fusion and the carnage which surely would follow our departure, or we must govern it as men and not as the puppets of the polling - booth. The hand-to-mouth policy of flattery and sentiment can end only in disaster. Upon Mr Montagu lies the heaviest responsibility. He holds a place which should never have been his, which he should have been disqualified from holding from the mere fact that he is a Jew. It is not his fault that he does not understand the British soldier's conception of his duty. But he will not be absolved when, in the mutiny which he, an Oriental, has done his best to ensure, Engishmen are murdered and Englishwomen are outraged.

possible. They have deprived must leave India to the conevery European in India of security in life or property. The truth is, our Government cannot make up its mind to do anything. It stands in hourly dread of action. It would far rather overlook the crime of murder than punish the monstrous assassin. It obstinately refuses to forgive the slaughtered victims. Relying for its continuance upon a lawless fringe of anarchists and communists, it shrinks most oravenly from playing the man. It believes, perhaps erroneously, that the just punishment of crime is unpopular, and it views without a strong disapproval the murder of policemen in Ireland and of Europeans in India. But some day or another it will be forced into adopting a definite policy. It may come to the conclusion, like the Radicals of fifty years ago, that "Perish India!" would be a profitable ory at the hustings. In the meantime we are deeply committed to the Government of India. We have ruled the country for more than a century. We have brought peace and prosperity to a fertile land. We have assuaged the feuds which once divided prince from prince and race from race. And we have done all this without outraging the customs or offending the prejudices of a sensitive people. We cannot do what we have done if we allow a minority of two per cent of the population to intimidate us on the false ground of self-determination. Either we

While Mr Montagu is doing his best to promote political agitation, "legitimate and constitutional," in India; while he is handing over the 98 per cent peaceable inhabitants to the malign influence of the wirepullers, whom he loves and fears, Mr George is putting Great Britain under the heavy disgrace of peace with murderers. In other words, Mr George, attended by the silent members of his Cabinet, who take his orders and register his decrees, has received Krassin, the representative of the most brutal and bloody minded tyrants that ever brought suffering and destruction upon an outraged people. The monsters who employed Chinese assassins to do their hellish work, oynical Jews, men of no country and no associ

ations, are to-day publicly work for the self-appointed acclaimed our political friends "ohampion of the liberty of and equals. Of the many the world." However, from blows that Mr George has the very first Mr George could struck at England's dignity not wholly dissemble his love and England's honour, this is for Lenin and Trotsky. We all the heaviest, and he can remember the tragi-comedy of escape from his ignoble posi- Prinkipo. The intercession of tion neither by false history Mr Bullitt, whose story renor by inapposite jesting. mains uncontradioted, is not yet forgotten. Yet, as usual throughout the controversy, Mr George has spoken with two voices. He has abused the Bolsheviks with all the resources of his vocabulary, at the same time that he has paid them assiduous court. He has expressed his horror of Bolshevism a dozen times. He has declared that he would refuse to take it by the hand; he has deplored "its horrible consequences starvation, bloodshed, confusion, ruin, and horror"; and he has taken it by the hand, making light of its "horrible consequences," and palliating its crimes. Moreover, he has given a solemn undertaking that he would not have any dealings with Russia before he had

We do not suppose he feels any indignation against the Scoundrels whom Krassin represents, because they have murdered with an elaborate oruelty the Czar of Russia and his family. Monarchs and princes cannot vote, and are therefore but of small interest to politicians. It is unlikely that Mr George should shed a tear over the unavenged murder of our naval attaché at Petrograd. Naval attachés are not a numerous body and may safely be left to perish. Nevertheless it is well to remember that Mr George is now conferring with a set of misoreants and regioides who murdered an English officer, and who have hitherto refrained

consulted the House of Commons. And he has received Krassin at Downing Street without previously throwing a word to the elected representatives of the British people.

from expressing an apology or regret. For this callousness, we believe, there is no precedent, and the prestige of Great Britain has suffered an irreparable blow. Again Mr George will be unmoved. But even he, we should have The same uncertainty has thought, would have shrunk shrouded his dealings with from taking the hand of those Krassin from all save his obewho have murdered and tor- dient servants of the Cabinet. tured thousands of working Many stories, contradicting men and peasants, and have one another, have been told. put to forced labour those We have heard that there whom they have permitted is to be nothing between us to live. This is hardly save an agreement of barter.

Then there came

be paid for by ingots of
gold, which were not Lenin's
to give away. To expect
a plain statement from Mr
George is obviously absurd.
It is perhaps injudicious of
him not to settle beforehand
which tale he will tell and
stick to it. But we shall
be wise if we reject the
legend of goods for goods, and
resign ourselves to play the
criminal part of receivers of
stolen gold. There is the taint
of blood and theft upon every
ingot that is offered us by the
Bolshevists, and all the idle
words poured out by Mr
George will not avail to re-
move the indelible stain, "The
horrors of Bolshevism have
revolted the conscience of man-
kind," says Mr George. So
come let us trade with the
Bolshevists and gorge our-
selves upon their
their bursting
granaries!

а rumour duced no evidence in support that British goods were to of his assertion, and when it is disproved he will not be disconcerted for a moment. Then, said he, "I am told you must not do business, because we disprove of the Government. That surely is a new doctrine." It is not a new doctrine. It was a doctrine preached by Mr George himself a year ago, when he refused to take Bolshevism by the hand. It is a doctrine put into practice at this very hour, when we have kept a strict blockade-itself a form of war-against Russia. It is the doctrine which inspired Pitt and Burke in fighting with all the force at their command against an armed opinion. Mr George, we believe, is not a reader, and perhaps he is not familiar with the writings of Edmund Burke. If he were, he would see at once that the doctrine which he now pretends to be new is not new at all. It was held as stoutly by the statesmen who directed our policy at the time of the French Revolution, as it was held a year ago by himself. When the Regioides of 1796 made overtures of peace, they did it in the same amiable terms as were used by Lenin. Lenin will be satisfied with no pact which does not permit him to propagate his vile opinions. The Regicides declared in 1796 that they would have no peace until they had accomplished our utter and irretrievable ruin,

We are used by this time to Mr George's cynicism. The worst of it is that he is bolstering up the Bolshevism which in other days he condemned without reserve, at the very moment when Bolshevism is dying of its own incompetence and misdeeds. Nor will the defence, which he made in the House of Commons, convince a single waverer. It will persuade those only who arebound in the bonds of slavery, or who believe that the world will come to an end if they lose their seats. Mr George began by declaring that in starving Russia there is grain and oil and flax and timber. He pro

And here is the reply which the Georges of the day received from Edmund Burke: "To this conciliatory and ami

cable publick communication," that we have. We have never wrote the author of the 'Regieide Peace,' "our sole answer, in effect, is this-Citizen Regicides! whenever you find yourselves in the humour, you may have a peace with us. That is a point you may always command. We are constantly in attendance, and nothing you can do shall hinder us from the renewal of our supplications. You may turn us out of the door, but we will jump in at the window,"