“A surgeon conducting a difficult operation with a crowd behind him standing watch in hand may very likely complete the operation in record time, but in all probability the patient would not thank him for the manner in which it had been carried out.

“If you give our present opponents the impression that we must have peace at once, and at any price, we shall not get so much as a single measure of grain, and the result will be more or less platonic.  It is no longer by any means a question principally of terminating the war on the Ukrainian front; neither we nor the Ukrainians themselves intend to continue the war now that we are agreed upon the no-annexation basis.  It is a question—­I repeat it once again—­not of ‘imperialistic’ annexation plans and ideas, but of securing for our population at last the merited reward of their endurance, and procuring them those supplies of food for which they are waiting.  Our partners in the deal are good business men and are closely watching to see whether you are forcing me to act or not.

“If you wish to ruin the peace, if you are anxious to renounce the supply of grain, then it would be logical enough to force my hand by speeches and resolutions, strikes and demonstrations, but not otherwise.  And there is not an atom of truth in the idea that we are now at such a pass that we must prefer a bad peace without economic gain rather than a good peace with economic advantages to-morrow.

“The difficulties in the matter of food of late are not due solely to lack of actual provisions; it is the crises in coal, transport and organisation which are increasing. When you at home get up strikes you are moving in a vicious circle; the strikes increase and aggravate the crises concerned and hinder the supplies of food and coal. You are cutting your own throats in so doing, and all who believe that peace is accelerated thereby are terribly mistaken.

“It is believed that men in the country have been circulating rumours to the effect that the Government is instigating the strikes.  I leave to these men themselves to choose whether they are to appear as criminal slanderers or as fools.

“If you had a Government desirous of concluding a peace different from that desired by the majority of the population, if you had a Government seeking to prolong the war for purposes of conquest, one might understand a conflict between the Government and the country. But since the Government desires precisely the same as the majority of the people—­that is to say, the speedy settlement of an honourable peace without annexationist aims—­then it is madness to attack that Government from behind, to interfere with its freedom of action and hamper its movements. Those who do so are fighting, not against the Government, they are fighting blindly against the people they pretend to serve and against themselves.