 ternitv. Royalties are not the only personalities 

 who count in these democratic days. But King 

 Demos has no funds at his disposal for showing 



