IN the following paper I have attempted to transplant the facts and atmosphere of recent Russian history into English surroundings: to imagine the Russian Revolution happening in England.

Two or three days ago, while I was listening to a Ministerial explanation in the Duma, I fell asleep and dreamt a strange dream which I will now relate.

I dreamt I was in a third-class carriage in England on the South-Western line; the train was evidently going to London, and we were somewhere between Cobham and Surbiton. In the carriage there was a mixed collection of persons. A clerk going up to the City, two workmen, a gay man in flannels with a straw hat, an elderly man with grey hair and spectacles, a young lady wearing a cotton blouse and a straw hat, carrying a hamper with flowers sticking out of it, a middle-aged man who looked like a commercial traveller, and a young mechanic.

“The Morning Post out again to-day,” said the mechanic to the workman.

“Oh! ah!” said the workman.

“Under its own name?” asked the elderly gentleman.

“Yes,” said the mechanic, “they fixed it up with Scotland Yard.”

“Why was it stopped?” asked the young man in flannels.

“In the personal column there was a paragraph,” said the mechanic, “saying as Lord Kitchener was living like at Buckingham Palace—which he was—and at Scotland Yard they said as this was an instigation like to kill him.”

“I suppose they’re sure to kill him some time,” said the young man in flannels.

“Yes,” said the commercial traveller, “they’ll probably shoot him in the back; cowards and swine I call ’em. If only we had a strong Government they’d all be ’ung.”

“I suppose you think that is less cowardly than shooting down the workmen in Manchester,” said the young lady in great indignation.

“’Ere, ’ere,” said the workman.

“Got what they jolly well deserved,” said the commercial traveller. “In what other country would they stand workmen making barricades in the street and trying to kidnap the Governor, I should like to know.”

“It was Admiral Fisher’s fault,” said the young lady; “directly he was made Governor of Manchester he made such a tactless speech; on purpose, of course, to incite the people to rise.”

“He simply said he wasn’t going to have any nonsense, and he meant to keep order in the town,” said the commercial traveller.

“Provocation! Provocation!” said the workman and the young lady in chorus.

“The people in Manchester ought to have waited for Parliament to be summoned,” said the old gentleman, who was reading the Standard.

“Wait, wait, wait; that’s all everybody has to tell us,” said the young man. “We got very little from the first Parliament, and now they’re going to dissolve this one, I suppose.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Why, the Government, of course,” said the young man.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I am a stranger and I don’t quite understand. I don’t know what’s been happening in this country.”

“Well,” said the old man, “I suppose you know that two years ago after the disastrous war in South Africa, and the disorders and the general strike which followed it, the Government, acting under the advice of Sir Ernest Cassel, the Prime Minister, decided to re-establish the old liberties granted by the Magna Charta and to summon a Parliament—a thing which had not occurred since the days of Oliver Cromwell. A manifesto was issued in this sense, promising that henceforth no new laws should be passed without the consent of the people, and that a Parliament would shortly be summoned. This was taken by the whole population to mean that the autocratic powers of the Monarch were to be limited, and that the Government would henceforward be constitutional. In the meantime no laws were promulgated, but the newspapers for the first time for three hundred years began to write what they pleased; all the Jews in the East End were massacred by hooligans at the instigation of the Jacobites; many of the University dons were sent to the Hebrides, and some of them to the Isle of Man and New Zealand; the administration of the country continued to be in the hands of the military governors instituted by Cromwell and confirmed by Charles II., and everything went jogging on until January, and since there was to be a Parliament general elections had to be held. The task of making an electoral law was entrusted to an official belonging to the Board of Trade, who devised a law according to which the labouring class should elect a member of their class for each borough, and besides this should have a vote in the election of the remaining representatives of the borough. This was done because the Government believed that the labouring classes were fundamentally loyal and would prove Conservative. The result of the elections was a triumphant majority for the Liberals, who were represented by the flower of the English gentry, among them being Lord Lansdowne, Lord Wemyss, and also by the most eminent names of the Bar, science and literature, such as Asquith, Haldane, Morley, Butcher, and Sir Charles Dilke. Whereas among the gentry only six Jacobites were returned.

“The Liberals, who were nicknamed the C.B.’s, owing to one of their leaders’ names being Campbell-Bannerman, were practically led by Mr. Balfour, who was not allowed to stand for Parliament by the Government for having edited the Fortnightly Review during some months previous to the elections. The labouring class returned fifteen Jacobite peasants and one hundred men who professed to belong to no party, but who as soon as Parliament was opened formed themselves into a Radical group called the Labour Party; there were also about fifty Irishmen and Scotchmen, who formed separate groups. The Parliament as soon as it met demanded a responsible Minister, and, the Government refusing, passed a vote of censure on the Ministers; Cassel had resigned before Parliament met and been succeeded by Sir Thomas (afterwards) Lord Sanderson, and Lord Methuen was appointed Minister of the Interior. The Government being unwilling to yield on the subject of responsible Ministry, dissolved Parliament, and declared that a general election should be held in five months’ time. But the C.B.’s regarded the sudden dissolution as unconstitutional, and published an address in which they advocated passive resistance. For this they were disenfranchised. Sir Thomas Sanderson resigned and was made a Peer, and Lord Methuen was made Prime Minister. As disorders were feared, London and all the large towns were placed under martial law. All the newspapers except the Times were suppressed, but the Morning Post, Standard, and Daily News were ultimately allowed to appear on certain conditions; and the provincial Governors were given powers to hang people within forty-eight hours without trial. On the other hand the revolutionary element enormously increased. Oxford and Cambridge were closed, and the undergraduates devoted their leisure to blowing up officials and soldiers with dynamite. From two to three hundred high officials perished in this manner, besides nearly all the rank and file of the police in Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Edinburgh. Before the next elections were held the Government took measures by which it hoped to obtain a moderate Conservative result, and a majority composed of men who considered Mr. Balfour’s policy too advanced. They disenfranchised therefore the most educated portion of the lower class and ostracised the Liberals; the election was therefore held under double pressure, under that of the Government on the one hand and that of the revolutionaries on the other. The Socialist Party was allowed greater liberty than the Liberal Party, although the system of excluding any individual who was superior in any sort of way to his fellow-beings was rigorously adopted as regards the Socialists as well as regards the Liberals. At the time of the dissolution of the first Parliament many people, and among some who had great influence at Court, maintained that it would be a good thing to form a Ministry either of the C.B.’s or of leading men of the country gentry, such as the Duke of Devonshire. This latter possibility was taken into consideration and pourparlers took place between the Prime Minister and the Duke; but the Duke refused to take office unless guarantees for the adoption of a thoroughly Liberal régime were given. As regards the C.B.’s the Government said they were a set of doctrinaires, that Mr. Balfour was a Jesuit, and that it was impossible to expect that a man who had written a defence of philosophic doubt and spent many hours on the golf links could possibly be capable of administrative work. The same argument was applied to Mr. Haldane and Mr. Morley; these men, it was said, were philosophers and men of letters, and could not be called statesmen. They were without experience.

“Mr. Winston Churchill, also a C.B., was said to be a Socialist at heart, and Mr. Belloc, a member of the Labour Party, had to leave the country to avoid arrest and emigrated to Russia, where he gave lectures on English literature.

“The result of the second General Election proved to be a great disappointment to the Government. Mr. Balfour and Mr. Morley stood as candidates for London, but a week before their election Mr. Balfour was disqualified on the grounds that he had only spent nine months of the preceding year in London and Mr. Morley was also disqualified, because there had appeared in the Spectator, a newspaper to which he had been a leading contributor, a letter from an officer of the 60th Rifles, stating that the policy of the Government was revolutionising the Army. He was, however, shortly afterwards made a Peer and took his seat in the House of Lords. In spite of the persecution of the Liberals all the big towns returned Liberal members; Professor Butcher was returned for Cambridge, and Mr. Strachan Davidson for Oxford, and in all 90 Liberals were returned, 100 Socialists, 100 members belonging to the Labour Party, 60 Irishmen, 30 Jacobites, and 30 Conservatives. The Government brought forward a programme of elaborate reforms, which, however, eschewed Ministerial responsibility, and it was soon clear that the Liberals were dancing on a tight-rope over an abyss, and had to depend for support either on the Conservatives or on the Socialists. Shorn of all that constituted their strongest elements, their position was pitiable, and they had among them no statesman strong enough to build bricks out of straw, to dominate the situation and force his will on the Assembly. That was the position the day after Parliament was opened. During two months, however, the Centre managed to obtain a working majority, but last week they were defeated by the alliance of the Jacobites and the Socialists. And we are told that we may expect a dissolution any minute, although it is, perhaps, to the influence of the Government for Parliament to continue its existence, since it is too weak to prove a serious danger. That is the situation at present.”

“Lord Lansdowne’s country house, Bowood, was burnt yesterday,” said the young man in flannels, looking up from his newspaper.

“Yes,” said the commercial traveller, “and houses are being burned and looted in the Midlands every day; that comes of having a weak Government.”

“Three policemen were shot at Leeds by a youth seventeen years old,” continued the young man, “and the foreman of the ironworks at Wolverhampton was stabbed.”

“How cruel of the Government,” said the young lady, “to force people to do such things!”

“Lord Althorp has been asked to leave the Turf Club by the Jacobites,” said the young man.

“Why?” said the young lady.

“Because of his principles,” said the young man.

“Why,” said the young lady, “he’s a C.B., that is to say, almost a Jacobite.”

“The C.B.’s are a Liberal Party based on sound democratic and constitutional principles,” said the old man, much ruffled.

“Hear, hear,” said the clerk.

“The C.B.’s are a set of revolutionary liars paid by the Jews and the Germans,” said the commercial traveller.

“The C.B.’s ain’t no good,” said the workman. “They’re in a funk of the Government.”

“They’ve become Conservative,” said the mechanic.

“Yes, Jacobite,” said the young lady.

At that moment the train stopped. From one of the first-class carriages a gentleman in uniform got down.

“Lord Kitchener,” said the young man, looking out of the window.

The young lady got out, carrying her hamper with her. As she walked past the General she took something from it and flung it at him. There was a terrific explosion, and I woke up.