After Dinner Gossip and Echoes of the Week.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIII, Issue XIX, 5 November 1904, Page 16

After Dinner Gossip and Echoes of the Week.

Will Russia Understand ? Naturally, there has been but one and only topic of conversation over the entire Empire since Wednesday last. Never have our people been so profoundly moved or so stirred with universal indignation! Never has a more unanimous cry for reparation for the victims and punishment swift and condign for the culprits gone up from the nation. When we were on the threshold of the war with South Africa, there were thousands who protested—■who urged the swallowing of further and further insolence and contumely from “Brother Boer,’’ and even when war was declared it was only in the spirit. “Well, if you will have it, you will, but remember it’s a fight to a finish,” the attitude be ing that of a nation which does not want to fight particularly but is forced thereto. But over this unspeakable outrage in the North Sea, it has been a very different matter. So far as one knows, there has not been heard one dissentient voice. Even Mr Stead has, marvellous to relate, found nothing to say against his own nation, nothing to palliate the hideous murders carried out by the servants of his particular idol the Tsar. The war—which seemed so imminent on Friday, but which is apparently “off” for the present, would have been the most popular into which we have ever entered, and would have been fought out with a. fierceness and intensity which the Tartar would have had cause to remember for generations to come. And still it may come to it any day. almost any hour. For though the British Government have done what it no doubt considers a magnanimous and brave action, in giving a chance of explanations to the murdering fleet, it is already certain that our attitude will 1>? misunderstood and ridiculed in the land of the Tsar. Persons who find it inconceivable that Britain should carp concerning the murdering and maiming of a few humble fisher folk are not of a mould to understand magnanimity or anything that is good, and will think there is a weakening oi front in this granting of grace for twenty days, and imagine we do not push matters because we do not dare. That an impression to that effect will be sedulously circulated amongst the common folk in Russia, and will be the talk of army and navy. cannot be doubled. Both branches of the service need “heartening up.” and an opportunity such as this will no>t be lost. .It is, however, to be hoped for His own sake that the Tsar will see that no vodka-valiant admiral or commander presumes on the patient stand now assumed to commit some farther outrage. Because, if so, quite without further warning or by your leave, the Russian autocrat will find that there i-. a point beyond which not even a .Ministry such ns Mr Balfour’s can coni rid the people of our Empire, and that apologies and explanations, be they never so planstide. will rot then avail. That the Mini-dry have done what they consider best in our true interests, and for the pre-ervatton of our honour and prestige, must, one supposes, be admitted, but ■soothing syrup i.-» a medirine which our nation dor-. not take kindly. Wc- gut down anol her dose on Saturday, but 51. was with a wry face, and not one. ounce more will John Bull swallow. For though it is a line thipg to be magnanimous, we Imre hitter cause to remember that after .Majiiba it did not TfM.v. Wo bad to give a !cs ; on which Cost much treasure mid nut a few lives t<> show that it is dangerous to mistake that quality for pusillanimity. The present- temper of our people augurs ill lor Russia when her time dors come. We are now held in : heck, but the strain I’ severer than is dronmed of’ nt Rt. Petersburg, and should bicakfng-poiut

he readied we shall give Russia something to remember as long as her peoples shall endure. + + + Auckland and Her Picture Collection. In hist week's “Graphic'’ there was (reprinted from the “Auckland Star”) an interview with certain artists on the new pictures added to the Maekelvie collection in the Northern Capital, and a leading article commenting on the

same. The pictures having now been hung, the writer hereof has had full opportunity of lengthened study of the same, and it may at once be stated that in his opinion—and it will be backed by the majority of artists—a more wretched selection of alleged works of art has never been added to a colonial gallery. Mr Fred. Hall’s painting has, it is true, high merit, and Mr George We t ter bee s pastoral rises above mediocrity, but the live others arc certainly not fit to form part of any firstclass private collection, and considered from a public gallery point of view are “impossible” and absurd. If the object of the selector has been to encourage young artists who have yet to show maturity of idea and capacity in technique, or to give a lift to others who have given the world of their best, and are now retrogressing, of course there is no more to be said. The thought was kindly, and there is no doubt few more friendless canvases could have been found amongst the vast army of unsaleable.*, so that in this respect the work has been well done. But was this the intention of Mr Maekelvie? Did’he desire that his money should be spent in accumulating pictures which could find no other asylum, or was his object to secure for Auckland beautiful pictures by the most capable artists of the day? M hat, one would like to know, for example, was the object of the selector - an artist of the highest repute and ripened years- in sending to the colonies such a canvas —one simply cannot use the word picture—as “A Spate on the River Dochart ?” Will it be contended that the picture exhibit’s beauty, displays technique, gives the slightest impression of rushing water, or has, in short, any single qualification io entitle it to a place on the walls of any public gallery? Put up for sale at Christie’s to-morrow, would it be valued by private. collector, dealer, or art gallery curator at a five pound note? One wishes the trustees would try. Again, Miss Stewart-Wood may be a promising young (or old) person, but Her picture. “An English Landscape,” displays crudities not criminal, when one is promising, but which mig-jt have well bra allowed to remain in its painter’s studio for all the attractiveness it possesses, and for any use it could serve from a student’s point of view*—save, indeed. to show* the young idea how bad a picture may be ami yet bp boqghi. The rest are better. but Mr David Murray’s object in letting such a wretched sample of his work as “Highgate from Hampstead” h ave his stmli.) must surely have been to place ] (1,000 miles of sea between him and it, an understandable wish enough w hen one looks on the picture, and remembers xvlj.it Mr Murray can and has done, hid rt is ha rd on Auckland. How ever, to lease particulars ami to come to general principles. One understands that it was an instruction to Mr Stone to bqy only small sized pictures. This sounds at find rather an odd sort of lipiitation; but must be attributed to difiieu’dics met with iu hanging. Yet. granting that small pictures wore desirable, could wc not have had one of the best? For instance. there was for sale one of the very happiest examples of Mr \\ yllie’s art, “St Paul’s from the Thames,” which is only 4C> x 33. which is ju*t about nn npnr for size with one of the pictures ‘elected,

3C x 4S. This would have been a picture worth having, and could probably have been secured at the sum which was available for the year. Mr Stone is, too, in a most advantageous position for buying; he can buy before the picture shows open, or after they close for the season, for, of course, as an artisjt he has the free run of the studios of his confreres. Jf only the best pictures were bought (even if funds had to accumulate for two er three years), Auckland would soon be able to begin to exchange loan collections with the bigger galleries of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, and a very interesting gallery would be thus secured. Space will not permit of going further into this matter this week, but the subject is one to which one will be tempted to return later. * + * “ Claim Your Luggage ! ” Mr Bollard has been suggesting an improvement in the rail and sea time table on the West Coast between Wellington, New Plymouth and the Manukau in order that tourists leaving Wellington one day ean on the following day catch the Rotorua express at Penrose junction. W e have now a daily service between Auckland and Wellington, and it is quite right that we should do all we can to make this quick route as popular as possible. Mr Bollard’s proposal is one move in this direction, but 1 think the burly member for Eden would do much more good, and incidentally gain much more kudos, if he would direct his attention to improving the baggage arrangements. Personally I am particularly fond of travelling, but always look forward with dread to a West Coast passage when carrying more than the oft-quoted toothbrush and 'dean collar. Much luggage at any time is a profound nuisance, but on the West Coast it is a perfect nightmare. One always docs have to look after his impedimenta when travelling, and always expects to do so, but the run from here to Wellington is so short that one would naturally expect the risks of losing things and the bother of keeping an eye on his possessions would be very much less than they are. The trouble lies not so much with the shipping people as with the Railway Department. It seems ridiculous that one cannot dump his belongings dow n on the Auckland platform, give them in charge of an official, receive a cluck, an.l trouble no more about them till he step; out on the W.M.R. Company’s platform at Thorndon. One would willingly pay a few shillings as a sort of insurance premium, and it argues a want of administrative ability and want of enterprise on somebody’s part (hat one has to put up with all the ladder and worry that now make this trip so umlesirahlAs it is one has to see his trunks into the train at Auckland, out of the train and into the boat at Onehunga, out of the boat and into the train at New Plymouth breakwater, out of one train into another at New Plymouth station, and then you may have some hope of arriving at the other end with a full tally, If you omit one of these connecting links you are pretty certain to arrive at (f our destination minus. The most unnecessary part of the whole troublesome part is the “double jump” at Nev. Plymouth; Why a person who arrives jaded and. tossed on that cold pier at an uuhuinanly early hour of the morning should have to turn out to count his private property into a luggage van. only to repeat the performance at the township (three; milis further on), is a question that only the Railway 'Department could answer in a manner that would not stultify the present system. “Claim your luggage!” is a cry

that haunts yon for weeks after a trip on the wild West Coast. If Mr Bollard and sonic more of our members would use their good offices in mitigating this pitiful evil they would be conierrinr a loon upon not only their devoted constituents, but upon travellers in general.

The Tsar as He Really I*. (An immensely sensational pea portrait by a Russian nobleman, from the “Quarterly Review.”] | At the present juncture nothing could be of greater interest than the amazing pen portrait of the Tsar as he really is, which appeared in the last number of the ‘'Saturday Review.” No apology is therefore made for quoting therefrom at considerable length instead of giving some original paragraphs which could not possess anything approaching the same interest: It is a mistake to imagine that the Emperor is a tool in the hands of his Ministers; it is they who are his instruments, merely suggesting measures palatable to the monarch and formulating his will. They make him feel that what he thinks is correct, what he says is true, what he does is right. Thjjj Hobbesian view of his position has been carefully engrafted upon his mind by the two theorists of autocracy. M. Pobedonostself and Prince Meshtshersky. The Procurator of the b'ynod. a cold-blooded fanatic of the 'J orquemuda type, is the champion of Oriental despotism in its final stage, equipped with railways, telegraphs, telephones, and rifles,” and hallowed with canonisations, hieense and holy oil; the feats of Ivan the Terrible achieved with the blessings of St. Seraphim. Of Prince Meshtshersky, the editor of the “Grashdanin” and the private counsellor of the Tsar, it would be difficult to convey an adequate picture without introducing scenes which would offend the taste of the non-Rus-sian puhlie. Il is political ideas are those of the Dahomey of fifty years ago or the Bokhara of to-day, modified in two important points. According to him, every Governor of a province, every, peasant-prefect, should share the irresponsible power of the autocrat, and when dealing with the peasantry need observe no law.

“Questions of the Zemstvo have hoi more to do with law courts,” he writes, “than questions of family life. If a' father may chastise his son severely, without invoking the help of the Courts, the authorities — local, provincial, and central—should be invested with a similar power to imprison, flog, and otherwise overawe or punish the people.” The Tsar, then, is what, inherited tendencies and the doctrines of Pobedonostseff and Meshtshersky have made him. Between humanity and divinity he is a. tertium quid. Such is the doctrine of the two theorists of autocracy; such the conviction of their pupil. He is the one essence in the Empire; they are his organs. Hence they strive to please him, to carry out his behests, to anticipate his wishes, to suggest plans in harmony with his fixed ideas or passing moods. Necessarily also they colour and distort facts, events, and consequences; for. while he can appreciate effects, his faculty of discerning their relations to causes is almost atrophied, lie. is ever struggling with phantoms, fighting with windmills, conversing with saints, or consulting the spirits of the dead. Hut of the means at hand for helping his people or letting them help themselves lie never avails himself. Books he has long ago ceased to read, and sound advice he is incapable of listening to. His Ministers he receives with great formality and dismisses with haughty condescension. They are often kept in the dark about matters which it behoves them to know thoroughly and early. Thus, shortly after the present war had begun, a number of dignitaries and officials gathered round lienera! Kuropatkin one day and asked him how things were going on. With a malicious twinkle in his eye the War- Minister replied: “Like yourselves, I know only what is published. The war is Alexeyeff’s business, not mine.” When three Ministers implored the fsar to cxacuate Manchuria and safeguard the

*e*ee of the world, he answered: "I ■haM keep the peace and my own counsel «s we4f r To of the Grand Dukes. Mho, on the day before the rupture with JJapaa, vaguely hinted at the possibility •f war. the Emperor said. "Leave that *o me. Japan wilt never fight. My reign will be an era of peace to the end ” Witte such little wisdom are the ••airs of grant nations directed. The pity of it is that there is no frit I Ilin Id!Mg between the isolated sevethe fiinifcrti ri mUh, no one Mho has free access to the monarch for ♦he purpose of telling him the truth. Our history records the deeds of Empev<ers whose autiioi'ity was as absolute as is his; but they were not inaccessible to public opininn, indifferent to public needs, or deprived of the counsel of strong men. Alexander I. was wont to spend whole nights in talking freely and frankly to individuals who told him

what they knew and thought. Nicholas I. profited by the services of Benckendorff, to whom Russians could speak plainly, and who bad the courage to tell his master what was needed. Alexander 11. was served by Count Adlerberg. who played a similar part with tolerable suc-

cess. General Richter was the mentor of Alexander Ilf., and his influence was powerful and beneficent. But Nicholas 11. stands alone on his dizzy pedestal, a Simon Stylites among monarchs. His adjutant, Hesse, who is privileged to see him at all times, is an officer who can scarcely write his name. The Tsar has created a gulf between the autocracy and the people, between himself

and his fellow mortals, which is nearly «s deep and as broad as that which separates the Deity from manlriwl. Many educated Russians are wmt to compare their present Emperor with VrndtTr Ivanovitch, the weak - willed, feeble-minded son of Ivan IV. Bnt ■there were points even in that mo»itarch’s favour which we miss in the . life of .Nicholas "ft. He was at least conscioem of his weaknesses. “I am the Tsar of excenUonars!” Ids artistic biographer makes him exclaim, on an historic occasion. And, after all. his own weakness was more than outweighed by the strength of will of his prompter, the great statesman Boris Godunuff. The sad conviction is now rapidly gaining ground that Nicholas 14. is getting to resemble ” in certain ways the unfortunte Paul 1. He is eminently unfit to control personally the destinies of a great people; and he is, unfortunately, ignorant of his unfitness. That is the danger which hangs over Russia at home, and over Russia’s peaceful neighbours abroad. Deep-rooted faith in his own ability prompts him to shun men wltose statesmanship might shield his people from the consequences of his faults, and to choose officials who will serve merely as tools in his unsteady hands. Consequently his choice of favourites arid of ministers is deplorable. Thus the idea that lie should have offered the post of Minister of Public Instruction to a man so entirely and deservedly discredited as Prince Mesht- . shersky embitters those of his subjects who arc aware of the facts as much as would the appointment in England of * such a man as Jabez Balfour to the archiepiseopal see of Canterbury. A great deal has been written about ' the Tsar’s love of peace, his clemency, his benevolence, and his fairness; but the Russian authors of these eulogies belong to the category of flatterers, who, when His Majesty sleeps, are busy quilting profound passages from Iris snoring. His reputation as a staunch friend ot peace is but the reflex of the views laboriously impressed upon him by M. de ■Witte, whose whole policy, good and evil, was based upon peace. But. owing to the defective condition of that faculty by which the mind traces effects to causes and calculates results, all he does contributes to bring about the very ends which lie abhors. Who, then, it may be asked, influences the autocrat whose personal rule is ■thus absolute? If his Ministers are but his organs and even his women-folk are powerless to move him, whose is the spirit that animates him? The answer lies on the surface. In the sweeping theories of autocracy, which he has made his own. Iff. Tobedonostseff and Prince Meshtshersky, the Torqueniada and Cagliostro of contemporary Russia, vreie Ms teachers. Their abstract aphorisms and peessnal appeals flered a faith and ffrrvonr in Hve spirit frf theh- phuUie pd>pfi whieh hare become second natura; and he now measures every new idea by Its bearing upon autocracy. The teaching of these mas-

ters is hacked by certain Grand Dukes, who form a sort of secret coaneil like that which regulates the life of the great Unia of Tibet. Under Alexander HL they had ao part to play, for that monarch kept them in their places. Nicholas 11., on the contrary, is easily swayed by these self-seeking members of his family. They paint their plans in the hwes of his own dreams, present him with motives whieh appeal to his prejudices, and always open their attack by gross fattery. They are consequently more than a match far .poor as they call him; and their influenca lover him is pernicious. One of them, who was for years the manager of the vast funds supplied by loyal Russia to build a church to the memory of 'Alexander 11., has yet to account for enormous sums of money which disappeared mysteriously under his administration. The Grand Duke Sergius, GovernorGeneral of Moscow, a man addicted to Jew-baiting and other unworthy sports, is the Tsar’s mentor in questions of religion, whether abstruse or practical. It was he who proposed to abolish the Juridical Society of Moscow, whieh he suspected of liberal tendencies; and, when it was objected that the members were scrupulously observant of every law and regulation, he answered: “That’s my point—‘they are for this very reason all the more dangerous, to the State!” The Grand Duke Constantine offers brilliant suggestions on questions of public instruction nnd military’ affairs. The Grand Duke Alexis, whose foreign mistress, a French actress, causes Ministers to tremble, is the great palace oracle on the navy, of whieh, however, he expresses a very poor opinion in private. Perhaps the most influential of all is the Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovfteh, who has for a considerable time been the alter ego of His Majesty, This grand-ducal ring is the Russian governing syndicate unlimited; and Ho Minister could withstand it for a naowth. It is able to thwart his plans in their primary stage, to discredit them in the Tsar’s eyes during the discussion, or to have them cancelled after the Emperor has sanctioned ■them. Obviously Russia has more autocrats than one.

Always in want or in debt, the Grand Dukes flock together wherever there is money to be had, like vultures over a battlefield; and, if they stand to win in any undertaking, (they care little about the nationality of the losers, and less about the ethics of the game. Their latest venture was the Lumber Concession on the Yalu River in Corea, which had no little share in plunging our unfortunate country into the present sanguinary war. The scheme had been proposed on the strength of M. Bezobrazoff’s assurances that it would bring millions to the pockets of the lucky investors, and add a kingdom to Russia’s Far Eastern possessions. At first .His Majesty, dissuaded by his Ministers, shrank from the thought of mixing shady speculations with imperial politics. Accordingly he issued a strict command to the Grand Dukes tb keep . aloof from the discreditable business. The ducal ring then sent M. Bezobrazoff to knead the imperial will; and so ingeniously was this done that the Tsoinot only withdrew the prohibition, but himself joined the investors, and put some millions of his own into the concession. The Grand Dukes reasoned correctly that if the Emperor had money in the undertaking, everything possible would be done to make* it increase and multiply—and with it their own investments. And that is what happened. Upon the mind of their simple relative the Grand Dukes worked with consummate skill. Every candidate for imperial favour whom they present is a specialist who promises to realise the momentary desires of the Tsar. Thus M. Philippe, the spiritualist who appeared during the Emperor’s illness in Yalta, •promised him a son and heir, and Was therefore received with open arms. As time passed, and the hopes which this adventurer raised were not fulfilled, the canonisation of St. Seraphim Was suggested by a pious Grand Duke and a sceptical abbot, because among the feats said to have been achieved by this holy man wau the miraculous beBtowal of eliiMren upon barren women. Another of the Tsar's passing f.tVonrrtes was an eccentric idealist named Khlopoff, who occupied a small post in the Ministry of Ways and Communications. Through the Grand Duke Alexander MTkhafTdvitch, to whose chlld-

ren he gave lessons, he was brought to the notice of the Emperor, who conceived a liking for the honest, disinterested reformer. Khlopoff idealised the Russian people, enlarged poetically on their qualities, dramatised their actions, and prophesied the marvels they woull accomplish after certain reforms had been effected. His Majesty hung upon his eloquent recitals of the peasant’s hopefulness in sufferings, and asked his new friend to travel through the country and to report on the grievances of the peapie.- But after a twelvemonth of Khlopoff’s irresponsible activity the Ministers ..grew restive; Pobedonostseff requested the ®nr to give hie favourite a responsible position or else dismiss him; and, the novelty of his rhapsodies having .worn off. His Majesty eeased to receive the reformer. As he continued, However, to read his reports, AL Fobedonostseff spoke earnestly to the Grand Dukfe; and Khlopoff-was dismissed with a pension. But the most dangerous of all the Imperial favourites is M. Bezobrazolf, a cross between a clever company-promot-er and an eccentric. This gentleman, who in his lueid intervals gives proofs of extraordinary shrewdness, began his career as an officer in the cavalry of the Guard, passed on to the post of Master of the Hounds, and in this capacity made the acquaintance of the members of the grand-ducal ring. In time he resigned, and, hoping to do a .brilliant stroke of business a I'Amerieaine,. went to the Far East, where i»c was to look after the financial interests of the Grand Dukes. The Yahi forests seemed to promise well as a speculation, and he returned with a proposal ■for exploiting them. The sharp criticism with which the project was received by M. de Witte, Count Kamsdorf!, and others at first alarmed the Tsar. But M. Bezobrazoff, who was received by His Majesty at the request of the Grand Dukes, had no difficulty in winning over the waving young monarch; and the Tsar, as has already been stared, himself became an investor. From that moment M. Bezobrazolf’s ascendancy began. He returned to the Far East with plenipotentiary power such as no Minister ever possessed. General Kuropatkin. Baron Rosen, Count Lamsilorlf were subordinated to him; and his report on the Manchurian railway accelerated M. de Witte's fall. He caused Admiral Alexeyeff, a man of narrow outlook and vast ambitions, to be appointed viceroy; and between them they lured the unsteady monarch, and with him all the nation, into the present costly and disastrous war.

Thus the whole Russian Empire, with its peasantry, army, navy, clergy, Universities, and ministries, is but the servant of an inexperienced prince who is

not only deficient in the qualities »e--quisite to a ruler, but even devoid of the tact necessary to enable him to keep tip appearances. At home the nation is suppressed; it cauuot make its voice heard on the subject of war or peace, of taxattion or education, of industry or finance; it cannot even save its soul in its own way. Abroad the policy of Russia is a policy of expansion without end, planned by officials without scruples, and executed by a Government without responsibility. It, has brought things to such a pass that, assurances given by ambassadors are not landing on the Foreign Minister; promises made by the Foreign Minister are disregarded by the heads of other departments and dishonoured by tn“ Tsar; treaties ratified by the Tsar are not binding on the Government, whieh may plead a change of cimtmstances ns a justification for breaking them. This theory, which to our shame is become as specifically Russian as the Monroe Doctrine is American, has been firmly established by Nicholas 11., who may truly say that the Empire is him-elf and that his ways are inscrutable.