The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1917. THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 11365, 11 October 1917, Page 4

The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1917. THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT.

THE constitution of a coalition Government in Russia at last permits us to cherish a hope that the initial grand stage in the work of consolidation of the nation has begun. There have, of course, been previous coalitions of a kind, but the members were practically selfappointed and generally consisted of the leaders of the most ' self-as-sertive and [blatant sections, ignoring the claims of the less clamorous, but more influential strata of society. The present Government,® however, apparently includes representatives of at least s oine of the diverse elements of the revolutionary parties, though it would have shatteredddl conventional notions of the size of Cabinets if it had admitted samples of the whole of the political babeldom of Russia. Such as it is, even if its existence should be an evanescent one, it certainly marks a promising epoch in the unification of,'the country. Probably every fall in future will be a fallpipward—that is that each change in the Government will indicate and embody a certain progressive step in the solidification and authority of the Government and of the unification of the nation. The Allies have as much material reason to desire that as any man in Russia —even Kerensky himself, whose pathetic desire to see Russia solidly reconstituted before he dies has undoubtedly the sympathy of many nations.

T3ie greater illumination we have received of the condition of Russia from the litreature of the war enables us to see the tragedy of its environment. Big as it is, in a psychological sense, it has not yet grown up. It is a nation in its nonage. It is in the process of transition towards its intellectual prime. And the tragedy of its situation is that while in that condition it is being made the prey of the German. The craze for modernisation, and modernisation in a hurry, which possessed some of the monarchs, including Peter the Groat, and which was the cause of the penetration of all departments in the country by invited Germans, has worked great evils for the Russian people. It lias left them a legacy of leeches, and, as a neighbour, there could have been no greater curse to Russia than the politically and commerciallyravaging Prussian. If the war has the effect of emancipating the Russian people from German influence it will have served a useful purpose. ' What Russia needs at the present time, and needs very mucli, is the lead of a nation like the British, which Providence seems to have entrusted with many lands, and which lias never betrayed the trust by the ravage of the most helpless, as India and Egypt can testify. Through the Baltic, Britain and Russia are near neighbours and peradventure they will be close friends after the war. As to the form of Government that will eventually be evolved from the political turmoil, and that will be built upon solid foundations, there 1 s now too little data of the prophetic typo to enable us to form an opinion. Is there no chance of a now variation in the art of government by autocrat or by Parliament, or by the authority of both?* It may well be that a nation that has hovered on the verge of civil war for months and by a patience unique anil wonderful has kept its tempo" and the peace, will reach a basis of administration not yet attained by any other nation, and that will fit the peculiar mental characteristics of the Russians better than any other. In the interval, however, the nation'and tlio army need to be actually recreated and the now Government is saddled with a heavy task. It will, however, be aided by natural agencies. The centripetal and social instincts of a people are always stronger than those of a centrifugal typo.