THE TERROR IN RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 188, 13 September 1909, Page 4

THE TERROR IN RUSSIA.

THE CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN RUSSIA. PRINCE KROPOTKIN'S REMARKABLE STATEMENT. Prince Kropotkin, the distinguished Russian scientist, who knows only too well what the inside of Russian prisonlife is like, lias just written a very striking pamphlet which he calls "The 'terror in Russia.'' The book is issued by the Parliamentary Russian Committee, of which Lord Courtney is chairman. THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM. Prince Kropotkin says: "The present conditions in Russia are so desperate that it is a public duty to lay before this country a statement of these conditions, with a solemn appeal to all lovers of liberty and progress for moral Kiipport in the struggle that is now going on for the conquest of political irecdoin.

"In the straggle for freedom e.ic'i i country must work oat its own salvation; but we should not forget tint! there exists a web of international solidarity between all civilised countries, it is tme that the loans contracted by the band of despotic States in foreign countries contribute to support despotism. But Russian exiles also knew from their own experiences how the moral support which the lighters for liberty have never failed to find in the enlightened portions of the civilised nations has been helpful to them, and how much it has aided them to maintain faith in the ultimate victory for freedom and justice. LIFE IN RUSSIAN PRISONS. "It has been decided, therefore, to issue the present statement, in which, after a. careful enquiry, a large amount of well-authenticated facts has been brought together, giving an insight into the deplorable conditions that now pievail in Russia. Attention lias bcei chiefly directed to the conditions which are found in the Russian prisons and among the exiles—conditions so deplorable that they leave far behind all that has been published in this country about the Russian prisons and exile for the last thirty years—eve n during the reaction that set in after the Tear ISSI.

"There is no question that the movement of the years 100.5-IDO7 has produced a deep change in the whole aspect of thought and sentiment in Russia,'' adds the Prince. "The peasant, the workman, the clerk, the .small tradesman are no longer so submissive to every rural police-officer as they were. Now ideas, new aspirations, new hopes, and. above all, a new interest in public life, have been developed in them, since it was officially declared i n October, 11105. that the nation would henceforward have the right to express its wishes and to exercise legislative power through its representatives, and that the policy of the Government would he a liberal policy. • CHANGES IX RUSSIA. "But, after it had been solemnly declared that the political life of the .country was to he reconstructed on new principles, and that, to use the very words of the Czar's -manifesto, 'the popn. lation is to be given the inviolable foundation of civil rights, based on the actual inviolability of the person and freedom of belief, of speech, of organisation, and meeting'—after that declaration had been solemnly promulgated, those who tried to realise these principles have been treated as rebels, gnilty of high treason. "Not only are the representatives of the advanced parties prosecuted for all they said and did during the years 19061007, but even the most moderate party, tlie Octobrists, who take their standpoint on the letter of the October manifesto, are treated I>y the officials, high and low, of M. Stolypin's Government as preaching treasonable doctrines. A SPIRIT' OF HATRED. "If the present conditions had to be described in a few words, it might he said that, while the agricultural population, and the workmen in the towns have been raked to a. certain conception of individual self-respect, and while aspirations towards a more human treatment and increased liberty have spread ■far and wide ovc r the country, we find, on the other hand, among the bureaucracy, high and low, and among its inferior agents in the villages, a real spirit of hatred and cruel revenge against the slightest manifestation of love for freedom, the result being that the rc'atinns between the population and the ruling classes have become extremely strained all over Russia. At the name time, large numbers are being driven to despair by the arbitrary acts of the I«wc r agents of the Government in the villages and in the small provincial towns. EFFECT OX THE WORKER. "Moreover, it is estimated that there are now at least 700,000 peasants and working men in European Russia alone who have been thrown out of their regular mode of life during the last tw* years in consequence of repression alter strikes and tlio like, and who at the present time axe mere outlaws wandering from one city to another, compelled to conceal themselves under false names, and without nny possibility of returning to their native places and to their previous occupations. There are neaftV three-quarters of a million persons whom only a general amnesty would permit to return to regular life and regular earnings."

Such is the condition of Rurein. as everyone may ascertain' lor himself from Hie numerous documents out of which abstracts are given iu Prince Kropolkin's terrible and realistic pugn.