A Tottering Empire

A TOTTERING EMPIRE. BY DR. J. M, TANNER, SUPERINTENDENT OF CHURCH SCHOOL*. Within the memory of living man, never were national disturbances, and international complications, so menacing to the peace of the world as those that witness the opening of the new year. The establishment of the Hague tribunal, and the universal effort to adjust all international differences by arbitration, are but prophetic acts of the growing dangers which threaten the peace and happiness of nations. After all, such universalists, whose sympathies and interests encompass the world, are but few compared with the contentious. Heading the list of nations that are now sorely afflicted stands Russia, whose disasters, at the close of a humili::iting war, seem to be all that the nation could bear. Russia signed a treaty of peace with Japan — a treaty that has been almost wholly forgotten throughout the Czar's domains, by reason of the revolution which is costing many thousands of lives and consequent suffering that will be incomparably greater than death. The empire itself is desperately poor, and the poverty of its inhabitants is abject and distressing. Both will soon have to answer for the enormous waste of treasury, blood and resources. In the silent years to come, the debt will have to be paid, in the midst of drudgery and relentless toil, unproclaimed and unknown. The last day of the old year witnesesd bloody scenes in Mos- •cow, in the Caucasus, in the Baltic provinces, and in Poland. Moscow, the ancient capital of the Romanoffs, has been a perfect cauldron of anarchy. Within a week there was offered up to the cause of the revolution 5000 killed and 14,000 wounded. Just what went on in different parts of the empire, with which tele-

A TOTTERING EMPIRE. 321 graphic communication had been "cut off, may long remain unknown. As a rule, the Cossacks, the most devoted of the Czar's soldiers, have been true to the emperor. They have been enlisted from different parts of the empire, and have been so favored that they had little sympathy for those who have been struggling for their liberty. The Cossacks of Russia are distinct from the masses of the people, in home interests, freedom of speech and of the the press, and in family life. While Moscow and other revolutionary centers have succumbed to military force, the opposition to the rule of the Czar is by no means ended. The political and social life of Russia is in a festering condition, and it cannot easily be foreseen where or when trouble will again break out. Russia has yet to solve another problem, of which she is merely guessing now. What will the troops from the seat of war do on their return? The larger body of them is not made up of Cossacks, but is taken from the cities and the farms. It is made up of the men whose brothers and fathers are active revolutionists at home. Russia is evidently determined to postpone, as long as possible, the return of the army from Manchuria, but the army there is full of growing discontent; and if the government can do so, it will string out the returning soldiers over the longest possible period. Linevitch has telegraphed to the Czar of the increasing insubordination of a large portion of the army. On the 13th of December, the soldiers of Vladivostok violently protested against the delay in their return home. They grew angry and began to loot Chinese quarters. What provisions they did not need they set fire to, and mercilessly slaughtered more than one thousand Chinamen. They then turned the vials or their wrath upon a German wholesale house, which they looted and set on fire. Soldiers from other parts of the army were ordered on the spot to suppress the riots. They were indeed ordered to shoot, but fired their bullets into the air without inflicting any injury on- their comrades. Officers were compelled to flee to save their lives; and finally, under promise that the soldiers should be returned to Russia at the earliest date possible, the latter submitted again to discipline. It must be the ardent wish of the authorities in St. Petersburg to restore order throughout the empire before the return of

322 IMPROVEMENT ERA. any considerable number of the Manchurian army. On the other hand, the revolutionists hope to keep the struggle going until the army in the east becomes disaffected, and has time to return and join the revolutionists at home. It is hardly likely that the Czar will venture to withdraw his promise of a constitutional government, and greater freedom, because of a recent success which the . soldiers have had in suppressing the riots of Moscow and of other places. Under present circumstances, it would be the part of wisdom for the Czar and his advisers to establish a new form of government which will meet the demands and rights of the great masses of the people. If the people can be measurably appeased, the eastern army may be returned without great danger. The extremists and anarchists of the present movement would find their propaganda quite impossible, in the face of a determined opposition on the part of the great masses of the conservatives. The natural tendency of anarchy has been attributed to the entire Slavonic race; and if the Nihilists once gain the upper hand, it would be difficult even to imagine the horrors that await the unhappy people of Russia. What adds to the uncertainty of Russia's future is the uprising among the peasant classes. Of all the oppressed people of the Czar's realm, the peasants have been the most unfortunate. At the same time they have been the most loyal. The authorities supposed that it would be quite impossible to arouse them to resistance. The spirit, however, of the Russian revolution has swept their villages, and they are up in arms against the landlords whom they are ruthlessly driving from their great estates. Their ideas of reforming the government are not so pronounced as their awakened hatred of aristocracy. They can see more easily the direct than the indirect sources of their misery. Their minds have hardly yet reached out as far as St. Petersburg. Their anger for the present is kindled mostly against what they style the "accursed aristocracy" — the landlords, who put upon them conditions akin to slavery. It is said that, in places, thes9 peasants have been wreaking their vengeance upon their landlord's blooded horses, in which they see a hateful aristocracy. They have