The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. TUESDAY, JULY 31, 1900. REGICIDE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 180, 31 July 1900, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

TUESDAY, JULY 31, 1900. REGICIDE.

For the cause that lacks assistance For the wreag tiist needs restates:" lor the futiiro in the distance, And tlia cood tiiat we can do.

Xews of a very tragic character has to-day drawn public attention away from the course of conquest in South Africa and the pregnant crisis in the East, to fix it on an event which must excite indignant horror in every breast. His Majesty, King Humbert of Italy, has been foully murdered by an anarchist. The unfortunate monarch had entered his carriage at Monza, some miles from Milan, when he was fired upon by the assassin three times, and mortally wounded. We have no detailed information regarding the crime which would throw light on the motives that prompted it, but we may infer they are similar to those which have led to other successful or 'attempted dutragep of the: same kind. The murderer is either a madman with diseased vanity and a morbid love of notoriety, like the half-crazed youth whoa few months ago fired on the Prince of Wales in the Brussels railway station, or one of those unhappy individuals, hardly less mad and much more dangerous, who would regenerate an imperfect world by the wholesale destruction of the existing order of things and the subversion of all authority. The inclination is to regard him as belonging to the latter class, for Italy is a stronghold of the doctrines of Bakunin. The poverty of the country and the grinding taxation favour the spread of an evangel such as the Anarchists preach, while the impetuous, hotblooded character of the people, and their ready resort to violence, make them apt doers as well as hearers'' of the word. In past times the Italians were practised in the use of the dagger and the poisoned cup, and in these days their hands have not altogether lost their cunning. It is a fact worthy of note that the perpetrators of four of the most dastardly, deeds for which the Anarchists claim credit within the last six years —the assassination \of President Carnot, of Senor Castillo, of the Empress of Austria, and now of King Humbert —have been Italians.

Europe is periodically reminded in this horrible fashion of that pernicious influence "which silently and stealthily beneath the] surface of things pursues its devil-born mission as devotedly as if it were a divine one. It is on an occasion like this, too, that we are reminded how seemingly powerless we are to cope ■with the insidious spread of such hateful teachings. But if anything can render them more hateful to the. mass or order-loving people than they already are, and strengthen the hands of those who by the sternest means would suppress the direct or indirect agencies of lawlessness, it is a murder like this. Men wrestling with the terrible poverty that is a blot on our modern civilisation, lacking food for themselves and those dependent on them, may be excused for cursing the conditions under which they have to fight, for existence. Nor is it so unnatural that, ignorant as they are destitute, they should lend a ready ear to the teachings of those who point to those in a higher position- as the real authors of their misery. Thus one finds in most poverty-stricken communities a readiness to endorse dangerous views and lawless principles. But when the same communities see these principles carried to their logical conclusion, as in the case of the murder of the unfortunate King Humbert, the poor souls start aghast. Such deeds, instead of helping forward the diabolical cause in which they are committed, must have the very oppositej effect.

If all the world is shocked by the news, how much more intense must be the tteeling throughout Italy? The profound grief for the loss the nation has sustained will only be equalled by the national sense of shame and anger at the thought that in his own land, and by one of his own subjects, the King has been horribly murdered. It has always been the desire of regenerated Italy to stand well in the eyes of Europe, and now history will record a regicide at the very threshold of her new life. But apart from the grievous wound inflicted on the national character, the Italians must feel a deeper and more personal hurt in the death of their King under such tragic circumstances. For King Humbert was beloved of his people, and justly so. He was associated in their minds with that period of .their country's history which is as precious to the modern Italian as the glorified memories of Imperial Rome, He took an active part in the struggle If or Italian "indepen'flence; he was the friend of the .great Garibaldi; in his father and in him

the long dreamt dream oi' a united Italy found itself realised. Throughout his reign of twenty odd yeans he has repeatedly shown himself a man of courage and principle, striving to fill the very difficult position in which he was placed. l If, as a ruler, he did not display supreme qualities, the difficulties oi that position were largely responsible. The voice of the country, burning to revive again its . ancient prestige, forced his father and himself into a policy for which Italy was by no means ripe. The Italians longed to see their Italy taking its place in the forefront of European nations, and the result was that the poor inhabitants have for years been staggering under a burden of taxation to support a first-class army and navy that they are altogether unable to bear. There is little doubt that that policy is in some respects responsible for the growth of the ■ Anarchist doctrines in Italy, the bitter fruit of which is seen to-day. But surely the living was not to blame for that. Rather, we might say, he has fallen a martyr striving to uphold the national aspirations of United Italy.