first-fiddle of orchestra often declines to the big drum. Many begin as winners of the first prize of the year at the Conservatoire, and so claim their right of engagement at a national theatre. They may be dismissed at the close of their twelvemonth; they may remain only assalaried hands; they may become shareholders of the enterprise, with better pay, a share of the profits, a grant on retirement, a pension for life. So there is still the prospect of bread and cheese. Bresson received over three thousand pounds down when he left the company, with an annuity of about four hundred more. The starring system, the actor-manager system, might yield larger rewards; the difference is willingly devoted to the general welfare of the concern. At any rate it was so devoted until Sarah Bernhardt, yielding to the tempter, broke her engagement to fend for herself. Coquelin then followed her lead in insisting on his right to an annual The Nineteenth Century and After.

tour, which was in the nature of a prolonged benefit. The majority still understand that self-sacrifice is a part of the bargain. The great players, remembering what they owe to the system of free teaching, are ready to show their gratitude by contributions in kind. No one-man school could have given them access to such an array of professors-Delaunay for their master in comedy, or even Regnier; Bresson for romantic drama; Got for wellnigh all. Subsidies are useful in their way; but the successful actor must be ready to contribute time and trouble to the endowment. Nothing can spare him the essential pang of giving up something of worldly profit for the sake of a nobler thing. We want a spark of the fire of the Renaissance here. You cannot revive a drama as you start a shop. The soul of the business is pride in a high calling, love of it, pity for struggling beginners without guidance and without means.

Richard Whiteing.

Evidence is accumulating from many quarters in regard to the internal condition of Russia, and all of it is unfavorable. No doubt news of such a kind received during a war must always be read with caution, and especially is this so in the case of Russia, for Russia has many enemies. When, however, full allowance has been made for the universal habit of finding signs of internal trouble in any State which is doing badly in the field, it must be admitted that the reports from Russia are extremely grave. Thursday's Standard, for example, contains a long communication "from a Russian correspondent" which paints the state of affairs in very black colors indeed. The

writer brings evidence not merely of political disaffection, but, what is even more serious, of something very like commercial paralysis, and of a most serious crisis in agriculture. As to the political situation, he remarks that "it is rumored that the recent disturbances in Warsaw have been followed by wholesale executions." These executions have been carried out without any form of civil trial. They have been solely by administrative order. "The number of persons stated to have been hanged in Warsaw alone is six hundred." Such figures as these at once suggest gross exaggeration, if they do not even cause the whole story to be rejected as absurd. Yet we note

that the Standard in a leading article, although it observes that it publishes the communication "under all reserve," also goes on to state that it does so "with absolute confidence alike in the good faith of our Russian correspondent and in the excellence of his sources of information,"-a testimonial which must be taken to outweigh the reservation. The Standard correspondent further asserts that although disturbances are not yet reported from other of the principal towns of European Russia, there is a general similarity in the intelligence from all parts concerning the exceptional activity of the secret police and the frequent disappearances of persons presumably suspected of implication in political plots. "In Kronstadt, where an attempt is reported to have been made to injure the forts, there have also been executions under Military law. In Moscow recently an eye-witness reports that eighty coffins, under Military escort, were taken out of the town at dead of night by an unfrequented road, which was picketed with soldiers, and buried, presumably in the woods, where soldiers had previously been observed maintaining an inviolable cordon. There is a nervous feeling in the very air, and even the most sober-minded are drawing ominous conclusions from the significant fact that the regiments stationed in European Russia are being retained in their places, and only the Reservists called up under the mobilization orders are being forwarded to the front."

enemies to the Russian Government. The policy of forcible Russification has been carried out relentlessly, and apparently successfully, but not without much heart-burning. The best known case is that of Finland, but other nonRussian nationalities have suffered almost as much. The Finns cannot revolt, but it is impossible to doubt that the dearest wish of the majority of the population is to escape from the iron circle of the Empire which is oppressing them. The Poles remain, as always, irreconcilable, even though they may consider that the Russian Government treats them better than does the German. These cases are patent; but it must also be remembered that the Russification of the Baltic provinces, and the cold shoulder shown to the German and Lutheran elements in those districts, have produced anything but loyalty and confidence, in an important, if numerically small, class. Something of the same kind has been going on on the other side of the Empire. The Armenians were once held in great esteem in Russia, Loris Melikhof actually rising to the very highest place in the bureaucracy. Now, however, the Armenians receive little favor, and the whole property of the Armenian Church in Russia has been confiscated in order to force them to enter the Orthodox Communion. The Armenians bear the persecution ill, and must now be counted among the disaffected sub-nationalities of Russia. Lastly, there are the Jews. With the massacre of Kishineff before their eyes, and the whole terrible story of the anti-Jewish movement, can we wonder that they are restless and unfriendly. But in Russia the disaffection of the Jews does not mean, as it would in France or Germany, the disaffection of a small, if powerful, body. It means the hostility of several millions of men concentrated in a special area. The fact is that in Russia just

now only the Slavonic and Tartar elements are allowed to come to the front, while the men of the other nationalities, unless they become members of the Orthodox Church, are depressed, and even persecuted.

As a result, the political power of Russia and her administrative efficiency have greatly suffered, while at the same time a sense of oppression has invaded bodies of men who in a former generation were good Russians. Never, indeed, has the political folly of persecution, civil and religious, been made more plain. In addition to these dangers of a racial nature must be reckoned those which come from the growth of Socialism and Nihilism within the Russian body politic. The Russian Nihilist may be less dangerous than he was; but the growth of Socialism and of liberal ideas has been steadily progressing. And the Russian revolutionary does not do things by halves. The man who wants revolution in Russia does not mind with whom he cooperates in order to get it.

Another alarming fact which must be noted is the grave commercial depression which is spreading in Russia. From all parts of the Empire, says the correspondent of the Standard, “the same tale is told of the utter standstill of business, and the numbers of bankruptcies, aggravated by the knowledge of the still greater number which are merely masked by one or other of the forms of which the inadequate commercial codes of Russia so freely admit. For example, in all those districts which are under martial law-that is to say, the greater part of the area of All the Russias-it is impossible to protest bills, the "state of war" being the excuse legally put forward by the defaulter, who may or may not be actually in a position to meet his liabilities. As bills are practically the only medium of commercial currency in Russia-cheques being unknown to all intents and purposes-this one fact is

sufficient to throw considerable light on the state of things now prevailing throughout the Russian Empire in the domain of commerce. The banks, we are also told, have everywhere either stopped entirely, or reduced to a useless minimum all credits and accommodations, even to safe customers. "Persons who have been in the habit of receiving at their banks thirty to fifty thousand roubles are now unable to get as much as two or three thousand." With such a condition of credit, and with an almost total stoppage of the demand for manufactured articles other than necessaries, it is needless to say that the factories are at a standstill, and that the workmen are being turned off in large numbers. Agriculture, we also learn, is in an equally bad way. Last year's harvest was a poor one, and this year the withdrawal of tens of thousands of peasants owing to the mobilization of the Reserves has to a considerable extent hampered the tilling of the soil.

As we have said, it is very possible that these reports are exaggerated. It is also quite conceivable that even if true they will lead to no political events of importance. Nations often go very near the precipice without falling over. On the other hand, it is by no means impossible that some accident may precipitate a really serious crisis. Suppose some sudden madness were to seize on the peasantry, and something in the nature of a revolt were to take place. In that case all the other disaffected elements in the Empire, from Poland to Russian Armenia, and from Finland to the Jewish Pale, would spring into life. But though we realize this risk, and understand fully how great a contributory cause a commercial and agricultural crisis always is to revolt, we do not think it likely that there will be any very important internal commotion during the war. While war is going on the

instinct of national self-preservation seems to keep down rebellion even in States whose general condition makes for revolution. It is when the war is over, even if it ends favorably for Russia, that we expect to see the internal condition of Russia lead to serious results. Till then the Russian Government has not, we hold, very much to fear.

There may be all the symptoms

of revolution, but we do not expect it to break out.

It must not be supposed that in dwelling on the state of Russia, and the internal dangers which threaten her, we are in any sense rejoicing at her difficulties. As our readers know, we do not think that it would be to the interests of this country to see Russia The Spectator.

destroyed. We wish the Russian people good, not ill. We feel, however, that if the Russian Government persists in its evil policy of persecution and repression, in the end nothing but revolution will be possible for Russia. An internal policy such as she has practiced for the last ten years with ever-increasing violence not only causes but justifies revolution. If the Russian Government insists upon persecuting and oppressing its subjects, the true friends of the Russian people are bound to hope for their deliverance even through the fires of revolution. It is a remedy almost as bad as the disease, but at least it affords some promise of ultimate improvement. The present system affords none.

To a certain school of thinkers, whose opinions are certainly deserving of respect, every fresh war is a stage on the road towards perpetual peace. They see a confirmation of their views in the Russo-Japanese War; though it seems to others less optimistic that there has, very rarely been a conflict which emphasizes more unmistakably the nature of the impasse in which nations may find themselves, and whence they cannot escape without recourse to war. Reliance is placed on the growth of moral and religious sentiment, and on the increased deference to the arbitrament of law, after the analogy of individuals in society, which is to distinguish nations in the future. All this will probably happen somewhat as these speculators conceive it; but is it possible to state the position of Russia and Japan towards each other so as to raise a moral or juristic issue between them? The materials are wanting for, determining the dispute on any grounds

of right or wrong. It often happens in the law courts that the pretence of reasoning and argument is something in the nature of a comedy. There would be as much or little right or justice done if the decision were the reverse of that actually given. A far more important matter is the settlement by force, for that is what the decisions of our law courts often come to, of all law suits by substituting the force of the State for that of the individuals. But there is no such authority at present to settle on the same principles the quarrel of Russia and Japan; and there are no more indications of the probable rise of a central power acting in international affairs as the national government acts between individuals than there have been in the past. No hopes can be founded on the existence of such tribunals as that of the Hague. Its functions are limited and will remain limited by the nature of things. There

was no proposal to submit to its arbitration such matters as are in question between Russia and Japan. Everybody would have felt at once the absurdity of such a proposal. Since the human power of prophecy must found itself on probabilities or possibilities, it is justifiable to assert that in similar circumstances the absurdity will always be evident.

There is absolutely no new element in the Russo-Japanese War to support the speculations that are being so much indulged in at present, almost as if it were the last war to be waged prior to the establishment of the millennium of international arbitration. It may be said that there have been incidents of such unparalleled horror disclosed as attendant upon naval warfare that humanity will rise up in protest and make their repetition impossible. The means of destruction appear to be so susceptible of improvement-a grim kind of word in this connection-as to suggest a time coming when it might be possible for one combatant totally to destroy the other suddenly and unexpectedly without affording him a single opportunity of defence. This is declared to be the reductio ad absurdum of modern warfare, and the logical consequence must be the cessation of war. It seems to us that this need not be the effect at all. If the object were of supreme importance and success possible, no amount of danger would prevent a determined belligerent from attempting to attain it. The fact that if successful everything would be obtained at a stroke, however disastrous failure might be, is precisely the fascination which is irresistible to the gambler. The alternative of winning all or losing all at a coup so far from being a deterrent is an incentive. However nations may fear the comparatively sharp and short struggles of modern warfare they dread as infinitely worse the prolonging of hostilities for years

as used to be the case before the invention of our present terrific machinery of destruction. The horror of quick processes of slaughter soon passes away, as it has done at every stage which has taken place in the development of weapons and explosives. We are shuddering at the torpedo just now; five years ago, in the South African War, we were horrified at melinite; we should be more appalled still if we could conceive European armies fighting with the ghastly cutting instruments or poisoned weapons of the islanders of the Pacific or the natives of the interior of Africa.

Then it is said the growth of internationalism implies the settlement of disputes between nations by peaceful instead of by warlike methods. The increased authority and observance of the rules of international law within the last century certainly give plausible color to this speculation. Lawyers who have given their attention to the subject are naturally sanguine about it; they are more sanguine than politicians and soldiers. But when all is admitted there is a limit beyond which a nation cannot go in the way of submission to a cosmopolitan standard of right or justice. By the very conception of international law every nation is the judge of its own cause; and it always takes care in any treaty of arbitration to reserve this right to itself. As long as nationalities exist with their particular aims and ambitions, subject to physical and other conditions stimulating their individualism and forcing their self-assertiveness, there can be no possibility of surrendering their right. Individuals submit to the decisions of law courts only because they are forced to do so by the central authority of the Government. They never surrender what they consider their rights by any original compact; and nations are not likely to be more amenable. To what authority are nations going to