2nd April.
Matters in Russia are evidently in a very serious state. Martial law has been proclaimed in various places and the Czar himself has presided over a council to consider what steps should be taken to check further excitement. In a democratic country there would be bat one means' of achieving this end, viz, to search out the causes of the outbreak and so dispose of them that they should no longer be a menace. Our telegrams do not give much hope that this course witl be followed in Russia. The tendency of autocratic government is towards repression; amelioration of conditions is a secondary consideration, and a Russian official has scant regard for the feelings or desires of such as would argue with him.
Unrest is not confined to Russia. Germany, France, Italy, and England know from dear-bought experience what may be feared from popular ferment. But there is this extraordinary difference between the unrest of Russian and that of Western Europe. Hers is that of the educated classes. Chartism in England, long since dead; Communism in France, still surviving though quiescent: and Socialism in Germany, daily gathering force: all these find their strength amongst the lower orders, and their numbers in the proletariat. Russia it is different; many of Nihilists are amongst the best educated of her people, men and women of gentle birth, of spotless honour, and unblemished lives. The lower orders have as yet been touched but little by the burning desire for some of the freedom of the West which consumes the more ardent patriots. A recent writer thus refers to the limitation of Russian The for the ce dung in that country religions, and metaph: One might ca matter-of-fa out seeing th ly underlying Yet the brief consideration that £ asian itt that most of the things which to the free man make life worth living are denied. The conduct of public affairs is no more to be discuss than the Divine ordination of the unive Both alike are laid down by an authority which may noi be questioned and supported by bowel which cannot b: ill quarreling w master of thunderbolt oners, and it isnot true la that the pen mightier than the swer censor's pad and repressive prevent that. Hence the Rus: as far as possible swallows the shor comings of hi 1 does the sele! hoping his soul is his own, reft from saying so except "ans friends, Butis italy wonder th is ready to rebel? Is he to be shot down if instead of dari he looks for light! Why. should grown men and women of the kind we have mentioned, well born, well educated as education goes in Russia, why should they bs treated as so many babes incapable of discerning what is and what is not good for them? Why should th be a censorship of the Press against which even that sturdy Russophil, the Editor of the "Review of Reviews," inveighs? Why should the only Russian free to read be the Russian exile! How ravenously Russian gentlemen devour general literature tabooed at home we know from personal experience, and how fiercely the deprivation is resented may be imagined from what we ourselves should feel if some tnderstrapper of British Home Office should tate to us what we not read.
Yet itis just the reading class of which the Russian government has of late years fallen fou!. In 1899 things had come to such a pass that the authorities closed all the universities in the country. It is hard to believe that any government could [mulishly incompetent as to fail to recognise the danger of quarreling en masse with the rising generation. {Imagine the British Government i shutting up Oxford and Cambridge, or the Americans Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Even Mr. Stead could not defend such a " wretched coil of misunderstanding and mismanagement," and wrote very rightly: "No greater disaster could be imagined for Russia than that the rising youth of the country should be driven into bitter antagonism to the Emperor.
That there is discontent in the Uni-and much of
lessened, as we patch of recalcitrant si ts to serve lin the punish-mani which seems to have taken the f th. i exile to ficers are engaged in the manufacture of irreconcilable Nihilism.
But though the educated classe a are those who supply the the means, andthe power of its numbers inclnd> many arented on othe There are Jews, who have on to love the Czar or s Government, who have been knouted, outraged, and plundered 1 into a firm belief in the old Biblical ying that "the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." And, however poor many of the wretched outcasts may have been that suffered under the shameful persecution of a ile decade ago they hi had powerful friends who could and did put difficulties in the w ven of the Autocrat of All the B as, in whose' name are done many shameful deeds of which he is ignorant, official deception going so rin fact as to have specially cooked" copies of the Novoe Vremya printed for his sole use. To the Jews must be added the various dissenters from the Orthodox faith who have suffered not a little from vindictive priesthood whose gospel is submission to the Greek Church and the Czar. But over and above all these there are sufferers from famine against which Russia has inly fought for years past.
All these things combine to make the internal condition of Russia at the moment one of grave unrest. Financial difficulties do not lessen the evil. Neither does the sedulously cultivated feeling against Creat Britain and Germany. The situation is indeed fraught with most serious possibilities. It is certain that the Czar wants peace: it is no less trae that his wisest counsellors agree with him. But there is ever in Russia a war party, a party which would stick at nothing to gain their ends. The danger is that their constant urging and the impossibility of quieting internal commotion without an external complication to distract attention from home affairs may combine to force upon the Government adventures that may lead to war. This is an additional reason why events in the Far East should be watched more closely than ever. The use of exterior irritants for the reduction of abnormal internal heat is as characteristic of politics as of medical practice.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.