THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7935, 8 January 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JANUARY 8, 1906.

Not oiily Russia but cortaiu other oountries are moving forward to the levelling up or levelling down of the classes. All the trouble in Russia and most of the unrest elsewhere has its origin in class rule—one class ruling a greater class, an anomaly which

has been possible, of course, ■ through various things, chiefly the fact that the minority has been organised on a foundation of wealth and the majority disorganised in a quagmire of poverty. But under several Hags the majority have become restless indeed, and so we see Kussia in the midst of a bloody crisis, Norway independent by the single act of the referendum, Macedonia in systematised revolt, Germany concerned, oven England •thoughtful, and Austria and Hungary impatient for a state of affairs which must mean separation. Wbuther this will bring war or not, cannot be said, but the probability is that it will cause a considerable disturbance, for thero aro eyes that look to the conquest of both countries, and thay are eye 3 supported by very powerful hands. Meanwhile attention goes to that picturesque figure in whose personality the Austria-Hungarian Empire may be said to have its chief existence—a man whose domestic sorrows read like a service of dramatio tragedies, and whose political worries aro the greatest that ever fell to a modern sovereign's lot. It has boon a sensational life, a terribly sensational life, for the House of Hapsburg has given au Emperor to the revolutionary scaffold, au Empress to the assassin's knife, another Empress, wife of the murdoied Maximilian of Mexico, to the [madhouse, one heir of the Austrian Throne to selfDaniahmeut and his successor to the grave of a suicide. Truly a series of pictures which if presented in a line would appall even the least thoughtful beholder, and yet it Is far from complete if we go back over a century. And the Emperor's political life] has been no less sensational, the most dramatio scene in it occurring as though a few days ago, when a quarter of a million people marched silently past the Palace in the full gaze of Fran-ois-Joseph, who looked as silently on, though recognising that it was a demonstration of the people's power in their present political demands. What more remains is to be revealed, and a mo=?t momentous part of it may occur in the Parliament House of Hungary, where that nation hopes to acclaim its sovereign independence.