THE COMING WAR.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1025, 23 April 1883, Page 2

THE COMING WAR.

; (Vanity '■■ Fair.') -We Have already' said in tliese columns that'the only Europeans who ever have defir ■nite knowledge" ME thej«future course of political events are--.the -members of secret societies. Long before Skobeloff spoke at Paris ; long before the Cologne Gazette published the article which has sent the English Press into a frenzy of prophecy and large capitals, we predicted the approach of trouble between Germany and Russia. While London journals, cleverly inspired by the revolutionary pressman/ were "infbrmfng us that Krapotkin was enjoying idyllic leisure by the Mediterranean shore,.we said that Krapotkin .was flitting.fi - om ,tpwn_to_townJiJie the,s,torm, bird that he is." The prince has now been captured, and his papers prove that our information was right, and that the revolutionists are in full activity. They have not at present much power, but they have a very great deal of useful information, and there is not a man of them who is not awaiting the Souud of the Gun. These secret rulers never deal in conjecture ; their organisation is so perfect, that they see clearly where the persons described as statesmen only grope blindly. From the convict towns on the White Sea to Odessa, from Tobolsk to. Dresden and Paris, their

unseen machinery extends. While the police of St. Petersburg are blundering hither and thither ; while Western statesmen are sitting in dignified ignorance, the revolutionist leaders are receiving accurate news from cities and towns and villages. Ordinary politicians rely on organs of public opinion, forgetting that_ the men who, jjjretend to represent public opinion have no means of learning the .truth. But the secret society men make no such mistakes ; their agents, especially iri Russia, live with the people, work with them, suffer with them, and gauge their thought; rigid ly. At this- present moment there are about 8000 well born and well educated men and. women in Russjawho are working in the factories, toiling in the fields, plying in ferry boats: between obscure villages on the obscure streams; settingup the type of journals, drinking with, the dower classes in ';- J ... i * ’ • ; ■

Vile Vodka Sliops, and sleeping in dens where the poorer sub- ; jects of Holy Russia pig together. A secret system of correspondence brings all these threads of propagandist!! to one centre, and thus the heads of committees in Switzerland or London know every passing tremor that agitates the national mind. People' in England ask—“ Why should there, be, war between Germany and Russia ? The revolutionists answer—“ I cannot stop to discuss whys and wherefores ; I only know that war cannot be avoided. I only know that the people of Russia want war with ! Germany, and that they will have war, whether official ‘Russia’ likes or not.” Then the common sense reasoner; comes in, and: remarks with proper gravity—" Russia is just recovering from an exhausting war ; her finances arc disordered ; her population suffer here; and there i from , starvation. She cannot enter on a contest with a first-rate power.” The man of fact once more makes answer—“ I can show no reason for the warlike feeling that would satisfy the maker of logic books; I may, however, say, in passing, that if nations reasoned, there is not a leading statesman in Europe whose neck would be safe. The Russian people in the present case are not moved by reason at all, but only by emotion.” What has raised the present feeling in Russia we do not know ; we only know that , ■

.A Blind, Violent Ilsiti-ed of Germany has become the ruling passion in Russian society of all grades, and that Skobeloff spoke with the voice -of a , national majority when he declared that the Slav must crush the Teuton. Reason and foresight are put aside, and eager ferocity has taken their place. When Skobeloff made his tour, the official classes were in doubt as to what steps they should take. It was after the young general was attacked by “contusion of the heart ” that the men of the sections and the Cabinet saw where to go. , A curious position has now arisen. The figure-heads of the departments and the leaders of the revolution are both pushing toward one end. Terrorism has ceased for a time because the acute men who handle the vast and Murderous Russian Caucus

think proper to leave the ruling classes alone. The more the men who wield the power and finance of Eussia choose ,to prepare for war the more the revolutionists encourage them, so that the national tendency is not being stayed by the slightest drag. If a Enssian of the advanced school hears war mentioned, he only says, “The sooner the better*for us.” The ruler hopes for a prolonged lease of power; the conspirators hope to get. nd of the Germans, and to cause a regenerative anarchy. Thus it is that war is impending. The newspaper man in a foreign capital goes about gadding .with junior diplomatists and with other newspaper men; then he telegraphs Home and informs ,us that “ the clouds have passed,” and then the writer of leading articles tells us in; slipshod' English the glad tidings of great joy. Neither the correspondent nor the scribbling paragraph monger knows anything about the matter. They ; guess before the event and prophesy after the event, while the stirrings and advances of national feeling are totally darkened to them. No one can say with an approach to nearness at what time the War -will Break Out but it is rapidly coming, and any morning may bring news of the final and momentous step. The Eussians fully expect to be defeated heavily at,first, but they .are strangely confident. When reminded of the way in which the Prussian hosts moved upon Paris they smile. They say: “The cases are altogether different. You crush Paris and you paralyse the central ganglion of France. But Eussia is, as it were, of another organisation. Crush one ganglion, and there are still a hundred national nerve-centres unharmed.” The zoological smile is perfectly apt and true, and no one knows better than Prince Bismarck what a task Germany has before her. But at any rate.it is to be feared that nothing can_now .avert.the catastrophe,, and, we .can only await the events which are marching towards : us so quickly. - - - --