It must here be remarked that the Russian government of that time never understood the wants of the labour party. It is sufficient to recall the terrible drama which was enacted in the Lena gold fields of Siberia, when the troops, called to the help of the owners of the works, fired on the mass of workmen who were simply asking for some legitimate improvements in their conditions of existence, to come to the conclusion that, according to the words of Hamlet, “there was something rotten in that state of Denmark.” Only, neither the government nor the upper classes of society, who were all of them, or nearly all, in the dependence of a few lucky speculators in stocks and shares, nor these speculators themselves, whose number was getting larger and larger every day in St. Petersburg, cared to remember that such was the fact. During the years which immediately preceded the great war, the whole of Russia had become one vast Stock Exchange, the securities of which were quoted at every street corner, where the only things that had any value, were those which could be turned into a shareholder’s company. The Emperor Alexander III. had tried, during the whole time of his reign, to improve agriculture in his land, and he had tried to bind together the different social classes of the nation, by a common love for their native soil. It had been told at that time that he had been wrong in looking upon Russia exclusively from the agricultural point of view, but in presence of the things which have happened recently, one may wonder whether after all he had not been right, because it is quite certain that the change of system that had followed upon his death, and the exclusive protection which to the detriment of everything else, industry was awarded, during the twenty-two years of Nicholas II.’s administration, and especially during the time that Mr. Kokovtsoff remained at the Treasury, darkened the judgment of the people who under different circumstances, and if they had made less money, would have probably noticed the progress made by socialism, and the growing influence of the labour party over its adherents, who from the outset had been determined to break this might of capital which was of no good to the country, and simply added to the importance of lucky speculators. [Illustration: _Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._ SOLDIER AND SAILOR CITIZENS’ DUMA]