The Hon. Bertrand Russell has spent six months in China and has been lucky enough to return to England just when the affairs of that country were attracting great attention owing to the Washington Conference. Prior to the War he was one of the Great Thinkers who were better known outside England than in, and he only achieved fame here through being the biggest catch the conscientious objectors made among well-known men in support of their views.
Mr. Russett's ADMIRERS.
It may be remembered that there were three varieties of C. 0.'s. There were those who would only fight in a class war and who considered that the war was "capitalistic those who would not fight for religious reasons; and those who would not fight because the discipline of an army curtailed their precious freedom, or because they considered that ' their lives were of peculiar and exceptional value. To these Russell was the prophet, his support was_ their greatest asset, and around him there gathered_a, motley crew of degenerates and wasters. Now that resentment at these miserable creatures has subsided and a cool estimate is possible, it is evident that Bertrand Russell fulfilled a public service in keeping them from contact with the young—recruits whose minds they might so easily have poisoned. The country should be grateful to him for his help in maintaining our armies at a pitch of efficiency that would have been impossible if these individuals had been conscripted.
Wowen Wro Protecr Mev.
Last Tuesday he gave the first of a series of lectures in Manchester. It was entitled "The Internal Condition of China," and was given under the auspices of the "Women's International League," which is a post-war development of one of the: O. societies. In reality it was a woman's organization to protect their spoilt and degenerate menfolk from the ravening militarists who wished to conscript them. Their feminine defence was something like this, "Tf you know better than the Hon. Bertrand Russell, you go and fight, he says it is wrong, and that is good enough for me, and my Perey.''
It may be said that Russell is a much bigger man than his disciples. His aberrations are the result of a Quietist_ philosophy shrinking from any kind of action. His worst trait is a foolish aptitude for playing to a particularly repulsive gallery who see in his fine-drawn logic an excuse for every disloyalty and baseness.
The lecture hall was comfortably full with about 500 people, each of whom had paid 2/6, or 1/-, for the
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