Socialism in Europe.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3126, 24 February 1879, Page 1

Socialism in Europe.

The question is, what is to be done with the profound dissatisfaction entertained for things as they are by the sixty thousand Socialists of Berlin, of whose existence Prince Bismarck complains! Sixty thousand in the capital, there are aix hundred thousand throughout Germany. But what are their numbers in Eussia P Trustworthy statistics do not reach us from its semi-barbarous territories; but the evidence is abundant that its population is becoming sufficiently conscious of its barbarism, and sufficiently ashamed of it, to be heartily weary of despotic monarchy and a servile and corrupt Bureaucracy. The same spirit of radical discontent which causes men to call them' selves social democrats in Germany makes them dub themselves Nihilists in Bussia. Eussia is ruled by its police yet they appear unable not only to prevent the circulation of revolutionary opinions, but even to discover their authors. News* papers that would not be allowed to live a day if their source could be discovered continue to be circulated through Bussia, and even to find their way into the Palace of the Czar himself. A circumstance so astounding can be accounted for only on the supposition that this revolutionary propaganda counts innumerable adherents. The ancient reverence for the occupant of the throne, which was the one conspicuous feature of Russian society, is on the wane. "It is to the Czardom," the people of Bussia are told by one of these secretly circulated prints, " that we owe all our misfortunes. It has made us slaves, depriving us of all moral dignity, and degrading us to the condition of an enervated people without individuality or liberal aspirations. If we wish to recover our rights we must expel the Bamanoffs, and exterminate, root and branch, the system they hare introduced." No doubt these are the phrases ot exceedingly raw Revolutionists; but they indicate that precise condition of mind wMch leads to desperate action. In educated Germany the methods pur* sued are more moderate. Prince Bismarck tries to flatter himself that; though, his countrymen read more than. Englishmen or Frenchmen, they understand less of what they read. The theory is a curious one; but we lose our surprise at the paradox when we reflect that it is the only possible way of accounting for the fact that thongh Germans read so much they still are not of the opinion of Prince Bismarck. His remedy is to prevent them from reading anything that does represent their opiuions. Need we wonder if it has been seriously proposed that the Social Democrats of Germany shall emigrate en matte to the United States or to Asia Minor—anywhere, in fact, where opinion is not persecuted! The scheme seems a wild one, but even if carried out it would not be the first time that unwise measures of repression have led to a vast exodus of the population. Prince Bismarck does not propose to make their own land particularly attractive to them. To have to obey the law of universal military conscription, and to bo forbidden to express in public their own political opinions, can scarcely fail to render life in the Fatherland somewhat irksome to those who have to bow to those necessities. To serve a country which is really one's own ought to be the chief pride of every man. But to be obliged to fight for a State that, when yon have fought for it, treats you as an alien cannot be satisfactory. In addition to Germany and Eussia, however, there are other communities, more happily circumstanced, which, nevertheless, are not free from the disease of political and social discontent of which we have spoken. In spite of the boast of its Minister of the interior, France is not without its Social Democrats. Italy, too, is no more free from the danger than France itself. Underneath the mock agitation that has for its ostensible cry Italia Irredenta lurk the purposes of social democracy. What, our contemporary tbe Standard asks, is to be the remedy P The only possible resource is to be found in justice and liberty. If these fail, nothing will succeed. Prince Bismarck is doing Europe, as well as Germany, an ill-turn by fostering and fomenting a just discontent. It spreads and ramifies into other countries; for it is in the nature of men to sympathise warmly with the members of their own class. When, therefore, English writers invent excuses or urge argumentative palliatives for Prince Bismarck's wrongheadednoss, they forget that they are apologising for a mischief whose result cannot be localised.—European If ail.