18 MARCH 1905, Page 2

The Russian Government, which had withdrawn the censorship on telegrams

to the outer world, has now reim- posed it, and news of the internal situation will therefore come in more slowly. As the curtain drops there is evidence that the catastrophe which the upper classes fear most of all—viz., a jacquerie—is close at hand. The peasantry, already restless from poverty, are being assured, either by the bureaucracy or the revolutionaries, that they are to have the land. In no less than forty-five districts, it is said, disturb- ances have broken out, the peasantry marching on the clulteaux, and, when resisted, killing all they fmd in them. The troops usually " restore order " a little too late, and by the latest accounts the movement, which began in the government of Orel, is spreading in the North-West and South. All such movements are exaggerated by the terrified class exposed to them ; but the danger is known to exist in Russia, and to be intensified by the general hatred of the foreigners, whose sugar refineries and other factories are supposed by the ignorant to carry away wealth from Russia. Full narratives written by fugitives will soon reach the West ; but it must always be remembered that the vastness of Russia, while it embarrasses the Government, arrests also any concerted action among insurgents.