The French Revolution indicated a very much more important movement among peoples. It developed awful excesses. The wild declarations and extremes practiced by the Committee of Safety in the French Revolution were revolting to any man affected by ordinary humane considerations and had in fact a remarkable effect in strengthening conservatism in England. Indeed, they caused the issue and the bitter personal quarrel between the one-time warm associates, Burke and Fox. The natural result of those excesses was to be expected. It took the shape of the man on horseback. The imperial control of Napoleon led the French people into a military waste of strength which has affected the French race even down to the present time. Yet Napoleon, by building up his Code Napoleon, and by spreading over Europe the idea that the people were the basis of government, profoundly affected political conceptions and conditions. There followed a reaction in the Holy Alliance, which was a combination to maintain the Divine Right of Kings, and then the spirit of the French Revolution reasserted itself in 1830. In fact from then on until now the movement toward more and more popular government has gone on continuously in France, Germany, Austria and elsewhere. It is spreading today even more widely than it ever did before, and every country, even Russia, has to count the cost with respect to the will of the people. When I went through Russia after the Russian-Japanese War, I met one of the leading diplomats of that country who greeted me with, "Well, how do you like it?" "How do I like what?" I asked. "How do you like helping Japan to lick Russia?" Those were the homely expressions that he used. To which I replied, "We did not help Japan to lick Russia." "But," he said, "you did in effect. Your people and your press sympathized and they expressed the kindly sympathy that counts for so much at such a time." "The government cannot control our people," I responded. "They think for themselves and express themselves as they see fit. We cannot control the press in our country, but we have observed all the laws of neutrality with respect to the war, and if some of the people expressed themselves in favor of Japan, it was only because they were in favor of the under dog in the fight." "Why did you give up?" I inquired further; "You were getting stronger and stronger." "Yes," he said, "we had to fight at the end of a 5,000-mile, single-track railway, but handicapped as we were, we got our forces out there ready to fight and we could have gone in and beaten the Japanese." "Why didn't you?" I asked. "Why did you make peace?" "The trouble is," he explained, "we were living on a volcano at home. Our people were opposed to the war, and we did not go on, lest the throne would be a forfeit." This is only an indication that even in the country that is supposed to represent the most absolute of empires, the people are manifesting a control. The Douma was given too