If what I have written leads others to take an interest in Russia and to go and see for themselves, and to treat exhaustively in a masterly fashion the things at which I have hinted incompletely and haltingly, I shall feel amply rewarded.
Somebody might object that even if we are totally ignorant of Russia in England there is no great harm done, that Russia is a far-off country with an impossibly difficult language; why should we bother about it? To this I would reply that the British people have shown themselves to be gravely concerned about the increasing competition with which the Englishman has to contend in all branches of life, and at the alarming improvement in the methods of his neighbours, which is met by no similar improvement at home. British trade, British influence, are rapidly, it is said, being outstripped. Remedies, such as protection, are suggested. As to whether such a remedy would prove efficacious or not I have no idea; but one practical reason of our stagnation in certain matters cannot fail to strike the most indolent observer. Our neighbours are well and practically educated. We are not. Is not this fact the cause of a great many things? If we want to remedy an evil we must look for the cause. I firmly believe that the unpractical education which is given to so many of us is largely responsible for the comparative stagnation of Englishmen in matters of trade and enterprise, compared with the sedulous efforts of the citizens of other countries. I am not advocating the introduction of a purely continental system of education, nor would I like to see our system of athletics disappear; but it is obvious that there is not and never will be any danger of either of these two things happening. But I never mean to lose an opportunity of advocating a radical reform in the old-fashioned strictly classical education given and received at our public schools and rendered necessary by the obstinacy of our universities, owing to which Greek and Latin are taught (but no longer learned except by a slender minority), to the exclusion of all other useful knowledge.
The mass of boys who now learn nothing because Greek and Latin mean nothing to them, would gladly assimilate something which would be useful to them in after life: for instance, some smattering of their own history, some mastery of the English tongue, or the knowledge of a modern language.
There is no country where the disadvantage at which an Englishman finds himself compared to his continental rivals is made so plain as in Russia. In Russia there is, and there will be even more in the future, an immense field for foreign enterprise. The Germans have taken, are taking, and will take the utmost advantage of this fact. The English are content to send advertisements here, written in the English language, and never dream of trying to learn Russian themselves.
A working knowledge of the Russian language is acquired here by the average British officer, working for an examination, in the course of six months. Therefore this difficulty, though serious, is not insurmountable. This, then, is the practical reason which I advance for the furthering of knowledge about Russia. I say that such knowledge is useful and advantageous to Englishmen. I have another reason for wishing such knowledge to be propagated, which is personal and moral, but not sentimental. It is this. I confess that I entertain perhaps a foolish desire for goodwill among nations. Of course I know very well that rivalries and conflicts must exist. Sometimes such rivalries and conflicts are the result of a fundamental antagonism and of the struggle for existence. But sometimes they are merely the outcome of misunderstanding and prejudice.
One of the wickedest things which shelters itself under the holy name of patriotism is the spirit which stirs up such prejudice and incites one country against another groundlessly by playing on ignorance and popular passion. With regard to Russia this has been done with considerable success. So far from considering such action to be patriotic, I consider it to be criminal; and although it may not be of the slightest interest to any one to hear this opinion expressed, to express it is a pleasure which I cannot deny myself. Whatever faults this book may contain, I mean to make up for the disappointments which it has caused me by indulging to the full in the luxury of saying exactly what I think in its pages. I cannot, unfortunately, hope to be among those masters who, speaking with inspired authority and unerring skill, compel the crowd to listen to their message, and at the sound of whose clarion-like utterance the “forts of folly” fall to the ground like the walls of Jericho. Mine is a humbler task, a more inglorious ambition. I hope to be like an obscure mouse who nibbles in the darkness at the net which holds the lion captive. The mouse in his lifelong effort succeeds perhaps only in gnawing away a little; and I shall be content if I succeed in nibbling through the most tenuous thread of this great net of error, misunderstanding, and falsehood. There are other mice who will come after me, and who knows? perhaps one day the lion will be set free.
Finally, if it be asked from what point of view I approach my study of Russia, I would answer that I have no political views whatever in the matter; I have tried to make it my business to discover, understand, and explain the points of view of the people with whom I have met; with some of these views I sympathise, with others I do not. I have already said that I have not disguised my sympathies, but I have attempted to understand even what repelled me; my attitude is that of a sympathetic friend, for whether the Frenchman who said “L’intelligence est presque toujours la sympathie” was right or wrong, I am convinced that the converse is true, and that the spirit of carping is nearly related to stupidity.
A YEAR IN RUSSIA
CHAPTER I
ST. PETERSBURG TO GODZIADAN
August 8, 1905.