Aug. 12.
Ir would be a waste of time to attempt to answer in detail all the arguments pressed, in our correspondence columns to-day, by Mr. J. C. E. Rye, for taking the Bolshevist to our bosoms. His point of view is such that any conciliation between Mr. Rye ind those who differ from him is, simply impossible. At the same time there are one or two statements in his letter which cannot well be let pass and some criticism of our own position, meant, we feel sure, in no unfriendly sense, but none the less calling for an answ Our correspondent says that if we left the editorial chair and went to Russia, we should find "that all the Russians (outside few die-hards) would tell you out of two evils Tsarism and Bolshevism, we choose the lat ter" Now in the first place this is no argument for Bolshevism, Accepting for the sake of argument that it is' better than' Tsarism, the only conclusion is that the latter was much worse than ever supposed. But in point of fact, so long as people kept out of politics, they were free under Tsarism at least to work as they pleased, to enjoy the fruits of their labour, to employ others or take service with others, to marry, to have a home to themselves, to worship. None of these is permitted under Bois But going further in Mr. Rye' letter, we find that he "does not know one single Bolshevist." If, as seems reasonable, we may deduce from this that he has no more been in Bolshevist Russi than we have, then it is a fai question, Why should Mr. Rye' information as to the perfections of Bolshevism be more credible than our information regarding its imperfections? And it is a curious thing that -though Mr. Rye does not know one Bolshevist, he does possess "hundreds of friends amongst the White Rus-jans," who strangely refuse to) believe what he tells them about Russia to-day—probably because they have been there themselves.
To take another point, the fact that a man whose brother has been killed by the Germans during the war is willing to shake hands with Germans after the war, is no earthly argument for!
King George liking to shake hands with those who slew, or share the responsibility for slaying, his cousin and the wife, son' and daughters of the latter. The Germans killed in fair fight, and in fair fight the British did their best to kill them. When the fight is over, the proper spirit is that] the bitterness of war should be forgotten as soon as humanly possible, and that the two should shake hands. But the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, their son and daughters were butchered in a cellar at Ekaterinburg without provocation and without the ghost of.a chance of self-defence. Mr. Rye will find all the facts fully told—they are perfectly well attested —in Francis MeCull Prisoner of the Reds: not read the book we recommend him to do so.
Our correspondent goes on to say that "amongst the Russian emigres there are a vast number of useless, spineless, idle rich, whom Russia can well do without." This appears to rather a loose statement: wonder how many Russian exiles can really be described as n But accepting it as it stands, for the sake of argument again, assertion does not touch the worst. of the charge in respect of Bolshevist persecutions.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.