Platform thus reveals many divergent influences at work, many hands bringing from all directions pieces of lumber that may or may not fit into a lasting edifice. At first sight, the political struggle might appear as a plain case of West against East, a solid West battling for freedom from the economic strangle-hold of the East, and a solid East grimly resolved to preserve its vested interests. Closer examination shows that the West, while united on the negative side of the Fiscal question (namely, the destruction of the Tariff), is by no means united on the constructive side of the Fiscal question (new taxation) and still less on other matters of vital importance. Reciprocity with the United States appeals with special force to former citizens of that country. To conciliate the British element, the sop of Free Trade with Great Britain is thrown to it. But lest the American should take offence, the preamble of the whole document includes a strongly anti-imperialist pronouncement. The Labour-Socialist element has its finger in the pie, preparing the way for the full triumph of its own special tenets, but careful not to intrude itself too obviously upon the notice of the wary farmer; and the organisation of labour is almost purely American. As Mr Peterson says: Canadian labour organisations are international, which merely means that United States bodies dominate the situation. Whether Canadian labour may or may not strike is determined south of the line.'

The farmers' movement, which, in the sphere of economic co-operation, was purely agrarian in management and inspiration, appears to have lost much of its agrarian character in the political sphere. It has been skilfully diverted by hands working in the dark for purposes which have little in common with agrarianism, and cannot be called truly national. For to such an eclectic hodge-podge as the programme of the Council of Agriculture the epithet of national can scarcely be applied. Canada grew during the war to the full stature of a nation. She has nothing to learn from her neighbours south of the line. She must emancipate herself from the tutelage of American ideas; but can only do so with the help of a large influx of British-born population.

Art. 6. THE MEANING OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE.

1. Profils et types de la littérature russe. By E. Combes. Paris: Fischbacher, 1896.

2. The Collected Works of V. G. Byelinsky [In Russian]. Second edition. Four vols. St Petersburg, 1900.

3. Collected Works of A. M. Skabichevsky: Critical Essays, etc. [In Russian]. Third edition. Two vols. St Petersburg, 1903.

4. History of Modern Russian Literature, 1848-1908. By A. M. Skabichevsky. [In Russian.] Seventh edition. St Petersburg, 1909.

5. History of Russian Literature. By A. N. Pypin. [In Russian.] Third edition. Four vols. St Petersburg, 1907. 6. Sketches for the History of Modern Russian Literature. By P. Kogan. [In Russian]. Moscow, 1910-12.

7. Russian Literature. By Prince P. A. Kropotkin. Duckworth, 1916.

THE English student of Russian life and character finds himself confronted by what appears at the outset a baffling enigma to which Russian history in itself does not supply a satisfactory clue. The science, the art, the music of Russia yield each something to his search, but it is only in the literature of the Russian people that he finds the master-key to the mind and heart of the nation. It is hardly too much to say that in no other language is the literature so expressive, so intimate and searching in its psychology, so true an index to the mentality whence it proceeds. In the words of Byelinsky,

'Our social life finds its chief expression in our literature. Art with us is still a weak and tender shoot which has not had time to spread its roots, much less to develop into a fine and goodly-smelling flower. That does not mean that there is no art, but only that art in Russia is something of the nature of the Eleusinian mysteries, the exclusive possession of a small, select class.'

Of Russian literature, on the contrary, it may be said that at birth it sprang direct from the peasantry of the land, and after centuries of suppression and diversion from its original channel, it has returned in modern times to the source of its earliest inspiration, there to be strengthened, enriched, and revived beyond all

measure. To explain how Russia, with millions of her population steeped in ignorance, has come to possess a literature such as this, it is not enough to give a list of men of letters, or to describe their personalities and works. We must trace the growth of national thought and aspiration from the earliest dawn of Slavonic civilisation, before the fatal supremacy of the Mongol Khans, when nomadic tribes were in process of becoming communal settlers, when along the banks of the great watercourses prosperous cities spread themselves, and the boats or sledges of traders plied to and fro laden with merchandise.

To those far-off times, the eighth and ninth centuries of the Christian era, belong the epic songs of Russia, the bylinys, or metrical tales of "What was." They tell of the golden age of Kiev, under the rule of Prince Vladimir, whose conversion to Christianity was consummated by his marriage with a Byzantine princess. In the Kievan epic cycle, heroes endowed with superhuman strength perform doughty deeds in the cause of Christianity, but their attributes are those of the Pagan demi-gods. The Greek Church gradually introduced changes of nomenclature, and saints in place of the ancient heroes; it could not so easily estrange the people from polytheism. The bylinys are full of rich and fanciful imagery, and picture the semi-barbaric splendour of the Kievan Court in language that often rises to a high level of poetic beauty. The knights vie with one another and deem it not unseemly to boast of their deeds and their possessions. Vladimir and his spouse, the fair princess Apraxin, bear a certain resemblance to King Arthur and Guinevere; but Vladimir is outshone by the heroes who surrounded him, by Mikula, by the protean Volga, and the mighty Ilya of Muroum. A large number of the bylinys, after descending for hundreds of years from father to son by oral tradition, have been collected in latter days by Slavophils, and are now recognised as a priceless national inheritance. Several have been rendered into English prose, and. deserve to be read by every student of Russian literature.

In speaking of what is usually regarded as the earliest written epic of medieval Russia it should be said that there is a wide divergence of opinion among

Russian critics as to the period at which it was composed, but 'The chant of the band of Igor' is commonly supposed to date from the 12th century. It describes a defeat of the Kievans under their prince Igor, in an expedition against the Polovtsi, a hostile tribe in the South of Russia. There are many allusions to the ancient Slavonic deities-to the Sun-god Dajbog, Stribog, the God of Ocean, and Volos, guardian of the flocks and herds. The forces of nature league themselves with the enemy, and a witch-maiden, in the form of a swan, hovers over the Slavs to compass their destruction. Finally Prince Igor returns in safety to Kiev and the city is filled with rejoicing.

Among the few remaining secular works that survived the stormy period of the Middle Ages, is a code of laws, the Russkaya Pravda, dating from the 11th and 12th centuries. It records the scale of payment for labour, the legal procedure of the time with regard to the management of estates, and kindred matters. Apart from these exceptions, almost all the manuscripts of the period are religious in character, the monasteries being the sole repositories of learning, while the princes of petty states warred continually one against another, and hordes of Mongols and Tartars devastated the land.

But the fierceness of the conflict between Christian and Mongol absorbed the whole vitality of the Greek Church. There was practically no general education. Even in historic records like the Chronicle of Nestor,' every event is viewed from a theological standpoint. From Cyril and Methodius onwards Russian literature consisted of Scriptural paraphrases, selections from the Holy Fathers, and collections of prayers and homilies.

At length, towards the close of the reign of Ivan the Terrible (1533-84), a printing-press was set up in Moscow; and among the earliest secular works to issue from it was a famous book known as the Domostroi, or Book of the House.' It was written by a monk named Sylvester, who was tutor to Ivan, and it contained precepts and maxims of conduct for the members of a family of the upper class. The husband was enjoined to treat his wife kindly, but at the same time he was free to inflict bodily chastisement on her, and she for her part must not show resentment or even ill-humour at

such treatment. The sons were taught to say prayers by heart and to perform martial exercises. The daughters had little teaching other than how to make garments and house-linen intended for their dowry.

The social conditions of the time rendered literary progress slow and fitful. No perceptible advance was

made until the reign of Peter the Great, when there were signs of an intellectual awakening in response to the Tsar's stirring activities. A peasant writer named Possofchkov gave expression to views which were too much in advance of his generation to be appreciated. Not merely an iconoclast, he suggested means of improving the conditions of his class, but his theories fell on stony ground; his advocacy of compulsory universal education received no attention, and the appeal he made to land-owners to keep their peasantry well-housed and cared-for was equally unavailing. It was too soon to preach to Russian statesmen that education and economic prosperity must go hand-in-hand; and his contemporary, Tatischev, was equally disregarded. Tatischev also sounded the first notes of a cry for political progress and liberty, an appeal that was to go on gathering volume for two hundred years.

Peter the Great, while engaged in introducing better methods of shipbuilding, manufacturing, and all kinds of improvements in economic matters, cared little for purely intellectual acquirements. He brought in English, German, Dutch, and Swiss workmen, who disseminated new scientific ideas and introduced Western methods to Russian craftsmen; but he was ready to crush independence of thought whether in the Church or the laity. Nevertheless, at his death, Prokopovich, the Bishop of Novgorod, himself a man of distinguished learning, bore witness to the great Tsar's qualities of mind and heart.

'Oh! Russia,' he says, 'he is your Moses; are not his laws the firm protection of truth and the unbreakable fetters of wrong-doing? And are not his statutes clear, a light upon your path? And are not the high-ruling senate and the many institutions founded by him so many beacons on the road of progress, the warding-off of harm, the safety of the peaceful, and the unmasking of wrong-doers?'

But, in spite of what has been termed the renaissance