The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or political. TUESDAY, JAN. 7, 1890.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2728, 7 January 1890, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or political. TUESDAY, JAN. 7, 1890.

Another serious attempt on the life of the Czar is reported by the latest cables. Again the conspirators are found in the heart of his palace, one of them being kilted by the guard, Russian conspiracies are terrible. Other monarchs have been attacked, but almost always in open places where exposed to men of all kinds. Monarchs killed while .reviewing their armies, or not daring,'for in their own palaces precaution, syid dread, are peculiar to Russia." The niystery long seemed impenetrable. , Of late years, much , light has been thrown upon it by literary Russians who have escaped from their own country, and by foreign travellers in Siberia and the outer parts of the Empire. Of the latter, Americans have enjoyed the most favourable opportunities, to the friendliness which h;j,s always existed between the American and Russian Governments. Of American writers, -Ii Ivehniin the latest. His harrowing accounib <?£• state of political Lhcro^i have creffited. a great sen thrown a flood of light on the political condition of the vast, composite Empire. In the first place Nihilism is ''SS political, and not, as manjT. supposed, a religious or nisW movement. • cruelty, slavery*, a Government' 'dejj< liberatel/ iWtoa-on terrtfr as ifca\ chief instrun9!B% power, .the Russians of the Wesfeiiave been " long .in revolt. Oppression 'Has made secretconspiracy their only available weapon, and the jcupiltry has. be--i'/i '

come a network of such conspiracies in which patriotic, the noblest, ancffche best are too often involved. In the army, officers, even of the highest rank, are implicated, but the rank and file still worship the Czar. They have been taught to hate the nobles as their old oppressors, and they find their lot as soldiers, an improvement on that from which, as serfs, so many were only relieved in the present generation. Resting on these ignorant masses, and shutting its eyes to the changes which a wider intelligence has wrought, the Government has been long at war with much that is noblest and best in the Empire. It is controlled by a Bureaucracy of the old despotic Russian type, alien in language, manners, customs and religion, for Germans predominate and still hold the power gained when Russia was emerging into European civilisation. Against this official class a "Russian" party was long m bitter revolt, but successive Emperors have found it impossible to d'spin e with them. The present Emperor, when Czarewitch sided with the Russian party, and its hopes were centred in him. ! His father had fallen into the hands of the officials, and it was expected that his death would open a new era. The hopes were delusive. The official caste was too strong, and the present Emperor soon subsided into the existing order of affairs. The anger of the disappointed party was turned upon him with double force. Depression, on his part, was followed by an extension of the conspiracies, that have surrounded him with mysterious terrors, and made his life an incessant combat with unseendanger. In this way, years have passed, but. they have not brought peace cither to the unhappy Emperor, or to the threat country over which he is nominally, absolute ruler. Discontent, thus repressed, has degenerated into despair, Hope of moderate reform has been abandoned by many, whose motives are admitted to be pure and patriotic. They now go to impossible extremes, and cry that all must be changed, and no vestige of the past be, if possible, suffered to remain. Hence the term Nihilist has been applied to them. In their ranks are included women, and even girls, of high position and character, moved by the constant injustice and cruel suffering they see around them, and of which those they love are innocent victims. For it not only the guilty who are punished. Ihe merest suspicion leads to the suvveilIcince of the übiquitous police spy, often a man of the lowest character, and instigated by the lowest motives. Without trial, as a mere "measure of administration, Russians are seized and sent to prison or to distant exile in Siberia. There they are treated with cruelty or with kindness, according to the character of the official who may have their fate in his hands. The fact is significant that among the officers of the regiments who guard these exiles, Nihilism is most rampant. From these its boldest recruits are drawn It is the old French regime, but with Bastille and deadly | oppression, intensified and made infinitely more unendurable, it will be happy for Russia and for the world if it pass without a similar terrible explosion. The Nobles hate the Government. The people are carefully taught to fear and liate the Nobles, and to look to the Czar and the Government as their only safeguards. Yet tlie lot of the peasant is still hard, and his hopes are few, wliile the ignorance in which he was so long kept, as a serf, is gradually passing away. How will it all end ? Meantime the official caste, alien in so many respects, rules through the Czar, and is too apt to seek, by foreign wars, to conciliate the vast army and distract attention from internal affairs. To this is chiefly attributed the aggressive character which, the Russian Government has acquired, and which makes it a disturbing element among the nations of the world.