It is interesting to look back on this conversation now in December, 1906, since it shows the illusions which Russian Liberals cherished a year ago.
St. Petersburg, February 11th.
I have put into the form of a dialogue some of the many conflicting views I have lately heard expressed with regard to Count Witte.
“We have no right,” said the Moderate Liberal, “to doubt the good faith of the Government at the present moment as regards the promise of the Constitution and the elections for the Duma. Until the Government proves to us that it does not intend to keep its word we are bound to believe it.”
“It has never kept its word in the past,” said the student, “and everything which it is doing at present tends to show that it has no intention of doing so now.”
“Count Witte knows what he is doing,” said the man of business. “When our grandchildren read of this in books they will wonder why we were so blind and so obstinate, just as we now wonder at the blindness which prevailed when the opposition to Bismarck was absolutely universal.”
“I share the scepticism of our young friend,” said the Zemstvo representative, “but for different reasons. I do not share your confidence in Count Witte. The basis of that confidence is in your case the fact that Count Witte is a man of business. I maintain that a man of business can only exert a real and lasting influence in the affairs of a nation in times of revolution, convulsion, and evolution, or what you please to call it, on one condition, namely, that of recognising and taking into account the force of ideas and of moral laws. You smile, and say that this is nonsense. But I say this, not because I am an idealist, for I am not one, but because I have got an open mind, which seeks the causes of certain phenomena and finds them in the existence of certain facts. One of these facts is this: that you cannot set at naught certain moral laws; you cannot trample on certain ideas without their rebounding on to you with invincible force. You men of business deny the existence of these moral laws, and scoff at the force of ideas; but it is on practice and facts that I base my argument, and not on theory. That is why men like Cromwell succeed, and why men like Metternich fail.”
“And Napoleon?” asked the man of business.
“Napoleon slighted one of these laws by invading Spain, and this was the cause of his overthrow, although Napoleon was a soldier, which is an incalculable advantage.”
“And Bismarck?” asked the man of business.