CALMING THE TROUBLED WATERS.
It would seem that Russia is at last perceiving the secret of its troubles, and applying an effective anodyne. The good physician has appeared under the terrifying name of “dictator,” but his dictation thus far appears to extend to the powers above him rather than to those below. He is fairly controlling the Czar and the imperial family in the interest of a kinder rule, and his “Peace, be still,” is certainly calming the troubled waters. Melikoff, the converted dictator, is increasing the number of the High Commission appointed to be his aids and counselors, and is taking to his confidence men rather than names. He is calling some from the army and others from the civil offices, but in all cases men whom he has tried and therefore knows. And, in doing this, he has the rare good fortune to receive the general praise of the Russian press. The work of the High Commission is being carried on with great dispatch. Nearly all the political trials on the docket have been revised, and the most of them have been dismissed, while a consistent and harmonious code for all the provinces has been sent to the respective civil courts. One branch of the Commission has just committed the very sensible act of remitting to city authorities the sum of thirty thousand roubles that were appropriated to it for the secret detective service. Another branch is revising the documents regarding those persons who have been expelled or placed under police supervision, and the result is the reduction of nearly one-half of the list, especially in the case of the students, who have expressed regret for their conduct and brought good testimonials from their teachers as to recent demeanor. Nearly all the students recently banished from the four university cities have been pardoned, and instead of going to Siberia they come off with a few months’ imprisonment, and even this is quite likely to be annulled at the request of the general governor of Charkoff, the headquarters. These sensible measures are having their influence, and for the moment there is a lull in murder and assassination, and the Nihilist press is much more mild in its demands; for, in spite of the destruction of several of their printing offices, they still manage to circulate a goodly number of documents. Their demands, however, are no longer so fierce and bloodthirsty, though still very radical. They accept the milder treatment of Melikoff, and now appeal to the milder elements of their followers. They are just now appearing as a political element rather than as a destructive one. They demand for their platform universal suffrage, sovereignty of the people, dissolution of the standing army, formation of a militia, local self-government, etc., instead of their old programme of universal annihilation. In the meanwhile Melikoff pays no special attention to some of these excessive demands, but goes on in the even tenor of his reforms in the various departments. A new chief has been appointed for the bureau that supervises the press, and he has already worked out a plan that will probably be adopted for the whole empire, and which suspends the entire system of warnings and suspensions, and places the press under the common law. But the most unexpected lenity comes from a committee of three commissioners, of which Melikoff is the chairman, in regard to the question of the dissenting sects which have hitherto been treated with great severity. All these are now to enjoy equal privileges with the orthodox church, in so far as they do not interfere with the State, that is, assume a political bearing. Now, it is very agreeable to learn that all these peaceful measures meet the views of the Emperor, who seems to have been guided by his good angel to place himself in the hands of Melikoff, who, in his turn, seems to have had an inspiration from an overruling Providence. This is very different from the monster trials of the last decade and the hanging or exile of the condemned agitators. It is clear that the reign of terrorism and political murder on the part of the government must cease if retaliation on the part of the people is to come to an end, and a continuance of this policy on the part of the government must eventually disarm many of the allies of the Nihilists. The most of the aid or countenance that the revolutionary bands have received from the intelligent circles has been accorded in a spirit of disgust or despair. Even the working-classes have been slow to follow the Nihilists properly so called, for these have in reality been marvellously small in numbers in comparison to the agitation which they have produced. The working-classes in Russia have little sympathy with the communism taught by the agitators, but they can comprehend the oppression under which they labor, and afford brawny arms for the plans concocted by active and uneasy brains. This Russian revolution has not its parallel in history. The malcontents are found among the most intelligent, though in many respects the most misguided, of the population. And the impetus that affords them strength is the general uneasiness permeating the nation. It is not possible for Russia to live beside Western civilization and maintain a system of Oriental rule. Railroads and telegraphs cannot enter its territory without bringing in their train an atmosphere that will expand, or explode if not allowed to do so. The whole Nihilistic movement has, therefore, been a strange anomaly because it has had to encounter an equally strange state of affairs. Political propaganda has, therefore, been made in magisterial bureaus and even on the threshold of the palace. It has found patrons even among aristocratic women in influential positions. Mothers have sent their daughters to the famous high school of Communism in Zurich, and men and women have strangely commingled in the wildest enterprises of reform, and every measure of repression adopted by the government has only made the matter worse. The result has been a wild conflict of misunderstanding between the government and the governed that has brought Russia to the brink of civil and social ruin. It may still be too late to effect a cure of the evil without terrible agitation and bloodshed, but it is certainly the part of wisdom to adopt just such a policy as now seems to be that of Melikoff, who may become the saviour of his country.—Christian Weekly.