A VERY BLACK OUTLOOK.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 144, 19 June 1906, Page 4

A VERY BLACK OUTLOOK.

For weeks past the disjointed items from Russia have had a sinister aspect, and, unpromising as the state of things seemed, there were signs that much remained untold. There has been repeated interference with the functions of the. Duma, and its too-independent members have been threatened with arrest; there have been the usual sporadic bomb outrages and minor revolts against the authorities, met by the old unrelenting and indiscriminate methods of repression; there have been again and again rumours of the prevalence of disaffection in the army and navy; and persistent stories of preparations for further massacres of Jews on an oxtensive bvhlq. But there has been little information of a broud or general character; the reader of tho news from day to day has been left to construo tho situation as best he may from such imperfect fragments as ha can piece together, and it is difficult to judgo events in anything like duo proportion. The prominent sensation item which happens to have found a chronicler and is set forth in ( some detail may really be less significant than that which comes os vague rumour, to say nothing of tho tidings successfully suppressed by the censor. The ominous fall of Russian securities reported on the 14th inst. was, however, an indication that could scarcely be mistaken, and along with ifc came forecasts of extensive bank failure nnd a " financial cataclysm." But though tho movements on tho Bouiso afford a fairly trustworthy 'meuns by which to judgo the general condition of affairs,, the present financial stringency or impending disaster are among the least of the inflictions that the country is suffering and has in prospect. Crime, and cruelty are rampant in the land, and tho spectacle- of murder has become so familiar that it has to be on an extensive scale to attract general attention. The news this week, and to-day in particular, is the worst that has come for a long time, and the prospect sei:ms hopeless. The political situation," according to one of the best available authorities — one, too, who has proved himself optimistic' rather than otherwise— '-is searjyj

desperate. The authorities are powerless, the troops mutinous, and anarchy prevalent everywhere. -The Duma is on the point of being extinguished." In tho late- horrjble massacre of Jews in Bielostock — an important city in the province, of Grodno, on the Polish border — tho victims are variously estimated at from seven hundred to two thousand. Tho 6tories of the alleged provocation seem to- be fictitious. It is stated that a Jewish fanatic throV a bomb at a religious procession, it is "reported" that a Roman Catholic priest and a Greek Church priest wore killed; but against this we havo the fact that the preparations for the massacre had become apparent a fortnight beforehand, when an appeal was actually made for protection, the explicit statement that it was arranged by tlie local authorities, and tho quiescence of the police and more than nve regiments' of troops until tho crime was consummated — after which, in fcho grim phrase of the message, " order was restored." Apart from these considerations, there is the significant admission of the Novoe Vremyn, that tho massacre was to " punish " the Jews for the murder of a polico officer, with which there does not appear to be any proof '- that they had ' anything to do. Further, this is spoken of as " the beginning of an organised series of massacres." Tho hapless Jews are imploring foreign intervention ; and ? on the other harid, a Grand Duke's visit to Berlin is interpreted as indicating official negotiations with. Germany and Austria to assist in suppressing anticipated revolt in the western provinces. Meantime disaffection spreads among soldiers and sailors. Even the Cossacks -at Odessa refused to fire on the red flag. There heems to be a curs© laid upon the present rulers — the curse brought upon them by their own wickedness and almost incredible fatuity. Revolution is apparently inevitable, and tho longer delayed the more- terrible, it will be. What manner of New Russia may emerge from the chaos none can say; but it does not seem possible that that great country could be- more cruelly misgoverned than it is to-day.