UNKNOWN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIV, Issue 114, 15 May 1890, Page 4

UNKNOWN

(Times Correspondent.) A few days ago a despatch from St. Petersburg announced that the Czar had received a » threatening le fcer from a -woman named Tshebrikova, and it further stated that a copy of this letter had been left on each of the Ministers. The event has caused considerable sensation, as is author ib a lady who enjoyed a high reputation in literary circles. Madame Tsbebrikova is about 50 years old, and for the last. 20 years has been known for her writings on women's questions and on educational Bubjeots. Many of h r e-:sayi were published in the Annals of the Nation and" tho Dielo reviews, which however, have been suppressed by the Government. The brilliant position Madame Tshjbnkova oacupied iB now Eaorifiaed by this one letter. Her action is all the more remarkable as Madame Tehebrikova had no relations with the Russian revolutionary party ; she wrote epontaneously, and her letter was not due to any suggestions from the Nihilists. Madame Tshebrikova went to Paris, there composed her epistle, and then boldly took it herself back to Russia, caused it to be delivered, and awaited the consequences. Madame Tshebrikova has, of course, been arrested ; and it is this display of self sacrifice and of civic courage which is likely to cause as" much effect as what the letter itself contains. The document will, therefore, in its way, become historical. The following are the more important pas* sages : —

Your Majesty,— The laws of my country punish free speech. All that is honourable in Russia is condemned to see thought persecuted by an arbitrary Administration. We witness the moral and physical massacre j of youth, the spoliation and flagellation of " a people condemned to remain, speechless. But" liberty, Sire, is the primordial necessity of a people, and sooner or later the hour will come when the citizens, having* under this tutelage, exhausted their patience, will raise their Voices, and then your authority will hare to yield. There are also in the lives of individuals moments when they are ashamed of their silence, and then they dare to risk all that iB dear to them, so as to say to the yjrson who holds in his hands all the power and all the strength, the person who could put an end to bo much evil and so much shame : — "Look at what you alloar to take place ; •look at what you are doiDg, either consciously or not." The Russian Emperors are obliged to see and to hear only what their functionaries, the Tchinovniki, allow them to see. The latter form a thick wall between the Czar and the Russian Zemstro— that is, the millions of inhabitants who are not in the employ of the Government. The terrible death of Alexander 11. has thrown a lugu brious Bhadow on your accession to the throne. You were told that hia death was the result of the ideas in favour of freedom which had been developed in consequence of the reforms introduced during the previous reign, and you were inspired to take measures by which it was desired to make *■ Russia go back to the sombre epoch of Nicholas I. They frighten you by agitating the spectre of revolution ; of a revolution whiah would suppress Monarchy ; yet this at the present time, and in such a country as yours, is a pure illusion. After the catastrophe of the Ist of March, .the regioides themselves did not hope to Bee the convocation of a Constituent As* sembly. The enemies of the Czar have been executed ; every' one obeys blindly the will of the Monarch. Then by what fatal mis.. understanding does the Government suppress all traces of those reforms projected during the best years of Alexander ll.'s reign ? It was not the reforms enacted during the previous reign that brought our terrorists into existence j no, it was the lack of such reforms, it was their insufficiency. If the policy of Nicholas I. is dictated to you it" ls because it favours the autocracy of your Ministers and functionaries ; because they desire to have under them a people without rights and without the power of speech. Power intoxicates men, and if for persons such as the late Count Tolstoi, power was an instrument to break and mutilate Russia, and mould her according to their false and ante-dated theories, this same power was for the crowd of mediocre functionaries a means of securing vile and low pleasures. These pleasures consist of .placing themselves over and above the country and its laws, of governing according to their own will and caprice. Power in the hands of those wretches becomes a . means of advancing their own dubious affairs and interests. Authority, which, liko a fiie, may be subdivided into flames, becoming smaller and smaller as we go down • the scale of functionaries, descending from the Czar to the people, simply confers arbitrary rights exercised with impunity. There are no longer any punishments for spoliation and excesses committed by people in power. Each Governor is an autocrat in his province ; each Ispravni/t is an autocrat in his district ; each £ tanovoi is an autocrat in his canton ; and each Ouriadnth ia an autocrat in his village. After showing that all guarantee against the arbitrary conduct of the functionaries lias been abolished, Madame Tshebrikova exclaims : — What I say to you is no fable, as your lacquais and Ministera would have you believe ; it is the truth. Tolstoi' himself did not wish to suppress the village justices of tke peace ; and to your own initiative is attributed the abolition of this last remain-. ing guarantee the peasants possessed. What were you, able Sire, to burden your own conscience with such a measure— you who knew not what life the people led ? Do you imagine that because you are an anointed Sovereign you are a divinity possessing knowledge of all things ? If you oould, Sire, like bhe Sovereign in tbe fable, pass .invisibly over the townß and villages, so as to know what life the Russian people live, you would see its misery, you would see how the governors bring up your Boldiera to, shoot down the peasants and the workmen. You would see that order, maintained by thousands of soldiers, by legions of functionaries, by an army of spieß, that order in the name of which. every word of protestation is suppressed, that this order is not order at all, but a state of administrative anarchy, The poorer sections of the nobility, to* gather with the other classes of Russian eociety, are irritated by the most recent. measures adopted by the Minister of Public Instruction, by whioh ;he doors of the high schools and Universities are olosed against young men who have no fortunes. All the -measures taken by thia Minister tend to suffocate education in Russia. The students are obliged to remain in their own districts and have not' the right of choosing the Universities where the best professors may be found. The Spartans used to pull out the eyeß of their slaves to prevent them from amusing themselves when they turned round the grinding mills. Bat in the 19th oentury, and just on the eve of the 20th century, such treasures will not help to consolidate order. The ciicuiar of the Minister of Public InBtruation. which closes the doors of the Universities to students who are poor, only places a new arm in tbe hands of the terrorists. What is the use of tbe lessons given to a ohild in a school ? He will see at the very first step the contradiction that exists between the actg of the Government and the doctrines taught in Scripture, At school he is taught to betray. There are spies in the gymnasiums. Such a corruption of fiooial oustoms did not even exist in the reign of Nioholas. After enumerating, at length, all the measures taken against education in the sohools, Madame TsUebrivoka epeaka of the censure and persecution of the Pices : — Your Majesty and your Majesty's family •themselyeß nearly became victims o£ this persecution of the Press. Long ago the Press denounced the construction of the railways and the concessionaires, who, in league with the functionaries, enriched themselves. It was the late Count Tolstoi' who, complying with a request of the Minister in charge of the means of communi- '" cation, Possietti, gave orders to destroy the pamphlet which exposed the exact truth and the criminal facts, "The Government appreciated the force of the Press, and this is why it pays large subsidies to its Press, a Press whi .h it patronizes through the Itpravniks. The Government also employs provocating agents in the revolutionary Press; it accepts, with open, arms, those who have betrayed the revolutionary Press, but it commits an error . in estimating their force. The word of a traitor cannot have any influence over a sincere conviction.

Tue experience of the past reign and your

, own experience must have demonstrated to your Majesty that the policy of persecution i does hot attain its object. The day will come when the persecution of the right of thought will seejn as the memory of a bad dream ; but I fear that the advent of such a day will be accompanied with flames and floods of blood. The whole of your system pushes those who are dissatisfied into the camp of the revolutionists, even those who feel a strong and natural repulsion for all ideas of - bloofd or violence. For one imprudent word.

for a revolutionary print often taken out of mere cariosity,- a young man, a mere child, :; i 9.: declared to be a political criminal. We ;haVje political criminals who are only 14 years old who are consigned to celiuiur confinement. The Government that rues

100,000,000 people trembles before ohildien, In oar oouutry people are sent for 12 years to •Eastern Siberia for offinces whioh in Austria would be punished by two weeks pimple imprißoawent, Tue yoath of tbs

country thUB trampled upon become red rove* lutioniafca. I have a horror of bloodshed, no matter who may ba the victim ; but when, for the epil'ing of blood, we find that on one side decorations are distributed, and on the other there ia the rope and the gibbet, it is eaey ti understand the sympathies of youijg, enthußiaßtic, and heroio youths. By he Bide of the dracooian punishments inflicted by the tribunals we have also the punishments by administrative order. By these latter the Government gets rid of its enemies against whom there is insufficient proof, A man is killed, not tecause there are established proofs againat him, but. beoau^e polioe lunc tionaries are inwardly convinced vi his gui^t, and such conviction is ba^ed on the reports of Bpies, oornpared by tho higher functionaries themselves to '* a eouica of troubled water?." This ia the way orders of deportation aro drawn up :—' Though there are no proofs on which to condsmu , still he is exiled to ." These warrants will be tranemilted to prosterity, and it ia eaid that your Majesty's signature ia affixed to Buch orders. The political prisoners are the victims of arbitrary conduct which at times assumes an absolutely savage character. The Minister Tolstoi was himself alarmed by the extent of the spoliations and massacres. Every prison gaoler, every etape officer, may without danger to himself rob, strike, martyrize the unfortunate prisoners, the poor women, and children. The lower falls a stone the greater the shock ; thus each order of repression descending lower and lower in the ad ministrative hierarchy augments progres. sively in its destructive force and falls on defenceless victims. All their complaints are useless. '1 he victims protest by volun- j tary starvation, or by some act of violence which is often an act of folly. All these measures of terrorism, which commence with exile under administrative order and end by the gibbet, do not effect the object for which they are intended. The number of political criminals will increase every day. The imagination of the young people will become accustomed to the idea of exile, to executions; their number will go on increas-' ing because the cause of these political offences is firmly rooted in our political and social condition, A UtwernuiC^u which defends it3c.l oy means that are condemned by all public moral sentiment, such as exile by administrative order, spies, flogging, the gibbet, and bloodshed, it3elf teaches to the revolutionists the Jesuitical principle that the object justifies the means. Where the victims of autocracy die by the thousand, where people are flogged to death with impunity, an ardent feeling of commiseration will always bring into existence those who are willing to seek revenge. The policy of NiohoL.s J, ccsb Russia a heavy price. Your Majesty'a reforms rruk<? Russia go biiokwcrda towards this lugubrious epoch. Tne lessons taught by the Crimean campaign compelled your father to alter the policy of Nicolas I. Is an iquslly cruel lesson neoeEsary to lay bire the rottenness of a similar at«te of > ff»ns ? Tcur salvation depends on your return u> tbe reforms commenced by your father. Freedom of speech, inviolability of tho person, the freedom of maetiig, publicity given to ull trials, education widely accessible to al>, the suppression of >rbi rury administrations, and tbo oonv. cition of the Zeniskkobor, or National Parliame .t — in this is salvation. One word from you, and we shall have in Russia a pacific revolution whion will constitute a luminous (age of history. Should you, however, cLsire o leave in the history of your country a sinister blot, you will tot htar the malediction of posterity, but your children will hear if, and what a horribla legacy you will have left them. "Sou at ■-, Sire, one of the most powerful monnroha of the world ; I am bat an at-im among a crowd of millions of beings similar to myteif wti« ; e f -la ia i j your baads. And yet my con-cienoc, my right, my duty aB a Russian woman oouif.ol me to epeuk out what is on my miud and to soy whit I bad to say. Mabia Tshebrikova.