South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 1882.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2832, 22 April 1882, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 1882.

At length the first act, at least, of the play is “played out.” Mr Whitaker,in obedience to the commands of His Excellency, came down to Wellington and consented, after a decent show of hesitation, to form a Cabinet : such Cabinet to be merely a reconstructed one, all former membersbeing “ in it ” except Mr Hall. What sort of a Government this is to meet the House, we leave our readers to judge, or what extent of confidence is likely to bo reposed in a Ministry divided among themselves, with a Northern land-shark for a chief, and a grasping Taranaki treasurer. The late Ministry was held together by the personal repute of Mr Hall, who had some of , the qualities of a patriot. But his warmest admirers cannot claim the possession of any such virtue for Mr Whitaker. He is essentially “of the earth, earthy,” and his only fitness for office lies in the fact that he is an astute politician. But there are plenty of astute politicians to be had, and the country requires something more in its chief Minister than astuteness. It wants, if possible, some singleness of purpose, and that a patriotic one. However, the Ministry possess the undoubted advantage of having the business in their hands, which ; a new Cabinet would not have. If we are not very much mistaken, however, the opposition will be strong enough, and sufficiently well organised, to make the tenure of office of the Whitaker Ministry a very uncertain one. We have it this morning on the authority of the “ Herald ” that “ the administration is in honest and competent hands !” Chansons !

It seems inevitable that great onward movements of our race should he made through disaster, and that life must have death to spring from. This has been illustrated a thousand times in the history of humanity, and it is now accepted as an unalterable law. To take only one instance, that of the Pilgrim Fathers. Out of the persecution and distress that they fled from arose the life of New England, which afterwards expanded into the glorious and great nation of the United States. Misfortune and disaster form a stimulus to progress, without which mankind would never reach the heights which it is daily attaining. We have no doubt that the outcome of the persecution of the Jews now going on in Russia will prove in reality beneficial to the race of Israel. It is impossible for us to express the horror which persons of every shade of belief and every degree of civilization must feel at the recital of the cruelties to which the unfortunate Jews are being subj ected byßussian “Christians” Houses pillaged and burned, men butchered, women violated and then barbarously murdered, helpless infants sharing the fate of their parents —these are the scenes that have been presented to us in sickening succession. Our indignation is tempered by the reflection that those who commit these atrocities are so ignorant arid brutal as to be really unconscious of the heinousness of their guilt. His religion and his drink have reduced the Russian peasant to a condition of semisavagery. In his sober moments he is kind, cheerful, ,and affectionate. But in his cups he is one of the most dangerous animals in the world. Remembering this, our indignation must have a touch of pity for the murderer as well as for the victim. But when we suspect that there exists on the part of the Russian Government, a certain complicity with the massacres and cruelties now going on our indignation is rekindled and the cry goes up from end to end of the British dominions against the horrible and dastardly conduct of the Government of the Czar. The fact that Prince Lobanoff, the Russian Ambassador to the Court of St James, ■ refused to transmit to his Imperial master the Czar the temperate but earnest memorial submitted to him by the English nation, a document containing nothing offensive or threatening, but merely interceding on behalf of the oppressed and stricken Jews, is very significant of the attitude of the Russian authorities. The Prince would not so have refused had ho not been instructed from the throne as to the stand he was to take on the subject. For such work as this there is no shadow of a plea to ho put forward. A Government that could permit ami countenance such doings within its

dominions, deserves to experience all the horrors of insurrection and disunion. It is a poor consolation, but it is worth noticing, that these persecutions in Russia and Germany will have the effect of dispersing the Jews throughout the free nations of the earth, to the manifest advantage of that ancient people and of those amongst whom they settle. They are law-abiding and industrious; they infuse life and energy into commerce, and they find in the free lands, full scope for their efforts. They pass from a condition worse than servitude to the light of absolute freedom, and in rebuilding their shattered history and the ruined and broken temple of tbeir national prosperity they furnish the nations amongst whom they settle with a new infusion of talent and energy ; and share in a prosperity to which they have themselves in no small degree contributed.