of liberty have seen the all but bloodless fall of the old tyranny.  “It might have taken another fifty years or a century of tragedy and suffering to have brought it about!  But the enormous strain of this war has done it, and the Russian people stand free in their own house.”  Now, what will they do with their freedom?  Ten weeks have passed, and the Russian armies are still disorganised, the Russian future uncertain.  Meanwhile Germany has been able to throw against the Allies in France, and Austria has been able to throw against Italy on the Isonzo, forces which they think they need no longer against Russia, and the pace of victory has thereby been slackened.  But General Smuts makes his eloquent appeal to the Russia which once held and broke Napoleon: 

“Liberty is like young wine—­it mounts to your head sometimes, and liberty, as a force in the world, requires organisation and discipline....  There must be organisation, and there must be discipline.  The Russian people are learning to-day the greatest lesson of life—­that to be free you must work very hard and struggle very hard.  They have the sensation of freedom, now that their bonds and shackles are gone, and no doubt they feel the joy, the intoxication, of their new experience; but they are living in a world which is not governed by formulas, however cleverly devised, but in a world of brute force, and unless that is smashed, even liberty itself will suffer and cannot live.”

Will the newly-freed forget those that are still suffering and bound?  Will Russia forget Belgium?—­and forget Serbia?

“Serbia was the reason why we went to war.  She was going to be crushed under the Austrian heel, and Russia said this shall not be allowed.  Serbia has in that way become the occasion probably of the greatest movement for freedom the world has ever seen.  Are we going to forget Serbia?  No!  We must stand by those martyr peoples who have stood by the great forces of the world.  If the great democracies of the world become tired, if they become faint, if they halt by the way, if they leave those little ones in the lurch, then they shall pay for it in wars more horrible than human mind can foresee.  I am sure we shall stand by those little ones.  They have gone under, but we have not gone under.  England and America, France and Russia, have not gone under, and we shall see them through, and shame on us if ever the least thought enters our minds of not seeing them through.”

* * * * *

Noble and sincere words!  One can but hope that the echoes of them may reach the ear and heart of Russia.

But if towards Russia the sky that seemed to have cleared so suddenly is at present clouded and obscure—­“westward, look, the land is bright!”