At the outset of the war the aged Premier, Mr. Goremykin, whose political record was that of a benevolent Conservative, at once saw the need of engaging the full co-operation of the nation as a whole. After consultation with public leaders the Duma was summoned. A few representative speeches were expected, but with a remarkable spontaneity not only every section of political opinion, but every race in the vast Russian empire took its part in a striking series of declarations of loyalty and devotion. Each man spoke plainly the feelings of himself and those for whom he spoke. Perhaps no speeches left a greater impression than those of the Lithuanians and of the Jews; these last found a noble spokesman in Mr. Friedmann. The speeches in the Duma, which were circulated all over the country, were a revelation to the public and to the Duma itself; and the war thus had from the first a national character; it was a great act in the national life of Russia. In particular it was found that the Red Cross work could not possibly be organised on any basis of suspicion of public initiative. In the Japanese War Zemstva were still suspect to the Government, because they represented the elective principle. The Zemstva created a large Red Cross organisation under the admirable Prince George Lvov, but it worked under great difficulties. Now Mr. Goremykin confided the main work of the Red Cross to Prince Lvov and the Zemstva; and almost every one prominent in Zemstvo or Duma life engaged in this work, which gave splendid results. The later attempt of the reactionary Minister of the Interior, Mr. Maklakov, to close this organisation ended in his resignation. Red Cross Zemstvo work meant the nationalisation of Russian public life, which had so long been under the strong control of reactionary German influences. The liberation from these influences was sealed by the re-naming of the capital. The German name, St. Petersburg, was exchanged for the Russian Petrograd. This was no fad. It was the fitting end to a long struggle of the Russian people as a whole, under a national sovereign, to develop itself independently of any mailed fist, to manage its own affairs as Russian instincts should direct. In Moscow in 1812 the Emperor met his people after the beginning of the war. Gentry offered their lives; merchants, with clenched fists and streaming eyes, offered one-third of all their substance. In 1914 the Emperor again went to pray with his people in Moscow, and the growth of a still greater Russia has only augmented those proportions, deepened the reach of that historic example of patriotic self-sacrifice. "Russia," said one of the best Russians to me, Mr. N. N. Lvov, "was lost in a confusion of petty quarrels and intrigues; and suddenly we see that the real Russia is there."