I think the government are, therefore, taking the right view of their responsibilities when through their foreign secretary they open negotiations with the representative of the Soviet government in this country. You can easily evoke resounding cheers amongst the thoughtless by declaring melodramatically that you will never "shake hands with murder." In practice this policy has always been a failure. Mr. Pitt in a famous passage declined to assent to that doctrine when he was attacked for trying to open negotiations with the "assassins" of the French Revolution. He was driven out of this calm and rational attitude by the inflammable rhetoric of Burke, aided by the arrogance of the victorious revolutionaries. Nevertheless, the sequel proved he was right. French Bolshevism was not defeated by foreign armies, nor starved out by the British blockade. But it was driven into the arms of Napoleon, and Europe suffered bitterly for the folly of the hotheads on both sides. It would have been better for that generation had it listened to the wise counsel of William Pitt.
If you decline to treat with Russia as long as its present rulers remain in power, then you ought to place Turkey in the same category. The military junta that governed Turkey has been guilty of atrocities at least as vile as any committed by the Bolshevists. But at Lausanne we ostentatiously stretched the friendly hand of Britain to the authors of the Armenian massacres. And France, Italy—yes, and America also—tendered the same warm handshake. I am not criticising the offer of amity made as a condition of peace. We must make peace in the world, and you cannot do so if you put whole nations off your visiting list because of the misconduct of those who govern them. Once you begin you are not quite sure where it will end.
In these cases the innocent suffer the most. A refusal to trade with Russia would not deprive the Soviet commissaries of a single necessity or comfort of life. The Communists are quite strong enough to take care of themselves. But the peasants—who are not Communists—would continue to suffer, and their sufferings would increase as their reserves of clothing and other essentials became completely exhausted. And the people of this country who need the produce of Russia for their own use would also suffer to a certain extent. America can afford this exalted aloofness. She does not need the Russian grain and timber. She is an exporter of those commodities. But we cannot do as well without them, and we also sadly need Russian flax for our linen industries, which are languishing for the want of it. Last year there were quite considerable imports of Russian produce into this country. This year owing to the prospects of an improved harvest these imports will be much larger. They are greatly needed here for our own consumption, and they pay for exports of machinery and textiles which the Russian on his part urgently requires.
But beyond and above all these material considerations, the world needs peace. In the old days conveyancing attorneys in this country kept a property transaction going by interminable requisitions on the title of the other party. They exercised all their ingenuity and invoked the added ingenuity of trained counsel to probe for defects in the right of the vendor to deal. Those were leisurely days, and men could afford to dawdle. Even then these exercises often ended in ruinous litigation. To-day time presses and the atmosphere is dangerous for the plying of irritating interrogatories. It is time we made up our minds that the Soviets have come to stay, whether we like it or no, and that one or other of the formidable men who rule Russia to-day are likely to rule it for some time to come. The sooner we have the courage to recognise this fact, the sooner will real peace be established.
FOOTNOTE
[11] Pugatchef was the Pretender who led a revolt of the peasants in the reign of Catherine and spread rapine and carnage through the provinces bordering the Volga and Ural.
XXVII PALESTINE AND THE JEWS
"What's his reason? I am a Jew."