The Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prevalebit SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1883. The Czar’s Coronation.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 959, 2 June 1883, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prevalebit SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1883. The Czar’s Coronation.

No event in recent years has been anticipated with more anxious interest by the world at large than was the coronation of the Emperor of all the Russias. By a strange chance it was fated that the cable should be interrupted at the time when the ceremony was taking place, and several days elapsed before we learnt that the disaster which was threatened and which a past terrible experience had taught men to believe was only too likely to happen, had not fallen on the nation. Everything appears to have passed off satisfactorily; the people greeted the Czar with tremendous enthusiasm, and the proceedings were carried out with a splendour characteristic of a rich and profligate country. One cannot help picturing in imagination the feelings of the chief actor in this impressive scene. The memory of his father's fate and the knowledge that a like destiny probably awaited him must have haunted his mind, making him realise what a farce all this pomp and show was, when the hidden hand of an assassin might launch him into eternity. The question will be generally asked, Why was the blow withheld ? The disclosures that have been made during the recent trial of the Phoenix Park murderers have informed us concerning the working of secret societies. In the arrangement of their diabolical crimes they aim above all at obtaining strong drEjaatic effects. The assassins of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr Burke were not governed by a feeling of personal hatred towards their victims; what they wanted to do was to strike terror into the heart of the governing nation by showing what fearful power these secret combinations possess. If they cannot get what they consider their rights by fair means, they fancy they can terrify their rulers into compliance with their wishes. And so it is with the Nihilists. They demanded from the Czar a promise that Russia should be governed constitutionally, and they accompanied this demand with a threat that unless their request was satisfied the coronation should not take place. The murder of the last man who sat upon the throne was evidence that the Nihilists meant what they said, and yet the Emperor has passed through the ordeal unharmed. If it could be believed that this escape was due to the fact that the secret revolt in Russia is dying out, there would be good cause for congratulation, but there is little reason to think that this is so. Nothing is more likely than that a plot was laid, but that at the critical moment it missed fire, just as we have been told the late Secretary for Ireland, Mr Forster, escaped death on one occasion because a conspirator failed to give the preconcerted signal at the right instant. It was not mercy, for that is an unknown quality with the Nihilists, nor was it want of power to, execute their threat, as the Czar knows only too well that even in his utmost privacy he is not safe from the agents of the secret society, that prevented the avowed intention of the conspirators being carried out. Taking everything into consideration, it is to be feared that the Monarch has pnly obtained a respite, and unless he consents to make some concessions to the malcontents, he will assuredly suffer the fate of his father. Imagination cannot conceive a more terrible position than that which the man who has just been crowned with so much pomp now holds. The humblest peasant in his vast dominions must feel pity lor one who, notwithstanding his high rank, can never know what it is to have a peaceful hour. The remedy is at his hand, but dare he use it ? To carry out constitutional reform in a country which has for centuries been governed autocratically, and where the aristocracy as a whole is the most debased and vicious in the world, is very difficult. But though difficult, it is not impossible, and as there seems to be no other way of getting rid of Nihilism, it is possible that we may live to see Russia a constitutionally governed country.