OUR LITERARY CORNER.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12365, 2 December 1905, Page 7

OUR LITERARY CORNER.

WHAT RUSSIA HAS TO FACE. (β-t Pbofessoe J. Macmiiaas Brows.) Tbo remission of eight millions a year by the Czar means only about two dullinn a head for the Russian peasantry, I for there are nearly eighty millions of I them Large though the sum remitted, i it is nothing in the faco of tho famine that broeds this winter over most parts of tho empire. Even in the best of years it Jβ but little that they can make out of their land co wasteful and exhaustive have been their methods of cropping, " and during the forty-five years since the ..mancipation tho acreage of each family has by subdivision dwindled into made- - ciuato plot*, whilst email as they oro they aro drowned in debt. j The peasant ownership handed over | rural Itufsia to the middleman and financier, in nine cases out of ten a foreigner who has no sympathy with the starving producer, and shows no mercy to him in timo of strait. Tho Russian j f-ven when educated ie but a poor buei- ' ness man; provided he staves off any threatening evil ho is perfectly satisfied; he lots tho morrow look after itself. But in tho peasant this happy-go-lucky trait is exaggerated by the immemorial mir system, which has deprived him of individual initiative and self-reliance; he has acted always -with others, and thus has failed to acquire that providential thrift which has made so many com- • munitiea prosperous. The trail of serfdom, with its reliance on others for food, made this fatal improvidence practically an instinct, and emancipation - from generally sympathetic and kindly masters, responsible for their well-being, has enslaved them to the money-lender, whose interest it is to overreach his victim. In tho West of Russia it is the keen intelligence and tho financial ability of the Jew that has made him the master of the situation. Tho whole of the busis ness fabric of tho Jewish Palo from Courland on the Baltio to Odessa on the Black Sea would fall into ruin, if, as has been suggested by Russian patriots, tho Jows were expelled. In the rest of Russia, from which they are exoluded. the German and Belgian in the' North' and tho East, and the Greek and the Armenian in the South, have taken command financially. The Jew and the German have tho lion's rihare, and the names for these, lovdiey and Niemietz, have become termß of inouit when applied by one Russian peasant to another. These nationalities form rings in a district, and, whilst frequently lending on jieraonal security, help each other to recover their debts, not seldom /many times over in interest. They have ttlco tho whole import and selling trade . in their hands, ac well as the whole buying and export trade, and the produce of a peasant has to be p.aced with one or other member of a ring for sale. Hβ keeps it as a guarantee for the payment of interest and acbt to himself or to some other member. The ring ■ fixes prices, and we may be quite sure whose advantage it looks to in fixing them. Thus the peasantry are enslaved to the middioinan and financier, and they , have no outlook exoupt that of falling deeper into the toils. Their old seigneurs are themselves as ,a rule deeply mortgaged, and the officials, including tlio police, in normal times dare not move a finger to help them; they are too often enslaved to the financiers also, and bound hand and foot by incriminating confessions, false or true, placed as •security in the safes of the middlemen's ■ friends or employers over the frontier. There is, there can bo no way out of this hopeless position except revolution, and the officials long for this as eagerly as -the oppressed peasantry. A general financial earthquake is the only ohanco for landowner, official or peasant. The red tape tyrant and agent of the taxing government and the oppressed, hopekfls, .stupid victim have alike got their more intimate tyrant in the middleman who squeezes both of them onnuelly. And a famine year makes the position inflamed end dangerous. The land- - owner oannot get enough out of his estate to pay the interest on his mortgage, tiho official oannot gather his taxes for tho Government, and the peasant lias nothing but starvation and death bofore him. " The ftiilure of tho crops this year ■places tho fcrump-oards in the hands of the revolutionary leaders, especially after tho long and exhausting war. They have had their propaganda in full working order "during the last two years. If the war had been successful and brief, as the bureaucracy in tiheir blind folly expected it to be, the internal honours, as well as tiho external, would have been in the hands of the Government, and revolution would liavo been postponed at least a generation. For the .expansion of the Empire in tho East meant a still greater expansion of the market for Russian goods. Tho bulk of tho products of the kustar or cottage industries go to Persia, Turkestan, and China, and the peasantry had, tiherefere, a deep interest in the ambitions of the war. Success in them would have ensured internal prosperity for many years. And as long as the Russian peasant has got his immediate necescities provided for, his larder filled and his back clothed, nothing will stir him to action, either socially or politically. The towns might rise, the country would remain unaffected. Tho strain that a great war puts on <ho resources of a people even in full prosperity, entails untold hardship. There is heavier taxation, direct or indirect. Prices of the necessaries of life rise, and a considerable proportion ot the breadwinners are withdrawn from the support of their families. But in Russia tho financial position, both public and private, even in the best years, is ilMmlonced and uncertain. When famine is added to unsuccessful war, it needs only a touch to precipitate revolution. And scenes like those at Kishineff and Odessa will repoa-fc themselves all over the country wherever foreigners with the financial grip are to be found. Within the Jewish Pale the hold of foreign finance over the Russian is lighter, more oppressive, and more apparent. For it is closo to the borders of Germany, whence tho exploitation comae, and the foreign element fills the

ORIGINAL AND SELECTED MATTER.

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towns and leaves no part of the rural districts unoxploited. But as iho revolution spreads there will bo similar attempts in the rest of Russia to c!c«m the foreign elate. And in most oases it will be the police and the officials that will incite and lead the massacre and pillage They think tlwy can control it and koep it within tho desired channels, and wheat their financial mastors, with the incriminaiting evidence they have got as security, are wiped out, they will oheck it and restore life to its peaceful course again. So havo all tho deliberate employers of civil bloodahsd thought einco the beginning of corrupt political power in the world. But the torrent they havo let loeso will sweep thorn away too. The criminality they incite is no respecter of persons. The wild beast they have uncaged will as i lief rayon amongst its liberators as I amongst the intended victim?. It is one of the illusions of revolution that its inciters up to a. certain stage, imagine that they can control it as tocn as it roaches that stage. They question authority and overturn order. Then : they raise their hand to rest ore it; but I tho storm is heodlo-s of any master till .it has exhausted itself. Tho Grand Dukos and their party still thiuk tney can extinguish the confln gratia , ., that | they havo helped to start. Because their tools can direct tlio pillaging mob against any class of victims toey indicate, they tHnk they will easily send it to its kennels again, when their purpose is fulfilled. Tho Czar thinks hs can make and withdraw concessions with impunity; his ukases discredit each other; nis voice becomes a "childi."-h treble" in tiio roar of,t!ho storm. Da Witto and the middlo class thought tho Zematvo Congress would lay the troubled ocean, with t!he Duma or Parliament held out as another sop at a convenient distance. But congresses and dumoe have no more power to stay the onward eweep of revolution than States-General, National Assembly, or Convention had more than a century be'ore in France. The peasantry are in ferment, and have threatened to eeizo the lands, when they return to cultivate them in spring. They are promised ell they deeirod; but it Iβ vain. The soldiers and sailors aro in revolt, enraged at tho snanctalous treatment they have borne so long. The rceervlste have been kept away from their homes and tho 6cene of turmoil long after the war bas ceased, only to breaK out themselves again t the authorities, and burn VTadivostock. They and tho prisoners of war, now they are ordered home, will bring aims to ho p the revolution. Even the mobs in the cit.es have Cot arms; and the army refuses to suppress them. It ie getting perfectly c!ear that tho army ie not to bo trusted, except against the alien nacoe, the Finns, Poles, and Lette. the Jewe, the Armenians, and the Tartars. Where the peasants or artisans of Great Russia ere concerned, it will fraternise w.th the rioters and the revolutionists. And when tho reservists and the pi\Bonere return and see the misery oi their starving kin, whether famine-stricken peasants or striking artisans, they will turn their arms to the purposes of rerolution; they will massacre and pillage the 1 ich till there aro no more noh to pUfage. Already we ccc foreigners making preparations for flight; neither Government nor officials can protect them; for it is becoming fairly clear that they ennnot protect themselves. Before long there will bo an increabng stream ot well-to-do emigres across the border; doubtless long before tnie the Czar, the Grand Dukes, the burwmcrrts, and the richer officia's have planted a considerable amount of their wealth in foreign investments, and they will eopn follow it The reacfonary evil «nd military leadeTe will gather in the German cities across Che frontier, to ewe : t events, &a government grows weaker and weaker there will be a counter stream of revo'utionary testers from the R viera and Switzerl-nd, from England and America, and mc*t f-om Siberia, into Ri:se : a, filled with tho brightest hono o r tbo nrllen : um of f-oedem t>at b about to cFawn on their na'ivo land. Their hope belongs to the wme, illusion as buoys up the autocratic Government they wilJ dVphce for a time. It is the mrage nf a'l n-voln'ioiis. Every new set of admin will oel eve they are about to nnuffurat* the j«t of all possible social rtatee. Bnt ideal will d : splace ideal, dream expel dream, «nd that m tho bW fir« wr£ tho revolution was baptised. There is no finally Ln rcWntfon til the masterful eo'dier in evolved. Tho mere civil such os a'l the revolutionaries are certain to oe, ras not got his foot upon force, fho uTtimnte and plvoi of all political power, when reduced to Bis nakedest *rrrrs. *« i> i> m periods of tnrmoil. Tlie revolutionary is an ideologist, lilce the reform-r, but without the reformer's proximity and appeal to conventional and commoncense standards. Ho is idea mad. and has only hie an entourage infected with the same tna&iess. to u«e n* lowace in γ-o----verninjr and moulding h : « fel'ows. T v ero is no abiding power in him. Once his idea is shown to be impracticab'e. or short of the millenial happinees that it promised, it is swept aside end its advocates with it. Another takes its olace, more extreme, more ideologic, more intolerant, to Be in violence and Vo-xtehrd by eomo other. De Witto is only the Xecker of tho R risen n revolution. Thero have to come its M ; rabeau, its Lnf.iyette, its Marat, its Danton. and itfi Rnb-stverro, befo-e +he final eoldter is evolved". Conptitutionalem : rf'V bf> followed by Gironde : sm or radio- , '! kfcel ; «tn, «nd that by .Tacobin)Kxn and the Te r ror ; «t c^mini<trnt : on. heforo the military fou"dat : ons of government have been reached. But what complicate!* tho Russian future is the number of alien nationalities that are etßl half-.«-übtlued and wholly undigested within; the 'borders of the empire. In the first, or ideologist stage, of the revolutionary government thero will be • movement to give thew elements nationrl independence and freedom. When the ultimate eoldiw has been evolved he will gain his later glory from the eubjugation of the«o nenv policies or nations. His evolution will first of all be due to the necessity of driving back the emigre bureaucrats and nobles and their allies. It is difficult to see how the Kaiser will te able to ovoid interference when Russian Poland ie set on fi.ro by iho republican enthusiasm of the revolution. His neignbour'e house on firo, his own will coon. be ablaze, if he takes no measures to prevent it. The Russian Poles will be eager to free their kin across the frontier from their enthralmont. And the bureancratic emigres, most of them of German descent, and all oi them saturated wrfch German ideas, will urge the wielder of the embattled Gotman millions to action. But the moment he crossee the border, the new Russian spirit will be moulded into a formidable weapon, fit for those prodigka of patriotic valour that outwit the most scientific «f military training, equipment, or tactics. Out of the first defeats tho new Russian armies will learn the art of victory, and nationalism will be again triumphant. From tho rants will rise the natural military

leaders and heaven-born generals, train- ; 1 ed in no school and trammelled by no I i traditions. One by one they will take j ( their places in gradation* as victory fol- i ] lowing victory singles out the supremo j c soldier amongst them all, tho Cesar, or t Cromwell, or Napoleon of RassLa. s But hie career after his elevation •will ] have to be aggressive. He will have to i < reeubjugate the territories of the empire i that had asserted their independence' i dnring the revolution. And to keep his j ■ sword sharp he will have to use it ; • against the enemies of his country to ; the West. The Kaiser will then have his work cut out for him, to Gtcm the tide of invasion and to keep down tho , socialism and democracy within his own j borders. { But empire taecd upon revolution, even if national, cannot last long, unless t-ho nation is about to die out. Its roote are too shallow, its prerogatives too new. Weakness either from the of the new eoldier or from the character of his successor will give heart to the republican ideologists again : and the ultimate destiny of Runsia will be ono or more republics ba-.ed upon racial unity. . j