THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3275, 20 December 1916, Page 56

THE WEEK.

For my Christmas chat with you this year it seems appropriate to take as a subject the most Christian nation in* Europe. That nation being Russia —doubtless to your great surprise,-—you will understand that the subject is a fairly large one ; and it looks to me as if it were going to spread over two articles, for the two books on Russia that I have read lately have both so much in them that I see no chance of putting them together and contrasting them in the one week, as I had meant to do. It was quite by chance that I came across Stephen Graham's "The Way of Martha and the Way of Mary" just after reading Dr Sarolea's "Europe's Debt to Russia," and I was very much struck by the similarity of the views expressed by the two writers on many points —on the deeply religious nature of the Russian character, for instance, on the immense possibilities that lie ahead of the Russian nation, and on the essential difference between the Russian Government and the Russian people. When we think of Russia we think of Tsars and Grand Dukes, Anarchists and Nihilists, Siberia, secret police, and all the other symptoms of a despotic and bureaucratic government. What we have to remember is that underneath all this is the great mass of the Russian moujiks, or peasants, who form 85 per cent, of the total population—a people primitive in many ways, as yet ignorant and inarticulate, but the very backbone and more of the nation, and likely to be an immense force in the not-far-distant future. Into the heart and soul of this people Mr Graham takes us in his book, which deals especially with the religious side of the Russian character ; but I would rather leave him for next time, since Dr Sarolea gives us a more general sketch of the whole subject, essaying to give in a brief and comprehensive form some idea of what Russia really is—geographically, politically, and ethnographically. Naturally, the result is a trifle sketchy, but he manages to impress upon us one or two outstanding facts. There is the immense size of the Russian Empire, for instance, stretching "from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, from Archangel to Astrakhan," and there are the vast resources contained within these limits Russia itself has a zone of "black earth" of a wonderful fertility, which makes her one of the granaries of the world, and there are the forests further north and the vineyards of the south', besides coalfields, and oilfields, and all the mineral wealth of the Urals and of Siberia. Nor must we forget the population of Russia —175 millions of them, increasing, in spite of a heavy death-rate, by three millions every year. In these numbers are included people of many races—Polish, Finnish, Rumanian, Swedish, German —and many religions besides the Greek Orthodoxy, which is the religion of the real Russians ; so that the problem of the Russian Empire in some respects resembles our own, requiring as it does the reconciling under one supreme government of a great diversity of nationalities. It is the Russian people themselves, however, who are of particular interest just now, and Dr Sarolea has an interesting analysis of the chief points in the national character. The Russian, he says, is essentially Christian in spirit. His church may be stifled by formalism and ritual, its priests ignorant and superstitious, yet the Russian himself is deeply religious, and "the ideals of Christianity continue to inspire the individual lives of the people. Nowhere is the Christian temper of meekness and humility, of charity and brotherhood, of self-surrender and self-sacrifice so common as in Russia." In sympathy with his religious ideals, the Russian is democratic and liberty-loving to ami intense degree. He is a Socialist rathet than an Individualist, and not all the efforts of the bureaucratic government have been able to repress the instinct for political liberty in the hearts of the people —an instinct which has endeavoured to find expression over and over again. At the same time, Dr Sarolea has a theory that a despotic government has been a necessity in Russia, to enable the country to hold its own against dangers of invasion from east and west through the centuries, and probably always will be, owing to the heterogeneous collection of races that go to form the Empire. This is not to say that the Russian people should not have a much greater amount of self-government than they now have, and that is a thing that will surely come, for another characteristic of Russia, contrary to one's previous notions on the subject, is its progressiveness. The country has made enormous strides in every way in a few generations, in spite of such drawbacks as the difficulty of communication, for one thing. (Universal education; for instance, is quite impossible in such a sparsely-inhabited country, for it is impossible for the children to go the distances to school, especially in the winter.) Gurantic social and political experiments have been tried of which the outer world hears nothing, for one Nihilist plot or Jewish "pogrom" attracts more attention in British newspapers than the doings of the 20,000

co-operative agricultural societies which have lately been formed and which are revolutionising the principal industry of the country. Then Russia has a culture of her own, and one of the very highest kind. She has produced artists, musicians, and writers of the highest rank, and her language is a beautiful one, capable of expressing every shade of emotion a::d infinite gradations of meaning. Unfortunately, it is a terribly difficult one —so difficult that Maxim Gorky, the Russian writer, is said to have stated that there were only three men in the whole history of Russian literature who were perfect masters of it, and one of these, Turgeniev, in a very dark hour of Russian history, retained his belief in the future of his people "for the apparently irrelevant reason that a race which had proved capable of creating such a wonderful language as Russian must indeed be called to a glorious destiny." Such being the state of affairs, it does not look as if the Russian language would ever be very popular in other countries, though both Dr Sarolea and Mr Stephen Graham think that there will be a great deal more attention devoted to the study of Russian literature in the original during the future than there has been in the past. In fact, the former insists that the coming generation in> Europe will have to learn Russian if it wants to derive the fullest advantage of intercourse with what promises ot be the most original culture which the world has seen since the Renaissance, and looks forward to a time when the study of Russian will take the place of Greek in the schools of Europe. Perhaps. In the meantime, though we of this generation, are not likely to learn the language, we can at least take the trouble to learn a little more about the people themselves, seeing what a great part they are likely to p?ay in the future of the world, once they have realised themselves. ELIZABETH. To remove stains from knife-handles and also to keep the ivory from turning yellow, rub the handles well with a cutlemon ; afterwards wash in soap and water, and dry immediately.