TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NEW CZAR.
THE noisy, and in some quarters unreal, outburst of horror
which has followed the assassination of the Emperor Alexander, must not blind us to the immense importance of the event. It shakes every throne, and may profoundly modify the policy not only of Russia, but of every other country in Europe. The party of assassination has not only, for the first time in modern European history, succeeded in a murderous plot, but has succeeded under circumstances which make its success terribly ominous for the future. The spell which best guarded the Kings, the secret belief of millions that Providence specially watched over their lives, has been rudely broken. The best protected monarch in Europe, a Sovereign guarded not only by innumerable soldiery and ubi- quitous police, but by the devotion of the immense majority of his subjects, who was the object almost of adoration to millions of emancipated slaves, and who could at any moment have challenged a plebiscite with the certainty of a practically unani- mous reply, has been blown to pieces by a boy in sight of his own palaoe. His popularity protected him no more than his bayonets ; his services shielded him no more than his spies. Every King in Europe knows to-day that, as the Emperor of Germany instantly perceived, he is defenceless, that though girt with the love of millions, any group of men, however small or however insignificant, can, if they will but give their lives for his, terminate his reign. There are probably not five hundred, possibly not two hundred, Nihilists of the assassin type in all Russia, and the war they have already proclaimed against Alexander III. is a greater danger to himself and his dynasty than a formidable insurrection would have been. That fact shakes every throne, deprives all monarchs of their serenity, and must affect for evil the relations of all kings and all subjects. Nothing hardens the heart like chronic terror, and nothing so destroys confidence between the peoples and their rulers as the sense in the minds of the latter that services will awaken no effective gratitude, that the man who has faced all risks to relieve his subjects may yet be sentenced by a section of them, a mere group, a clique among the millions, to a sudden and a horrible death. Every King will feel himself challenged, and will doubt, if only for the moment, whether his true attitude should not be defiance, whether, if this is the reward of great popular acts, it might not fee better to resist than to fulfil the aspirations of his people. A shock which produces that result is an immense evil, and it is but one of the many which may spring from the Nihilists' groat crime.
Pro tanto, their act must strengthen despotism in Russia. Not only are all moderate reformers discredited by it, not only are all reactionaries furnished with a new weapon, but the monarch himself is compelled to doubt whether, as gentleman and soldier—and every Russian Czar must be soldier, first of all—he can boar to make concessions which will be attributed to fear. There is no doubt, we imagine, in any reasonable mind of what Russia at this moment needs. She wants first of all an audible voice, a representative Council, with the right of free speech and free inquiry, which can openly discuss the evils of the empire, openly censure officials, openly tell the Emperor in what direction his people ask him to employ his absolute power. It is not so much the auto- cracy as the reuime of silence which Russia desires to terminate. Very little is ever known of Crown Princes, whose position in every country is difficult in the extreme, so difficult that reserve becomes as necessary as dress ; but it is universally believed in Russia that Alexander III. sees this,—that lie loathes the corruption which exasperated even his grand- father Nicholas into cruelty, and which is shielded by silence ; that he would, if left to himself, let Russia speak out, and retain only the right of ultimate deci- sion. But how is he to do it now, when the whole world will say, " The Nihilists killed the father, and the son fulfils 'their will." It may be—for these Romanoffs have been made ty lair terrible position into a strange race, sometimes able to stand 0:sesolutely alone, and defy every influence except that of a thought eurging up within themselves—that Alexander III. may rise above this murmur, think of himself as 'far above the ,,tl.e-tattle of humanity, and decree from the very plenitude of autocracy right of aggregate speech to Russia ; but wha aver effect the murderers have had, it must be against that. The Heir must punish his father's murderers, must resist their demands, must hunt down, their organisation, and may well think, though the thought will be false, that he can do this most completely while Russia is still silent. We trust it will not be so, and we acknowledges the possibility. The new Emperor is a man of stern, and self-contained character, with few and tenacious. ideas ; he is so young, that the curse of the Roman- offs, the hypochondria which falls on them all in middle-- age, has not yet attacked him ; and the convictions bred in menu in his position, so near to absolute power and yet so power- less, are apt to be very strong. He may thrust aside all con- siderations except the good of Russia, and change at a stroke, her whole position in the world ; but if he does, the momentous- step will be taken in spite, and not in consequence, of the crime which has so terribly increased its difficulty and its un-- likelihood. The murder of his father by assassins inclines no, man towards the assassins' cause.
It is the same in foreign affairs. The new Sovereign is believed to be, in foreign affairs, inclined to pursue the Slavo- phil policy,—that is, in practice, to break the alliance of the three Emperors, to unite himself with the Western Powers, to release Slays and Greeks alike from Mahommedan rule, and to offer to Poles equality with Russians, if only they will accept. him as Czar. That policy, though it threatens Austria, who would see her ambition baffled, and annoys Germany, who. desires Austria to become Slav, would rid Europe of its greatest. existing evil—the Sultana t — would enfranchise the whole Balkan. peninsula, would satisfy the claims of Greece, and would com- pel Germany at least to try and settle her permanent quarrel with France without war, and so would produce probably far more good to the world. than the sudden retirement of Russia into her shell, for which, we see, most publicists hope._ But is such a policy possible, in the face of a catastrophe which, if the new Sovereign is like most of his kind, will make him think that all Kings have common interests; that his. German subjects are the least formidable ; that Slavophilism. leads to insurrections ; that, as Metternich once wrote—" The Sultan has every claim on us, for ho is a legitimate. monarch I" We do not say that this reaction is in- evitable. Alexander III. is of the Slav and not the German temperament, he has none of the love for the Hohenzollerns in which Alexander II, had been bred by his: mother, he will have very different advisers, and the human, being who has most weight with him is his wife, a Danish lady,. said to be passionately devoted to the Greek cause, and at least. certain to dread the revolution which, if Greece is again betrayed, will sweep her brother from his throne. The new' Emperor may insist that as Russia gave up so much in order that Europe, and not Russia, might decide the terms of peace,, the substance of those terms, which included the emancipation, of the Greek provinces, shall be rigorously carried out. But if he does this, and so once more makes the great force of Russia. beneficial instead of injurious to human freedom, it will be in, spite, and not in consequence, of the great successful crime. The effect of that, so far as it has effect, must be to throw- him into his father's later groove, to make all policy feeble and all action slow, and to vivify again the permanent feeling of Sovereigns that, as against the rest of the world, there is a com radeship of Kings. As yet, of course, there are no signs which influence will win, for we do not look on the manifesto promising peace as at all a decisive sign. All statesmen alike desire peace• and their own way. The Heir has still to take up his frightful burden, a burden which has inflicted on Czar after Czar an incurable sadness, leading, as in Paul, to madness; or, as in Alexander I., to a mortal tedium, vitae (vide " Metternich's Memoirs "); or, as in Nicholas, to suicide ; or, as in Alexander H., to a haggard melancholy, only distin- guishable from madness because under any strong impulse- like that of the first attack on Sunday, he could always do his duty. Alexander III, has still to take the reins into his hands, to choose his counsellors, and to understand precisely in what position the gravest affairs rest. For weeks, possibly months to come, Europa can know nothing, except that the control of the largest country in it, the most numerous army, and the most devoted people, has passed to a new and as yet uncona- preliended Sovereign. But then that of itself is a change which must disturb the calculations of every statesman, and introduce into all designs a new, incalculable, and most potent factor. There are but three persons in Europe who can move great armies at will, and one of them has suddenly disappeared, to be replaced by another who may move his own in the reverse direction.
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