It is hardly necessary to say that such expectations are not likely to be realised.  All sections of the educated classes may be agreed in desiring “liberty,” but the word has many meanings, and nowhere more than in Russia at the present day.  For the Liberals it means simply democratic parliamentary government; for the Social Democrat it means the undisputed predominance of the Proletariat; for the Socialist-Revolutionary it means the opportunity of realising immediately the Socialist ideal; for the representative of a subject-nationality it means the abolition of racial and religious disabilities and the attainment of local autonomy or political independence.  There is no doubt, therefore, that in Russia, as in other countries, a parliament would develop political parties bitterly hostile to each other, and its early history might contain some startling surprises for those who had helped to create it.  If the Constitution, for example, were made as democratic as the Liberals and Socialists demand, the elections might possibly result in an overwhelming Conservative majority ready to re-establish the Autocratic Power!  This is not at all so absurd as it sounds, for the peasants, apart from the land question, are thoroughly Conservative.  The ordinary muzhik can hardly conceive that the Emperor’s power can be limited by a law or an Assembly, and if the idea were suggested to him, he would certainly not approve.  In his opinion the Tsar should be omnipotent.  If everything is not satisfactory in Russia, it is because the Tsar does not know of the evil, or is prevented from curing it by the tchinovniks and the landed proprietors.  “More power, therefore, to his elbow!” as an Irishman might say.  Such is the simple political creed of the “undeveloped” muzhik, and all the efforts of the revolutionary groups to develop him have not yet been attended with much success.

How, then, the reader may ask, is an issue to be found out of the present imbroglio?  I cannot pretend to speak with authority, but it seems to me that there are only two methods of dealing with the situation:  prompt, energetic repression, or timely, judicious concessions to popular feeling.  Either of these methods might, perhaps, have been successful, but the Government adopted neither, and has halted between the two.  By this policy of drift it has encouraged the hopes of all, has satisfied nobody, and has diminished its own prestige.

In defence or extenuation of this attitude it may be said that there is considerable danger in the adoption of either course.  Vigorous repression means staking all on a single card, and if it were successful it could not do more than postpone the evil day, because the present antiquated form of government—­suitable enough, perhaps, for a simply organised peasant-empire vegetating in an atmosphere of “eternal stillness”—­cannot permanently resist the rising tide of modern ideas and aspirations, and is incapable of grappling successfully