This habit of seeing ghosts brought me a good deal of chaff not only from the Communists but from my own friends. One of the Communists made a speech in defence of violent methods and gave a sidelook at me when he reminded the British Delegates that “once on a time the British Government made its king shorter by a head,” as did the people of France. “It is quite true,” I said afterwards to a group of Communists who were discussing with us the meeting. “King Charles the First was executed three hundred years ago in England. But it was after a proper trial by the recognised Courts of Justice. He was found guilty of the charges laid against him. And we did not shoot his wife and children. But if the idea of his execution was to get rid of kings it was the wrong way; for kings we have still with us. And they will remain with us so long as the king-idea continues to be acceptable to the human mind. The Allies will never destroy the idea of Communism with their guns. The Communists can never destroy the idea of kingship and capitalism with their scaffolds. Only a good idea can slay a bad one. Only by proving that there is more manliness in democracy than autocracy, and more morality in Communism than in capitalism will the one institution give way to the other.” Of course I spoke to people who could never be convinced in a thousand years of argument. Neither could they understand the distinction one made between the system and the individual. To them all is the same. And individuals must be made responsible for the suffering which is caused by the system, even though they may themselves be tender and pitiful, and innocent of wrong. It was the great point of difference which separated spiritually my hosts and me. “You can never build a permanent system on hate,” I said again and again; but they believe they can. And because of this belief they have no pity to spare for the innocent children of a hated monarch and his foolish, fanatical wife, all shot in the name of Authority for the crime of being themselves. Their poor ghosts flitted in and out of the compartments in the train which was lent to us in our journey from Saratov to Reval, the train belonging to the Czar’s daughters. And following them, in tragic sequence, the endless procession of ghosts tramping their way through the snows to Siberia to the crack of the Cossack whips. Russia is full of ghosts. CHAPTER IV Investigation or Propaganda?