The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 1905. HISTORICAL PARALLELS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIX, Issue 12448, 9 March 1905, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 1905. HISTORICAL PARALLELS

A student of history, who has been 'contributing the .result of his observations to a London, paper, /points out that there are many resemblances and many differences 'between the position in the sumuner of 1789 in Paris land the position in St. Petersburg maw. Oarlyle's wordpicture of the unlucky Louis XVI. might equally well be applied to. Nicholas II.: "A simple, young King, taciturn, irresolute, though with a sharpness of temper at times." But in Russia the situation is complicated iby the far stronger belief in the divine right of kings that the Czar has. He apparently says with Louis XIV.: "L'etat, c'est moi" (I am the 'State) —a declaration, by the way,j which was probaibly the 'beginning of his descendant's journey to the guillotine. Generally, however, the Government of Russia, incapable and irresolute, instinct with panic and hesitation,, as almost a replica, of the Ministry at Versailles, that watched revolution seething in Paris without an idea what it meant or how to cope with it. The events of Red Sunday (the day that will live in Russian history as "Vladimir's Day) make a sharp contrast. The Duke de Broglie (Louis XVl.'s War Minister) hesitated .to aise the "whiff of grapeshot" 'with which six years afterwards Napoleon finished the a-evolution; the Grand Duke Vladimir has .not hesitated. Napoleon's cannonade killed less than two hundred men; St. Petersburg saw more than ten time's as miany corpses. And again one asks: "Will the same result ibe attained?" The writer asserts that it has come to ;be accepted almost •as a feuism i?hat the iprompt, ruthless dealing with street mohs will almost certainly quell revolt. "It is false," said NapoLeon, referring to the occasion mentioned, "that "we fired first with blank change. It had been a waste of life to do that." And the experience in Germany in 1848, and in the coup d'etat of Napoleon 111. in Paris in 1851, prove the possibility of effectually cowing a civilian crowd 'by the ruthless use of soldiery. It is, too, quito obvious that the one factor that made the French Revolution possible was the joining of the Gardes Frantaaises to the revolutionary forces. It is curious to 'remember that on Sunday, July 12, 1789, when, the Revolution practically began, the revolted soldiers fired on the Royalist forces, who were not allowed to retaliate. Judging, therefore, :by analogy, it would eeem impossible for the St. Petersburg revolt to grow into a Russian, revolution without the defection of a mass of armed soldiers. At the same time, temperament must 'be taken into account. The Russian is a fatalist, and the Russian, of the lower classes has so little that is pleasant in his life that he probably cares little or nothing whether he loses it or not. And even in these days of machine guns and repeating rifles, it is conceivable that the great inert unass of workers, supported as they obviously are by •the entire enlightened opinion of the xiussian Empire, may succeed in wearing down the .resistance of the mercenaries. While it is singularly difficult to arrive

at exact facts, there is little question that Red .Sunday's massacre is without a parallel in the history of the world.. Thousands of men and women were shot in the streets of Paris at the end of the Commune, but, 'after all, they were armed men, and there was fighting rather than massacre. Nowhere during the insurrections in 1848 was there anything like an equal slaughter. It is interesting Ao Englishmen to recall the fact that the Last time that soldiers were used to disperse civilians in England was at Peterloo, outside Manchester, in 1819, and that in this massacre, as it has always been culled, six people were killed and £'00 'wounded, a striking contrast to St. Petersburg. Revolutions have not rarely been quelled by the assistance of foreign troops. The banished Bourbons had the help of half Europe to restore them to the French throne, a task, by the way, which took a quarter of a. century and was very ineffectual when it was concluded. The Hungarian Revolution was quelled by Austria with the help of .Russia., and the Austrians returned ■the compliment in the suppression of the Polish Revolution in 1864, the Czar in this case -having also the assistance of Prussia. Austria is, the writer argues, exceedingly unlikely to bother about the internal troubles of Russia in these days, bub he wonders whether the Kaiser, to whose counsel Nicholas 11. lias so often tunned, would come to the help of his 'brother in the suppression of his mutinous subjects. A -revolution in St. Petersburg would -certainly be immediately followed toy a -rising in Poland-; and if RussLaoi Poland were affected, German Poland would be affected also. Finally, of cours©, there is 'France. It is quit© certain that the Republic, the child of the Revolution, cannot in any way support an autocracy against its subjects. Inr deed, the events of Red' Sunday must have been hard reading in Paris, with its recollections of .liberties won in. 1789 ; in 1830, when the Bourbons were got rid of once and for al-P; in 1848, when the Second Republic was born after the heaviest, fighting that the streets of Paris h<ad known; and in 1871, when the Third Republic succeeded the Third Empire. Finally, he 'argues that, whether or not Liberalism conquers in Russia, Red Sunday's miassaore must surely^make it difficult -for a Republican Government to continue to be the ally of the. Russian Czar.