THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, MAY 31, 1890.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8270, 31 May 1890, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, MAY 31, 1890.

There are, in the Russian character so many elements of true greatness that the nation must play a conspicuous part in the world's history, and its course be keenly watched by the nations of the West. Composed of various races differing from each other in habits, modes of thought, and conditions of life, the Russian Empire is welded together by an autocracy, oriental in type and more undiluted than any that Western nations have known. Many of the hordes of wild warriors who once kept Europe in terror, are now under Russian sway, but science has made money so necessary to modern war that mere numbers and personal hardihood no longer have their old force for external attack. But internally the conflict of feeling and opinion gives to the Czar, and to the bureaucracy through which he rules, a despotic power that has always been unsparingly used. Add to this the very important consideration, that the bureaucracy is composed of foreigners, or of Russians trained by foreigners, who still, in many cases, live apart from the rest of the people, speak their own separate tongue, have their own schools and churches, and who obtained their power when the people of Russia were too backward to attempt organising a Government of the modern style for themselves. Strife is inevitable under such conditions, and it is far from impossible that the huge Empire may only be able to find ultimate peace by splitting up into separate nations, formed of those races whose homogeneity may fit them to act together. Autocracy and bureaucracy are the source of the tyranny and oppression by which the Russian Government rules. To his people in the East, such rule is natural and they worship the Czar accordingly. To his people in the West it is unnatural. They chafe perpetually but have hitherto chafed in vain. The latest protest is from the students of the Universities, from the "young Russia" rising in the West, bent on securing freedom and self-govern-ment such as they find prevailing in other countries. From time to time the cable has told us of disturbances among these young people, of Universities closed, and of students imprisoned in great number. The latest papers supply fuller information and tell of no less than 550 students arrested and imprisoned, with every prospect of the number being greatly increased. The first trouble was caused by a ball got up by the students at the Agricultural Academy in Moscow, the profits of which were believed to have been secretly designed for the benefit of political exiles in Siberia. Thence came the trouble between official directors and students. It spread and excited the active sympathy of Universities in i St. Petersburg and other parts of tho Empire. Arrests were made, the meetings of students suppressed, and nearly all the Universities finally closed. The students that were left found means of meeting and of formulating their demands, which must seem rig.it and reasonable enough to all beyond the Russian bureaucratic sphere. They ask for complete freedom of teaching, which, we presume, means getting rid of the official Censor. They want free access to the Universities for all, "without distinction of belief, nationality, social status, or sex. They ask that Jews shall be admitted to all the schools as well as to Universities, and with the same rights as other students." They desire freedom of meeting and a recognition of the student corporations. They demand the abolition of police authority and inspection, and the lowering of the fees to the standard fixed in 1863. These are the chief demands. None can call them unreasonable, nor refuse to wish well to the students capable of taking so broad and lofty a view as their demands imply.

The Moscow students, "with whom this latest trouble began, have addressed to those of other Russian Universities a manifesto in which they give powerful expression to their own views, and feelings. They point out the penalty which awaits all who " refuse to bear the oppression of the authorities, and fearlessly raise their voices in protest" This penalty is " exclusion from the University and deprivation of all future social and scientific activity." They declare that it is the duty of all lovers of their country to speak out, whatever peril such speech may bring upon them. They denounce as cowards

and criminal traitors an who should basely seek their own safety by keeping in the background, and thus, while sympathising with the cause, tacitly encourage its enemies. "On their heads," they write, "will the ruin of their comrades fall. They, with their silent support of the new statutes, will be also responsible for all the injustice to which these statutes lead." They ask for united effort and universal opposition, and do not doubt that under such conditions they must win. They conclude their address by exhorting all fellow-students to prove that " our love for our fellow-students and for free science and learning are alike active and strong." With such sentiments animating the best intellects of Young Russia, good hopes for the future may be reasonably entertained. The number of students in the various Universities is nearly 16,000, of whom 4000 are receiving an entirely free education in the shape of bursaries or scholarships. A few years ago there were four more Universities and a Medical Academy, devoted entirely to the education of young women. Over i 1500 young women attended at these five institutions, but they were found to imbibe "revolutionary ideas," and the 1 whole were peremptorily closed. The huge Empire, with its population of 107,000,000* of which nearly 90,000,000 are on the European side of the Ural Mountains, is in a state of violent ferment, and must be a danger to other nations while that ferment lasts. That it cannot much longer endure without | bursting either within or beyond Russia's own borders, is accepted as a fact by most people. The best reliance for external safety will be in the spread of free government, to obtain which the whole country is honey-combed with secret societies, waging with the Government a war remorseless on both sides, and in which these students, young, earnest, and enthusiastic, are likely to play an important part.