A Carious Development.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7701, 2 January 1905, Page 2

A Carious Development.

GROWING BOLDNESS OF THE RUSSIAN PRESS. Open references to tho French Revolution in terms of admiration, made by a newspaper of standing Within the Empire of the Tsar, leave many a European contemporary in a state of blank amazement. The theory of a censor caught napping is exploded by a boldness in the press of St. Petersburg l and -Moscow which the state of the law renders prodigiouS; 7%e traditional Romanoff principle that journalists must never get out of hand is openly flouted by the Novoe Vremya itself. This St. Petersburg daily, perhaps the most influential newspaper in all Russia, would seem to have broken com-pletely-with its own past. Reaction- . Aries of a Muscovite type will extract no comfort from 'its columns now. "Tho Novoe Vremya is a useful guide to tho nature of prevailing tendencies, declared the Manchester Guardian, "and if tho Novoe Vremya demands freedom, it may bo fairly assumed that the Government- intends to conccdo reform."- With all the zeal of the ajxistate, tho St. Petersburg daily, which once suspected that government by the people was invented by the devil, now tells us that freedom of the press is the rock of a nation's safety. The Russian newspaper, it complains, is "a closed door," through the keyhole of which may be caught ''but fragmentary phrases and the vague murmur of real life." To the Russian newspaper, it ventures to say, in defiance of press regulations, is applicable Talleyrand's dpfinition of language as an instrument for the concealment , of .what is thought. The infection . of ferment has spread as far as the Gra»l)if]anin. (St.-'iPetersbui-g), 01- . gan of rriftco Mcstchersky, who holds fast to that which is autocra- , tic. His paper makes bold to nf- . firm :—"lt was necessary to point . put the ways and methods of oc- , quiring spiritual, economic, and per- [ so "al freedom. The Czar has done . this. The realisation of the ideas . laid down depends upon his will. J We can but wait patiently. , , . . But thp ideas face the future boldly. The extension of religious toleration spells freedom of conscience. The j strengthening of the local administration means the death of bureaucracy. The abolition of mutual responsibility in the peasant com- ' luunes, together with the opporUmity accorded to individuals to withdraw from tho communo, is a great 1 step towards tile emancipation of the i peasant. Finally the emphasis upon I tho legal responsibility of the local j administration should open the door Ito rational individual freedom and i personal security," Tho Novoe VrcI mya prints elaborate arguments to prove that the Czar's references to local government imply a determination to give wide application to the representative and popular principle in provincial, district, and county administration. It aigues that education, justice, finance, and taxation must necessarily be entrusted to local bodies composed of delegates of the several orders and classes of so- 1 ciety, if tho Czar's guiding principles aro to be carried out.