EDITORIAL NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9478, 4 February 1907, Page 1

EDITORIAL NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The daily record of violent death, chaos, crime, and misery, which is supplied by Russia, excelled itself on Saturday, when it was announced by cable that " Owing to famine and disease at Kazan several parents sold their daughters for from four to six guineas each," and that, whilst hundreds of persons are on the verge of starvation, two millions are dependent on charity." The price was not pounds, but guineas, the shocking sacrifice having been weighed with scrupulous care. The situation must be desperate to lead to such an extreme measure to obtain food. Even in the most abandoned communities in savagedoxn, much less in a Christian land, a child amd its honor are esteemed dearer than life. Kazan is a. district traversed by the navigable Volga and Kama. Agriculture is the mainstay of its people, which, in 1895, numbered 2,234,957, so that, even allowing for a reasonable increase, if there are 2,000,000 dependent 'on charity, the great mass of the population must be in dire straits. The failuro of the crops has aggravated their condition ; but the war with Japan, the consequent revolution, and stagnated industries have been the maia factors in the production of the unspeakable distress. Kazan is not entirely dependent on agriculture. The capital is the centre of several important industries, amongst which is shipbuilding, for it was at Kazan that Peter .the Great built his Caspian Sea fleet. And the Tartar merchants of the city have a. trade which extends to Bokhara and Persia and to Asia Minor. So •that, if it had not been for the exhausting effects of the war and the neglect of industries consequent on the unsettled condition of the people's minds, the situation might have been tolerable. As it is, the starving multitudes have no other consolation than to feast their eyes on a library of 80,000 volumes; to satisfy their sou'Js by devotion to the city's imposing Cathedral .(which enshrines a miraculous ikon), its monastery, and its mosques: and to appease their hunger by a contemplation of the magnificence of the antiquarian museum, the university, the observatory, the fortress, and the arsenal. For " Kazan is the chief intelligence centre of Eastern Russia, and a homo of Oriental study." Its intellectual and dignified instrumentalities have not, however, saved its from the consequences of bad government. Its sacred institutions, the scenes of an empty mummery, are but dumb, helpless, spectators of humanity's direst- misery. Yet there must be no practical protest. The man who attributes the hunger of his dependents to the cruel operations or neglei'l of the Autocracy, may get bread for himself, but at the price of his liberty. If his earnestness is adequate to the wretchedness of his plight, he may be summarily despatched without any opportunity of defending .himself. While millions are starving, thousands are living in prodigality and profligacy. They have taken very good care that the war expenditure has not curtailed their extravagant luxuries. In the midst of social murk, stark want, and festering discontent, there is Tank wastefulness, and a cool, brutal contempt for such responsibilities to the people as it is the sacred duty of the- governing cli.ises to recognise. If Russia had been 'less ponderous, the great nations might have insisted, for the sake of humanity, that she order her affairs more in accord with the demands of Christianity and civilisation.