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A PLEA FOR INTELLECTUAL COALESCENCE 153
There is one aspect of liberty, common both in England
and Russia : the liberty to strike, which is due to the idea of
conceding to the great majority. It is a form of liberty which
is bound to produce the opposite effect, at least on those
suffering from the application of it. This concession to
great numbers means nothing more nor less than endorsing
the dangerous and ethically unsound principle that might
is right. Can any right-thinking man affirm that a breach
of contract committed simultaneously by a number of
persons has not the same nature and aspect of unfaithfulness
and lawlessness as that of a breach of promise given by a
single individual ? Is it not, therefore, plain to every one
that if people are allowed to cease working, claiming at the
same time to be kept at the expense of the community, such
a state of things must lead to bankruptcy, misery, and want
of those things which are necessary to life ? The principle
of liberty to strike is wrong in its very conception. Any
other device for bringing Labour and Capital into line with
each other, for the establishment of fairness and justice—
as, for instance, adjustment of wages and the fixing of
prices by compulsory Arbitration Courts—is palpably
preferable to strikes, which undermine the order and
economic fabric of State and Society, and are tantamount
to licence, extortion, and blackmail, containing the germ
of anarchy.
In accordance with the difference in the conception of
freedom, the social structure and intercourse in Russia and
in Great Britain bear a very different aspect. Elaborate
forms of ceremony and the pomp of relics of the past are
little known and thoroughly unsympathetic to Russians.
The complexity of social relations, so dear to the hearts of
Englishmen, is uncongenial to Russians, who treat everything
in their simple genuine fashion, in the spirit of laissez-faire,
with broad-minded intention to live and let live.
Englishmen who know Russian life well are fascinated by this
atmosphere of sans gene, sincerity, and absence of cant.
It is precisely this feature of the Russian character which
makes the British " Tommy " feel at home with the Russian
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