the overthrow of the Russian autocracy has passed once more into
anxiety. Is Russia going to count any more in this great struggle for a
liberated Europe, or will the forces of revolution devour each other,
till in the course of time the fated "saviour of society" appears, and
old tyrannies come back? General Smuts, himself the hero of a national
struggle which has ended happily for both sides and the world, has been
giving admirable expression here to the thoughts of many hearts. First
of all to the emotion with which all lovers 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."