RUSSIA'S INTERNAL STATE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1114, 26 April 1880, Page 4

RUSSIA'S INTERNAL STATE.

A Home paper says :—Trustworthy accounts seceived here within the last few days represent the interior condition of Russia as becoming daily more critical. One of them states that the return of the Empress to St. Petersburg, in spite of her precarious condition of health, was caused by the anxiety she experienced as regards the position of the Imperial Family. The feature upon which particular stress is laid, in the reports I have read to-day, is the disaffection of a certain number of superior officers, some of them high in command. Those who failed to obtain promotion and honours after the late war have, with few exceptions, espoused the revolutionary cause, and General Todleben's admonition to the Odessa garrison some months ago does not seem to have proved an effective barrier to the Nihilist Propaganda, either amongst officers or men. The Russian army cannot be kept inactive for any length of time with impunity. Nothing can be more dull and unentertaining than the existence of Russian officers at home outside St. Petersburg, Moscow, and a few of the large § towns. There is no scope for intellectual culture or rational sooial recreation, and the only resources that are left are [gambling and politics. The former is necessarily limited to the means of such as indulge in it, and when once they are exhausted nothing remains <<but politics. That is comparatively an unexplored field for the officers in the Czar's service, and the chiefs of the revolutionary movement both in and out of Russia have for some time past concentrated their efforts od making it attractive. I have seen specimens of Nihilist literature, especially destined for military consumption, in which it is explained that the revolution counts upon the cooperation of the army, and that those officers who throw in their lot with the people may rely upon the people's gratitude. Fame, fortune, and honours are in store for them, and no matter what their rank may be, no matter how obscure their origin, their reward is certain. It is impossible to say how such seditious prose as this finds its way to the remote parts of the Russian Empire, but there can be no donbt that it does. Nor in the presence of the accounts that have been received here is it possible to deny that it has had a deep and wide-spreading influence upon a large number of those into whose hands it has fallen.