Page:Emile Vandervelde - Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution - tr. Jean Elmslie Henderson Findlay (1918).djvu/40

 may be scarcely apparent at the time, may develop powerfully in the near future, and favourable or fatal consequences be the result. How can we attempt to deliver judgment in this formidable chaos from which a world will emerge? What do we know? What can we affirm?

We must wait and think, and compare events as they develop with our first impressions. . ..

But since necessity compels us to deal with this matter in these early days, we have but one resource, and that is to speak conditionally, always with a reservation, warning our readers that our statements are necessarily precarious and our conclusions uncertain.

Russia will always be an essentially agricultural country. Nearly 85 per cent, of its inhabitants live by the cultivation of the soil or of the forests. But we must not conclude from that that the country is in its commercial infancy. Nor must we picture the typical Russian workman