That is, they argue, the motto of the authorities, and that is exactly the sentiment which arouses the indignation of the citizen. A cabman asked some one the other day when they were going to punish “him.” Who is “him”? he was asked. “Admiral Dubassov,” was the answer. “Surely the Emperor will punish him for shooting at the houses.” The energetic manner in which the rising was suppressed has, I am told, produced a good effect in Europe; doubtless energetic measures were not only necessary but imperative in the first instance; whether the continuation of them now is a mistake or not only the future can show. One fact, however, is certain, and that is that these measures are being conducted with the same arbitrariness which has characterised the action of the Russian police in the past, and are causing intense exasperation. There is a word in Russian, “Proisvol,” which means acting, like Wordsworth’s river, according to your “own sweet will,” unheedful of, and often in defiance of, the law. It is precisely this manner of acting which has brought about the revolution in Russia. It is against the “Proisvol” that all the educated classes and half the official class rebelled. And it is this very “Proisvol” against which the whole country rose on strike, which the Government promised should henceforth disappear, and which is at the present moment triumphantly installed once more as the ruling system. Of course it may be objected that anarchy and lawless revolution can only be met by severe repression; but the question is: Must it be met by arbitrary and lawless repression? Hang the insurgents if you like, but why shoot a doctor who has got nothing to do with it before you know anything about him? To stop a newspaper like the _Russkie Viedomosti_, for instance, is an act of sheer “Proisvol,” the reason given being that it had subscription lists for workmen’s unions, which it denies, saying that the money was for the wounded. Here I point to my second text. All this repression seems to me utterly futile. The future, however, can show whether this is indeed so. In the meantime election programmes are appearing. That of the Constitutional Democrats has come out, and is moderate in tone, although its clauses are extensive. It insists, among other things, on universal suffrage and an eight-hours’ day for the workmen. Here I would point to text 3. Everybody whom I have seen in Russia in any way connected with the working man is agreed in saying that an eight-hours’ day is an absolute impossibility. That a Russian workman’s eight hours means in reality about six hours. That no factory in Russia could exist on these terms. The Constitutional Democrats seem in this case to have omitted the factor of human egoism and interest.