South Canterbury Times. THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 1882.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2866, 1 June 1882, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. THURSDAY, JUNE 1, 1882.

-National liberty is to be obtained only by a slow and painful progress. Blood marks every step ; tears water the path that leads from bondage to freedom. It is the inexorable law of progress, that mankind shall ever prize that which lies far-beyond, and spurn presentjoys. The unknown, or the dimly comprehended, is more precious in our eyes than the treasures which are about our feet. If it were not so, we should fall into a state of dull satisfaction, and humanity would rise to no higher level from year to year. All our inventions are,the fruit of growing necessities ; all our achievements are 'the outcome of a desperate struggle against narrow conditions. Genius is the lamp that reveals the path for the million ; the leaders receive the first shock of resistance while they open the pathway for their followers. Grand inventions and discoveries have been bequeathed to us, the fruit of which we now enjoy. But it is seldom we reflect that they were first proffered to a world which scarce heeded them—which sometimes even spurned them. The inventor, the discoverer, has long mgo gone to an obscure grave, after fretting out his life in solitude and neglect, sustained only by his idea. But that idea, so tenderly nursed, has become a reality and a true blessing to thousands. So it is with liberty. The peace of a nation which enjoys real liberty has been bought by years, nay, centuries, of strife. The first advances of a people towards freedom are not pleasing to behold. Anarchy, bloodshed, treachery, the riot of evil passions, form a chaos. But out of that apparent chaos is evolved a form which gradually reveals itself, and gathers to itself light. The latest development of popular liberty the world has witnessed is that in Bussia. The most enslaved and debased people, tfUh the smallest pretensions to civilization, have passed the first and most painful stages of development. They have even passed from extreme darkness, to some glimmer of the light of liberty. It is now proposed to grant Bussia a representative government. Good heavens! We, who know no other form of Government, and who speak of tyranny as landsmen speak of storms, ignorantly, have very little conception of the fulness of meaning" of such a declaration. But let us trace *the history of Kussian freedom (why, the very phrase sounds strangely in our ears) within the present century. We pass by altogether the centuries during which Bussian society was made up of three elements—the Czar, an autocrat pure and simple ; the nobles, taskmasters whoso cruelty, lust and disregard of all interests save their own, were notorious ; the people, all serfs, downtrodden, crushed and ignorant; and wc come to the days of Nicholas, which are within the memory of many persons now living. His iron will, his lofty presence, kept down any display of popular feeling. To so stern a father the children dared not cry. They endured and were silent. But at length, the proud and awful tyrant wont the way of ail flesh, and was succeeded by his son, a man of other mould. He began his reign full of enthusiasm. He had somewhere imbibed the spirit of freedom. Ho dreamed of a free and enlightened people, and he hoped, by one bold stroke of philanthropy, to lead his subjects to happiness and prosperity. He freed the Serfs. He placed the hitherto enslaved and degraded people on the very mountain tops, where the atmosphere was rare and inspiring. Ho, in truth, did good beyond compare ; but how little were those he did it for lit to receive or appreciate what he did. When the shackles dropped from them, they did not take to thdmsclvos wings and fly to higher and , nobler things, ns Alexander dreamed they would. They had had no preparation. They wore ignorant and brutal, and acknowledged no law but that of force. Force removed, out sprang the passions, like

demons, into fierce life. All the hatred and fury that had been so long repressed, suddenly blazed up. And that fearful eruption overwhelmed all that was good, and gentle, and beautiful in the social fabric. It fell upon friends and foes alike. In their blind fury the people turned upon their benefactor, upon the philanthropist whose ready hand had given them freedom, and reviled and threatened him so persistently that the Imperial dreamer, the true philanthropist, the friend and helper of liberty, sunk at length into disappointment and sottishness. Nothing of the ■ original beauty of his nature remained, but his courage. That never failed him. Conspiracies developed into open insurrection. All parties turned against him, and at length he was barbarously assassinated in the midst of a people whom be had given his life to serve. And thereupon, Russia became the theatre of the most awful scenes. The nobles joined the conspiracies, the people were in a dangerous condition of fury and blood-thirstiness, and assassination, revolutionary excesses, intoxication were rampant. The country was terrible to behold. The present Czar succeeds—a poor, trembling, hunted creature—when, lo ! the public fury subsides, and at length the announcement comes that the possibility of representative government for Russia is under consideration ! We know how it will, how it must end. The people must have their birthright, sooner or later. But, at,what a fearful cost .this has been bought ! The dreary record of the past is sickening. But it seems to make still plainer the unalterable fact that all the blessings humanity enjoys are bought withgblood and tears.