8 
LAND & WATER 
October ii, 191 7 
religion, how can you conceive it> sudden acceptance by 
the Germans? In what way is such a spirit to \v.t proved ? 
What act \i\ton the part of the German people will be the out- 
ward sign of sucli an enormous revolution ? And even if by 
a miracle, the like of which has never been known in the 
history of the world, a race with a certain character de- 
veloped through hundreds of \ears were to adopt a character 
wliolly foreign to it in a few weeks, why on earth should that 
guarantee us either a permanent peace or a justly organised 
Europe ? If anyone says that democracies do not make wars 
or do not commit evils he is talking nonsense. Democracy 
is sought as an act of justice. The argument for it is' that it 
gives freedom to the will and tliat such freedom is a civic 
right. It is not sought as a spiritual salvation. Xo one 
would be so mad as to say tliat it made the will hoh". The 
whole point of evil is the freedom of the evil agent, and a society 
which has adopted the democratic theory, that is, which acts 
by the expressed will of the whole community, may perfectly 
well use that will for oppression or for rapine, as it may use it 
for the oppositcs of these evil things. Democracy is only one 
of many theories of government : ilemocracies liave in the past, 
and will in the future, commit monstrous acts, and there is 
no one, however attached to the theory of democrac}', who 
has been so foolish as to pretend tliat it destroyed man's 
propensity to evil. Tho.se who quote Kousscau in this 
connection cannot, I think, have read that great writer or 
have read him in some very faulty translation. At the very 
outset of the " Social Contract," which is the stron,gest expo- 
sition of democratic theory in esi^itence, its author remarks that 
such a go^"ernment is far too good for men. 
The plain truth in the matter is this. Tliere is a State in 
Europe, the citizens of which have for long manifested a will, 
wliich will, in its effect is, by all European standards of morality 
and tradition, extremely evil. It has been, unfortunately, so 
tolerated as to become very strong, and to command a great 
body of Allies, It has challengecl the civilization of EurojK' 
feeling certain of victory. It has failed to achieve that victorv. 
Its maifcstation during the struggle has lx"en one of incrensing 
evil, one atrocity added to another as the war continued. 
The peril of such a will amongst us must be exorcised if we arc; 
to live, and the only conceivable way of exorcising it is 
to break that will by defeating the armed force which is its onlv 
w"eapon. Short of that, this evil survives, and its evil, 
though it may seem to us to have reached already the very 
limits of wrong doing, will increase to our destruction. If we 
do not break it, the future will be all war. domestic and 
foreign, and a war without conventions, without restraint, 
degenerated, I repeat, into a doctrine of indiscriminate 
murder. No man can honestly say that four years ago he 
would have thought the massacre of civilians in open towns, 
the sinking of hospital ships, the deliberate destruction of the 
greatest monuments of the past, possible. Such things were 
not in our conception at all in the year iQi;^. Because we 
are familiar with them in the year 1917 is no reason for yielding 
to such an abominable new code. The very fact that we are 
to-day horribly familiar witii them is a direct argument for 
rooting them out and making them impossible in the future. 
I would seriously ask those who still use the arguments I 
am condcniiiing, to consider a parallel with which they are well 
acquainted, but which they never seem to consider. How 
do they act against evils which directly affect their own skins ? 
W'lien an individuid arms himself with a bludgeon, knocks 
down a passer by on a dark night, and goes through his 
pockets, how does your Pacifist and pro-German deal with that 
individual ? Does he content himself with a promise that 
the action shall not be repeated ? Does he argue that such 
tilings have always been and always will be, and are but a nec- 
essary inconvenience which reasonable men should tolerate ? 
He does nothing of the sort. The forces of society are put to 
work to seize the individual in question and he is severely 
punished. He is put to such great pain as will, it is hoped, 
drive out of him the desire to repeat his offence an(5 act as a 
warning to otlicrs who might wish to imitate him. If we did 
not do this to the foot-pad. if we contented ourselves with the 
sort of reasoning applied to the German Empire to-day by 
those who would save it from the consequences of its acts, 
there would be such an outbreak of violence as would break up 
society. 
Tlie parallel is exact, though the case of the chance burglar 
or garrotter with whom you^ theorist is in practice so 
severe, is infinitely less important than the case of a whole 
State organised among us for plunder and for killing. The 
threat to humanity whicli tjie private criminal represents is 
nothing compared with the threat represented by a whole 
society deliberately provoking such a war as this, and conduct- 
ing it by such methods as these ; methods, be it remembered, 
wliich the German people heartily applaud. H. Belloc 
. [To be continued). 
The ne.vt issue of "Land & Water" will contain a 
most important article by Mr. Arthur Pollen, who is 
lecturing in America. 
He review.^ the past administration of the .Ailmiralty 
and makes a valuable suggestion for securing the future 
possible co-operation of the American Navy. 
Kerenski and Korniloff 
By M. A. Czaplicka 
A LTHOUGH the near future may bring still more 
/ % drastic changes in the home government of Russia, 
/ % and although it is not too much to suppose that 
*• -^-tlie most extreme group may rise to the crest of 
the wave that will perhaps sweep over large tracts of Eastern 
Europe— it is in the Kerenski- Koyniloft episode that the most 
important national and historical problem of the Russian 
limpire is embodied. The meaning of this conflict cannot be 
studied too closely, for it will teach the Western world that 
the revolution in Russia ought not to be viewed merely from 
the standpoint of the Trench Revolution. Possibly "it will 
also help to make clear how much more can be expected from 
Russia during the war and what are the questions that may 
arise for her when peace terms are discussed. 
Ignoring the necessity for deeper study, which would lead 
to a better understanding of the situation, people hastily 
divided public opinion in Russia into two categories— more 
or less rexolutionary, and more or less reactionaiy— and 
watched anxiously to see which of the supposed parties would 
be ready to stand the more steadily bv the Allies' war pro- 
gramme. And, since it is human to "make abstract ideas more 
concrete by associating them witli personalities, it was at first 
understood that all the revolutionaries might be placed behind 
Keieiiski, and behind Korniloff all those who represented 
reaction in sympathy with the old regime. These two names 
seem to embody, as it were, the formula; of the two 
opposing programmes. 
But then some doubts were expressed at the propriety of 
such a di\ision, and various questions arose in the Western 
mind, as, for instance : 
' Have not the old reactionaries in Russia been faithful 
o the .\llies .' " 
" Is It right to welcome a revolution, which, as its most 
direct result, brings chaos and military retreat i " 
" Was the Revolution brougjit about by the people who 
wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the war, or by 
those who, like the Bolsheviki, desire the end of the war 
at aiw price ? ' 
Of course, in asking these questions Western Europe over- 
looks the characteristic mentality of its Eastern Slavonic 
allies. Although the reasoning facultv is so well developed 
among them that their tendency to probe into the soul for 
motives has become proverbial, yet in the Near East all this 
takes 'place a/lej the act, while the act itself is the result 
of impulse alone : this very important truth it is which is 
so often left out of account. 
Neither before nor after the Revolution could a definite 
line be drawn between a reactionary party and a revolu- 
tionary party in Russia, nor could Russia's "attitude towards 
her \\estern Allies be measured by her ci-edo in home politics. 
But at all times both honest and "dishonest groups have been 
found within her, and it is not far from the truth to say that if 
the old regime had included a greater number belonging to 
tjie former type, it could not have been sp easilv overthrown. 
It is not so much the form of Government as "its corruption 
that makes the ])eople distrustful of their old masters— a fact 
that has often liappened before. 
From such a point of view the Kerenski-Korniloff question 
might perhaps be lietter named the " honest-supporters-of- 
the-old-regnne and honest-supporters-of-the-new-regime ques- 
tion. But tins also would be misleading, since many of the 
followers of Korniloff were quite honest supporters of the 
new regime. Mho, however, with their anxious cry for order 
at any ])ncc, did not realise that it is futile to pour oil upon 
a troubled sea while the storm is at its height. 
A study of the personalities of the two leaders in the con- 
flict has quite dispelled anv illusion that thev were acting from 
personal ambition, or were supporting a programme not in 
