The Dominion. SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1915. THE REAL RUSSIA

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2414, 20 March 1915, Page 6

The Dominion. SATURDAY, MARCH 20, 1915. THE REAL RUSSIA

-9 British people know a good deal about France. We know something about French history in its broad outlines, and we have a fairly accurate general idea of the social and political lifo of the French people. But the great majority of us have an extremely limited knowledge of the other member of the Triple Entente—Russia. The war is gradually opening the eyes of the British public to many aspects of Russian life and character regarding which their information has hitherto be.en very scanty and very inaccurate, It is well to know that an organisation called the Russian Society has been formed for the purpose of making the British and Russian peoples better acquainted with each_ other. A cablegram which we published a fow days ago announced that King George had expressed his heartiest sympathy with the efforts of this society to promote a lasting understanding between the people o! the two nations. The society will have to do a large amount of destructive work before it can devote its full attention to the constructive part of its task. Many wrong notions will have to be destroyed in order to make room for tho newer and truer views regarding our Muscovite partner in the present world conflict. Until comparatively recent years even educated Englishmen have been accustomed to think that Russia has not yet completely emerged from a state of savagery. _ The prevailing idea has been that it is a nation of dull, ignorant, and down-trodden peasantry, who are brutally oppressed by a tyrannous ruler and a ruthless nobility, and many of us have tho impression that Russia's internal history mainly consists of Nihilist plots, pogroms, persecutions, and Siberian atrocities. It is triie that all these , things have taken place at various times, but when seen in their true proportion they N bccomc a comparatively insignificant part of the life of the Russian people. Men like Stephen Graham arid Maurice Baring, who know Russia from the inside, tell us that to know her is to love her, and that the country and the people have a wonderful fascination ior those who have sufficient insight and sympathy to penetrate beneath the surface. The Russian peasant is a most charming character, and it is absolutely impossible to understand the social and political conditions of the vast Empire over which the Tsar rules without knowing something about the manners and customs, and the mental and spiritual outlook of the peasant class which constitutes the great majority of the nation. The Russian people, notwithstanding a widespread lack of education in the Western sense, possess a dignity and self-respect that compel admiration. Mr. Baring tells us that in spite of centuries of serfdom they were not and never have been slaves, with the exception of individual instances. Sir Charles Eliot says "the Russian niuzlik is not servile; lie thinks of God and the Tsar in one «ilegory, and the rest of tho world as more or less equal in another." The peasant not only tiljs the arable land, lie also owns most of it. Mn. Baring recounts the story of a Russian anarchist who in the course of a lecture in the East End of London on the wrongs of tho Russian people declared with fervent indignation that no peasant in .Russia.could own more tluu bo watti-

acres of land. "Shame!" cried tbo audience. "The irony of this is piercing when ono reflects that not ouo member of that audiencc had ever owned, or could ever in bis wildest dreams look forward to owning, a particle of arable soil." But it would bo a ludicrous mistake to imagine that Russia is an earthly paradise. The bureaucratic system of administration has some ugly features, and Russian methods of justice are far from perfect; but the foundations of constitutional government have been laid. Political progress may appear to bo slow. The British Constitution was not built up in a day, and it is foolish to expect Russia to pass at one stride from the political ideals of the Middle Ages to those of the Twentieth Century. The Germans have accused us of allying ourselves with Russian barbarians for the.overthrow of modern civilisation. This is a strange indictment to come from those apostles of "kultur" who have shocked the world by their "frightfulness' in France and Belgium. The German sneer at the intellectual calibre of Russia evoked an effective answer in tho form of a letter to Russian men of letters from their English friends, in which cordial reference is made to the inspiration which Englishmen of the last two generations have received from Russian literature. The opening of this new world of ideas made many an Englishman feel as Keats felt when he read Homer for the first time: Like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken. The letter dwells upon the note of tenderness in Russian literature which never derides, but only pities world by the "frightfulness in sincerity which never fears to see the truth and to express it; and most of all an ever-present sense of spiritual values behind the material. It is only downright ignorance which cannot see that Russia has mado great contributions to the intellectual and spiritual possessions of tho human race, and is capable of still greater achievements. She has already rendered valuable services to European civilisation. She blocked tho barbarian invasion from tho Ea-st centuries ago, and probably did more than any other nation to smash the power of Napoleon. Russia has done great things in the past, and the intellectual, moral, and material resources which she can command make it quite impossible to put limits to the magnitude_ of tho destiny which the future has in store for her.