The Daily News. TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1905. THE RUSSIAN STRIKES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7720, 24 January 1905, Page 2

The Daily News. TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1905. THE RUSSIAN STRIKES.

g The extensive strikes in St. Petersburg may prove to |>e tile beginning of the social and political revolution so; long predicted for Uussia, but the probabilities are that the chief immediate results will he merely further street massacres ami the re-establishment of the temporarily ~ interrupted rule of the Bureaucracy. The tale which the cable iias so far brought us depicts a serious condition enough, but so far as any attack on the Government is concerned there is 110 evidence ,of any revolutionary 'designs on the part of the strikers. Rightly or wrongly the factory workers have got it into their heads that, they are being kept from an interview with the "Little Father" lesL lie should learn too much of their troubles and seek to ' alleviate them. Believing this, it is natural that the hotter spirits . among them should seek to force themselves under his notice, and, with a priest as a leader, to feel that they were to some extent under the guardianship of Clod. That tlarpon should have offered for the Czar a l| guarantee of inviolability from attack shows his confidence in his l'ol- , lowers a»d his simple belief that he might in this way overcome the Czar's scruples or the fears of those ' about him.; It was nut, however,. a delusion under which he and his 1 followers were permitted to labour long. A volley fjof bullets and a charge of cavalry are no'i ever far 1 behind an official warning in the land of the Czar, and the man, be - lie lay or cleric, who disobe\s is lost. Garpon if he has not already done so will most likely die the death of those who incite tlu popu- .. lace against the State, wear awaj the rest of his life ill prison.. I lie is, or was, apparently an enthusiastic convert to the principles of the reformers, and as such acted in a way diametrically opposed to , the teachings of his church. As to the deaths of a lew score of workj men more or less, such an incident is of no moment to the Russian of'l ficial mind, and apparently of even 4 less to that of tlv.' Czar. Though every friend of Liberty must wish to - see Uussia. as soon as possible endowed with some form of representative government, we doubt that the present turmoil will produce any immediate result. The combination of Czar, Bureaucracy, Army, and Church is for the present too strongly opposed to popular aspirations, and in the opinion of well-informed authorities the mass of the people themselves are far from whole- - hearted in working for a change. As a recent magazine writer on the subject has said, may be slow evolution towards more popular po- ■ liticul ideals, but the strength and solidity of the Jiussian Government is beyond our day to question."