THE New Zealand Herald. AMD DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1918. THE CURSE OP ANARCHY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 13967, 28 September 1918, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald. AMD DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1918. THE CURSE OP ANARCHY.

»- Russia's present plight is one awakening the deepest pity. All the hopes of national glory that were recently born seem doomed to drown in a sea of blood. Aspiring to selfgovernment, Russia has fallen upon the most terrible anarchy, and ere the day of established good may . dawn the night of a thousand , horrors must drag its tedious hours. In the yesterday before the revolution there were promises of change , without violence. The political structure of the empire was fashioned in two distinct portions. At the bottom there was a good " deal of self-government, and the peasantry, numbering more than four-fifths of Russia's population, enjoyed many privileges of democracy. The district and provincial zemstvos had large educational and economic powers, as had the dumas of the towns and cities; and the expansion of this measure of responsible self-direction might wisely have been brought about. But above this was the imperial authority, represented not so fully by the Tsar as by the army of officials dominated by the heads of the bureaucracy. The powers of this' authority were both extensive and . vague, and they were exercised by even the rural policeman. This government by grand dukes was a , negation of the democratic responsibilities theoretically enjoyed by the ', peasants; it hampered and almost : paralysed the zemstvos and dumas, over-ruling the right of public meet- j ing and the right of personal freedom in a way inconceivable to Eng- i lish-speaking people. This condition £ of affairs made Russia a prison i rather than a state; and the only r hope was either to transform or overpower the grim million of t gaolers who tyrannised over the t one hundred and thirty millions of t prisoners. The transformation was t heralded by the calling of the first t great Duma, representing all Russia. j, The announcement was illusive. The

Duma failed, partly by the unfitness of its members, partly by the interference of the bureaucrats. Then came the rapid succession • of attempts to overpower the imperial authority. To those attempts the last of the

Romanoffs fell a victim, and in the chaos that has followed there has been a kaleidoscopic succession of revolts, until at last anarchy has entirely displaced government. No sadder spectacle has eVer appeared in the West. It is that of a people of fine instincts but immature judgment gone mad. With startling suddenness they have snatched a power they were unfitted to wield, and their due 'use of it

must tarry until bitter, experience and better education have brought , v wisdom. Meanwhile Petrograd streets are the scenes of horrors '» worse than Paris ever knew, the provinces are in a frantic ferment, Little Russia is dominated by the German exploiter, Siberia endures a wasting war, and those in whose intellectual training for statesman- ) ship the hope of Russia lay are slain or exiled or temporarily helpless. What will emerge from the turmoil no "man can say. It has reached such proportions as to make forecast impossible. But this is sure— it will take> Russia ages to recover. Anarchy so widespread and violent as that which the Bolsheviks have deliberately created, and in which ! they have themselves now been overwhelmed, will throw Russia . back ■ among the barbaric peoples. Were she not so vast, so heterogeneous, so untutored a State, recovery might come apace. As it is, in the heyday of her adolescence Russia has failed to combat the perils of rapid growth, and a place among adult States can now be won only after sore discipline. Hers is a plight calling not so much for blame—the contributing conditions have been so complex as to make the due apportionment of blame impossible—as for soulful pity. But there is one way in which she will serve the nations; her anarchy's i ' horrors, unimaginably awful, will > bring to others appreciation of stable ' government. Against the blackness i of her night-sky seme stars of reve- '. lation shine; they light up the i merits of an ordered political life, i And to none on earth should that ] revelation by contrast appeal more I than to the British peoples. In £ Russia to-day. no life is worth an e hour's purohase; throughout our ] Empire, despite upheaval brought by i jwar, civilian safety is assured, $ There property is ruthlessly do- t stroyed in a riot of pillage; here it J has still all reasonable safeguards, i In the general ruin of Russia great 1 businesses are crashing to their irre- s coverablo fall; in Britain and Bri- f tain's dependencies, thanks to stable t government, commercial enterprise c has not merely survived the shock a of war—it has quickly adapted itself I to unexampled war conditions. Rus- r fiian labour is pauperised, Russian a homes are violated, Russian educa- I tion is at a standstill; but British g labour and British dwellings and g British schools have still about them c the protection of law. The faintest I conception of the actual conditions cl that anarchy has brought to Russia d should surely be enough to make, us t thankful for the ordered governance t of our life wherever British rule t

runs. As a people we have evolved a capacity for being ruled by ourselves. That aptitude stands to-day in contrast both to German subjection to ruthless overlords and to Russian obedience to nobody. It gives us the certitude of constitutional adaptation to meet whatever demand for change the i pproaching years may bring, and sets in security our loyalty both to the Crown and to ideals of citizen-freedom. It ensures both national safety and individual good. To keep such a boon we are prepared to fight and toil.