And by all these signs we learn what the “dictatorship of the proletariat” really means. Let there be no mistake whatever about this. I am wholly hostile to the artificial dictatorship of any class in those matters which are the serious concern of all. I believe in the dictatorship of the idea, that is in the power of the idea to conquer without force, and the right of the majority to decide all those matters of high policy which cannot be settled amicably without a vote; but I consider that the sources of information should be available for all, the right of propaganda be universal and unrestricted, and the liberties and rights of the minorities safeguarded in all those things where the well-being of the community is not manifestly to all threatened by too great concessions. I believe that the Parliamentary machine needs very considerable overhauling; that something of the nature of proportional representation should be devised; that a chamber elected upon a vocational basis might very usefully replace the hereditary House of Lords. I believe in the devolution of power in national and local affairs, and would give not only to Ireland, but to Scotland and Wales and England their separate national one-chamber Parliaments. I would extend the vote to all adult women, as in Russia, and encourage the work of committees; all this to better secure the expression in politics of the real will of the people. But the Russian dictatorship does not do this. It is, at the best, an attempt by a few men to compel the people of Russia to have what in their opinion is good for them. It may very well be that what they seek to impose and the methods by which they seek to impose it will in some ways benefit a lethargic race, unused to the ways of freedom. I express no opinion on the point, beyond saying this: That the argument of unfitness to manage one’s own affairs has a very familiar ring about it to women. It was the favourite argument against granting the vote to women of a certain class of English opponent. Our good was sought, not our freedom. But though the freedom was denied for so long, the good lingered also; and the Russian people might reasonably protest, and in many cases do protest, that there the good is lingering also. The great and fundamental question for all who are thinking seriously about these things is this: Has a handful of brilliant and thoughtful men, however good and sincere they may be, the moral right to enforce upon a whole community the system they believe in but the community as a whole rejects, with all the tyranny and cruelty such dictatorship must inevitably mean? Had the men of Russia the moral right to break up their own National Assembly, however inadequate and faulty, thereby bringing upon their country civil war and alien aggression, for the sake of a theory however magnificent?