ACCORDING to the Warsaw correspondent of the Journal de Genève, the recent visit of Taki Jonesco to that city was accompanied by many manifestations of his popularity with the Poles. His purpose was to secure the adhesion of Poland to the Little Entente. The reply he received was: 'Possibly later, but just at present, an Entente of Poland, Hungary, and Roumania.' Since Roumania could not consider an alliance including Hungary, and Poland could not consider an alliance including CzechoSlovakia, Jonesco's efforts were doomed to failure from the outset.

LE TEMPS quotes Lenin as follows: 'We must systematically and persistently reeducate the masses so as to fill them with the conviction that their personal well-being depends solely upon their discipline and industry.' For months, the Bolsheviki proclaimed: "The railways should be run by the railway men.' Now they are writing: "Which is the better to keep our

which have been voiced by the Northern Powers.'

BULGARIA had a bountiful harvest

ROUMANIA proposes to monopolize the petroleum industry by placing it in the hands of a company subject to

309,000 tons of wheat, 62,000 tons of rye, 57,000 tons of barley, 508,000 tons of maize, besides other grains, making a total cereal export of more than 1,000,000 tons.

in this new national trust will be so allotted that producers will hold 50 per cent, the government 30 per cent, and consumers 20 per cent of the shares.

In the summer of 1908 a proclamation was issued by the Social-Revolutionary Party in Tula. Tolstoy read it, and desired to talk with its authors in order to convince them of their errors; so he invited four of the revolutionary leaders to visit him, and had a long conversation with them. I sat in the next room, with the door open into Tolstoy's study, and heard every word of the interview, which I took down as accurately as possible.

Tolstoy: Hearing that a proclamation had been issued by the SocialRevolutionary Party, I read it through; and must confess that I am shocked at its low moral tone. Surely you are familiar with this proclamation? I am appalled at its lack of understanding of the issue discussed; at the immorality which I discover, and particularly at the dangers into which good men fall, even when they are ready to risk

their own lives to serve their fellow men. The thing has utterly upset me. I feel it my duty to inform the people who drafted this proclamation and approved its ideas what I think of it. In order to show the reasons why I believe the ideas in the proclamation are unworthy and wicked, I will make a brief explanation. First of all, let me call attention to this sentence in the proclamation itself: 'Inspire hatred in the hearts of men. That is a holy duty.'

Is n't that outrageous! Love of one's fellow men has ever since the creation of the world been regarded as the primary, distinctive human instinct, by the Hindus, by the Chinese, I do not need to say by Christians; and now suddenly people are to be taught that the very antithesis of love love-hatredis to be cultivated as a holy duty. This proves to me that men who write such

things are in the very lowest depths of moral error. No, I will take back that statement. They are not in the very lowest moral depths, but in a condition of horrifying benightedness and blindness.

My second point is the following: the objects for which these men strive and are ready to sacrifice themselves in the name of brotherly service not only cannot be secured by such means, but are thereby made more difficult of attainment by any other means. Vi

olence and force, from which we all suffer, are not inflicted upon us by a few individuals. A single group of men, even though it were thousands strong, would be unable to compel one hundred and fifty million men to live as it wished. Violence and force are possible only because error sways the minds of a great majority of the one hundred and fifty million, some of whom are ruled by fear and others by ignorance. Consequently, you cannot rescue them by violence, by an appeal to hatred, but only by awakening the forces which you revolutionists repudiate the forces of moral conscience, which prevent men from doing what is wrong, and from sharing in acts which harm their brother men. Therefore, my second point is that the measures which the men whose views are contained in this proclamation proposé only carry us farther away from the very object which they seek.

My third point is my profound pity for young men like yourself, who risk your lives for unworthy things. To be imprisoned under the frightful conditions in our Russian prisons, to be separated from your families who will suffer want and hardship, to be tortured by your own regrets in the solitude of your confinement - what return do you get for that? Merely the satisfaction of issuing this stupid, misguided proclamation. How are you going to

carry out a single point in the programme you here propose? Not one of you can answer me, not even the professors who share your views. I have said all I have to say. My three points are: first, that your revolutionary plans are immoral; second, that you are choosing the wrong road to attain your ends (I recognize your ultimate purpose is good-my life is devoted to attaining that same ideal); third, the pity I feel for the good men who misapply their strength and energy for such an unjust and worthless object. Now what is your answer to these three points?

After a short silence, one of the revolutionists spoke: "The men who drafted this proclamation think this; they see there is no choice, either we must die of hunger before we have done anything, or we must rise and shake off the hated yoke.'

Tolstoy: No, that is only exaggeration. No one dies of hunger. Revolutionist: Indeed, a great many working people do.

Tolstoy: No, I never saw any one who had died of starvation. But suppose we assume that you do not die of starvation, but merely suffer great privation and hardship. Why do you do something that merely increases those privations and hardships in order to liberate yourself from them? People must be sensible and not do what is irrational. There is only one sensible thing to do: to refuse to take part in the existing unjust social system.

Revolutionist: How can we do that? How can we persuade people to take no part in the arbitrary acts which are committed?

Tolstoy: I shall take the liberty to digress a little. In addition to the superstition that all the professors write is true, there is another that some men have the right to regulate the lives of other men. Stolypin at one

extreme, and you revolutionists at the other, both have fallen equally into this common error. Your words admit it. Why do you want to govern the life of others? Your authority does not extend beyond your own person. It is over yourself, just as I have authority over myself. Your personality and character, like mine, are still very imperfect; but I know that the more I labor to perfect my own personality and character, the greater influence I win over others.

Revolutionist: I raise the question, how you propose to prevent people from participating in the acts of violence and injustice which are occurring?

Tolstoy: But who has authorized you to tell people what they should do?

Revolutionist: We do not mean that we have been called to teach the people. Our mission is merely to unite all who think and feel as we do into a single body. Therefore, it seems to me that we cannot be charged with the belief that we are personally, as individuals, called upon to liberate the nation. We who think the same way and suffer from the same oppression unite to accomplish the same end.

Tolstoy: That end is ultimately to better the life of all your fellow men. That is a purpose for which we all strive, I and all the rest. The only way to attain your end is to refuse to participate in the injustice and violence of the government which has ruined your life to keep out of it entirely.

Revolutionist: But we do not take any part in the government and its works.

Tolstoy: May I ask your occupation? Revolutionist: Just now I have no employment.

Tolstoy: And before?

Revolutionist: I used to work in an

office.

Tolstoy: So you see, if you examine the business in which you are engaged carefully, you will at once discover that you share more or less in the evil acts of the present system. In order to share as little as possible in the evils begotten of the existing social organization, man must sever so far as possible all his relations with that organization.

Revolutionist: I see what you mean. Whatever I do, I share in the exploitation of the workers. However, I cannot go without employment, for I have a family. I am married. I cannot refuse

to work.

Tolstoy: Consequently, the question of your family is more important to you than the question we have been discussing. That is not bad. That is only just. For you, the welfare of your family is first and foremost, while for others, their personal welfare and liberty are most important. For Christ told those who would follow him that they must leave their father and their mother and all that they possessed. A true follower of Christ has an ideal for the sake of which he is really ready to sacrifice all. Men of your opinion are ready to employ force against force and violence against violence, but you are not ready to give up your families. Here lies the root of your error. You are not ready to sacrifice some purely personal interest to the command of your conscience. If I were prevented by conscientious scruples from earning my living in the normal way, I would beg.

Revolutionist: No! Even if I were starving, I would not beg.

Tolstoy: Why? In what respect is a beggar in his rags inferior to a rich man magnificently clad?

Revolutionist: Because men should struggle.

Tolstoy: Men must love and they must live. The animal in us bids us

struggle, but spiritual man rises above this brutal impulse.

A second revolutionist interrupted with the remark that every man had two natures: a physical nature and a spiritual nature.

Tolstoy: That is perfectly true, and the purpose of man's life is to subjugate the animal nature to the spiritual nature. That is my firm belief. Perfecting our spiritual being and subduing our animal being is what gives purpose to human-life.

Revolutionist: It does not seem possible to me that we can so strengthen and discipline the spirit as completely to dispense with the physical being. For instance, we cannot overcome the need of eating.

Tolstoy: Still it is possible, though all the wise men of the world deny it. Quite the contrary to what you say, all right living consists in mastering the physical needs and senses. We are constantly fighting temptations of every kind. Who has not experienced them? Resisting temptation is the essence of human life. It is characteristic of the animal nature to satisfy every impulse. It is characteristic of human nature to repress our impulses at the dictate of conscience and reason. However, we have got too far away from our subject. What I want to make emphatic is that men must use the weapon which has been given them to use mastery mastery over themselves. This is particularly necessary in seeking the objects for which you are striving. When you are rulers over yourselves, you will then be able to rule others.

Revolutionist: Lev Nikolaevich, we do not overlook the importance of perfecting our own character. We try to be honest and honorable.

Tolstoy: I say that this is the only way to influence others; but that proclaiming hate and representing hatred as a holy thing repels men.

Revolutionist: If you consider the hatred mentioned in this proclamation, you will see that it is not hatred of men, but hatred of private property.

One of the revolutionists had a copy of the proclamation with him. It was handed to Tolstoy, and he read the following sentence from it:

Hatred of the landowner, of all who have taken possession of the land by force, must become a holy passion, which every father ought to instill in the hearts of his children.

The second revolutionist replied to this: 'We are speaking of the landowners. Truly, these usurpers of the soil deserve nothing but hatred.

Tolstoy (after a pause, during which he was visibly restraining himself): If these men had not deluded themselves, if they had looked for only a moment into their own hearts, they would have seen that such a statement is a denial of morality. Hatred is the most bestial and the lowest sentiment which exists. Whenever a man is conscious of moral elevation, he inevitably finds associated with it a consciousness of love— love of God, of his neighbor, of all his fellow men without exception; for every man is my brother. If I have the right to say that men should hate landlords, landlords have the same right to say men should hate revolutionists. If it is right for Ivan to hate Peter, Ivan must admit that it is right for Peter to hate Ivan. That is merely preaching the grossest, lowest immorality. That is the creed of men who have no conception whatever of morality.

Revolutionist: Lev Nikolaevich! These men understand by morality just what you do. They do not call evil good. But existing conditions in this country place us under duress. Perhaps this is due to the imperfection of men and especially of revolutionists.

Tolstoy: If a revolutionist is imperfect, he should strive toward perfection.