LONDON.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 964, 27 July 1881, Page 1 (Supplement)

LONDON.

(Continued from our last). (from a correspondent.) May 19, 1881. In matters of politics the Russians are unable to keep their heads. They become intoxicated with visionary notions and schemes. And it is quite easily intelligible that even statesmen who recognise the necessity for reform may be of opinion that reforms would be more wisely and safely carried out while authority and order were firmly maintained.

The Russian Revolutionary Party has promptly taken up the challenge thrown down by the Czar in his proclamation. Their reply, which is posted up at street corners in spite of the vigilance of the police, is as follows : —- “We accept the war forced upon us by your Majesty. We shall persevere, and are confident to achieve victory. The greater the oppression the firmer will the people become, and if one of us is killed there are ten eager to take his place. We have not, hitherto, been afraid of your power, nor shall we be in the future.” But reports are now being circulated in St. Petersburg}] to the effect that it is intended by the conspirators to abandon the use of dynamite, and for the present to resort to means injurious only to the persons aimed at. This, however, was since the discovery of a mine beneath a bridge on the road leading from the river to the Harokae Silo railway sta-

tion. thirty-seven pounds of gunpowder were found ready to be exploded. But there is an impression that this mine was a part of the wide conspiracy against the late Czar, and not connected with any fresh attempt. Still, when the rumor got abroad it had the effect of sending down still lower the prices on the Russian Exchange. The sense of insecurity, which was gloomy enough before, has been intensified since it has come to declared war between the Government and the great and powerful, though secret.

Revolutionary Party. Two days ago a Nihilist conspirator, who has long been tracked by the police, was at length run down and apprehended. He proved to be no other than an -officer in the Russian Navy, and even -one of those specially attached to the police department. In this capacity lie had actually attended the execution -of the assassins of the late Emperor, and was standing close to them when they were hanged. Whether they were actually known to each other as fellow.-conspirators may be doubtful. The Russian revolutionaries are organised' on the plan of groups, thus : A group of 5 or 6 is under the guidance and control of one of their number, by whom, probably, they have been got together, and when they meet it is only their own party that assembles. They only know’ one another, and are quite unable to recognize or identify the members of other groups. The leaders of these groups are combined in the same w r ay in small parties under more advanced leaders, and these leaders again are subordinate members of an inner circle; each inner or higher circle representing a step in advance in the mystery of the revolution. Not only are the members of a vast organisation thus personally know’n only to a very few of the whole b°dy, but the leaders are able by means of this ramification to exercise the most thorough control over it, to convey orders or impart information with the utmost facility and secrecy. The I members of each group are bound to see each other once in every twelve hours, at least. If twelve hours should pass without any one of them having been seen it wrnuld be the duty of the others to visit his lodgings and destroy every paper. There was a case, two or three weeks back, of a man being arrested who refused in the most dogged manner to give any account of himself until a certain number of hours had elapsed. Then he stated without further concealment W’ho he was and where lodged. The police at once hurried to the house and searched it, but only found a heap of burnt paper that told no tale. The naval officer just arrested, whose name is Sukhanoff, is charged with having abstracted dynamite from the Government laboratory. He is believed to have been concerned in the explosion at the Winter Palace, and in the Garden Street mine. Five other officers have since been arrested.

In short, there is no coincidence whatever of any decline in the activity of the Revolutionists. They have had all along a certain amount of sympathy from the classes who have had their education in the Universities, which

are hotbeds of Socialist doctrines, and I < it is quite to be expected that the re- j action on the part of the Czar w’ill , both add to their numbers and increase their determination. But they have hitherto failed in gaining any influence with the ignorant peasant class, which constitutes the vast mass of the population, and whose co-operation is essential to any successful attempt at revolution. They are now with much cunning endeavoring to arouse this class. Throughout southern Russia millions of leaflets are being distributed in which the peasantry are informed that when the Serfs were emancipated the Czar Liberator ordered that they should have land given to them gratis, I and that it is only owing to the cheating of the official world and the well-to-do classes generally that they have anything at all to pay. This comes very closely home to a people who are now suffering under the oppression of money-lenders, from whom they have borrowed the means to pay the yearly instalment of the purchase money for their lands. Their ignorant fury w’as first turned upon the Jews, who besides being the money-lenders are also the monopolists of the spirit trade. In many towns in south Russia the houses of Jew's have been wrecked ■ and their property pillaged. In Kieff alone there are 1800 families of Jews, reduced to utter destitution, lodged in the barracks. So long as this rioting and plundering were carried on at the expense of the Jews, the local authorities did not greatly trouble themselves in the matter. But soon it was hinted to the rioters by revolutionary agents that all the well to-do classes were the natural enemies of the peasants, and the appetite for plunder began to satify itself at the expense of landowners and officials. Then the troops were called out to repress the riots. But the seed of future mischief has been sown ; and those w’ho have important interests at stake in Russia are making haste to escape from a coming storm.

It may be going too far to ascribe the action of the Czar to the suggestion of Prince Bismarck, seeing how many reasons there are weigh againsteven an honest attempt to introduce a constitutional form of Government in a country so little prepared for it as Russia. But at the same time it is scarcely possible to fail to perceive that the rapproachment between the three Emperors does really mean a combined opposition to the solution of popular Government. A remarkable circumstance occurred, in illustration of this, within a day or

tw o of the issuing of the Czar s proclamation. It will be recollected that when Bulgaria was erected into an independent principality after the close of the Russo-Turkish war, Prince Alexander of Battenberg was selected as the first Prince Regent. He was by birth a German and by family connection closely allied to the Russian Imperial House. He took an oath to rule in accordance with the constitutions, one of those elaborate contrivances which would be perfect if only they could be made to work, and for two years he declares that he has honestly tried to carry out his promise. He now says that the thing is an impossibility, the constitution is a failure. He has suspended it until a National Assembly has been called together, to which he will submit a scheme of Government of a more autocratic character. If they choose to accept his ideas, well and good; if not, he will abdicate. It should be observed that this very pronounced step was taken almost immediately after Prince Alexander’s return from St. Petersburg, where he had been to attend the funeral of the late Emperor, and where he had of course ample opportunity for learning the view’s of the Austrian and German as well as the Russian Cabinets. When Prince Alexander was offered the throne—if it maybe so called —he asked Bismarck whether he should accept it. “ By all means,” said the Chancellor, “ It w’ill always be an agreeable reminiscence.” He did not think the constitution of Bulgaria would be very longlived, and he will probably be quite prepared to assist in giving it decent burial. All this is having its effect on the settlement of the Greek frontier question. Dervisch Pasha is still cooped up in Prisrend by the Albanians, and waiting for artillery to enable him to make an advance to lakora. But in the meantime he is bringing into play all his diplomatic dexterity and knowledge of the chiefs of the Albanian League to induce them to accept liberal 1 terms of autonomy which he is, or

says he is, commissioned to offer them in the name of the Sultan. One cannot help recalling the history of Ali Pasha of Tepelin, who so nearly created an independent principality in southern Albania, and asking w’hether the Dervisch has an idea of carving out for himself a territory from that corner of the Ottoman Empire in which he has such unbounded influence.