TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE LATEST ATTEMPT ON THE CZAR.
iN the deadly duel which is still being fought between the I Czar and the most formidable Secret Society in Europe— a society which, it seems evident, is not the Nihilist one, but a smaller organisation imbedded within it—the advantage as yet does not incline to the legitimate power. The Govern- ment of Russia has exerted its utmost strength with almost Jacobin energy, has placed the cities under military governors, has filled the streets with soldiers, police, and spies, has sus- pended all ordinary laws, has arrested thousands of suspected persons, has hurried off whole trains of adversaries to Siberia, has made it known everywhere that to be even suspected of proclivities towards Nihilism is a deadly offence, and still it has accomplished next to nothing. There is no proof that it has secured any revolutionary leaders, and every proof that the most resolute among them are still at large. All the efforts of the Government have only succeeded in making it clear to Russia, to the world, and, we hope, to itself, that mere repression is useless, that the whole force of the least fettered • Government in the world is unable by mere strength even to protect the lives of the Imperial family. Russia has been turned into a camp, but the Society remains undetected, unbroken, and not only undismayed, but increasingly resolute and fanatic. The in- visible power, whatever it is, strikes harder and harder blows out of the blue. It has met every attack hitherto by some blow more audacious, more striking to the imagination, and we must add, more criminal than the last. The Emperor Alex- ander, always by temperament one of the saddest of men, must feel as if he were contending against Afreets, beings as little em- barrassed by material obstacles as affected by ordinary human scruples. First, the Society sent against him an ordinary assassin, Solovieff and his revolver. That was serious, because any man reckless enough to give his own life can threaten any other man's ; but still, it was an ordinary danger, to be averted by ordinary means. There was risk only when the Czar was abroad and visible to the people, and he could remain com- paratively secluded. Then the Society made all loco- motion dangerous by blowing up a train, and as it were hunted the monarch into his palace ; and then they struck at him the deadliest of all their blows, within the palace itself. The Winter Palace is a small city full of the Czar's worshippers, of devoted officers, of picked guards, of skilled detectives ; yet there the Society had agents—forty, it is said, were arrested in one day—and found means to blow the dining-table into the air. That they failed was not due to any precaution, or any information, or any devotion of all those watchers, but solely to an accident, which it would have been impossible either for the Czar or the assassin to foresee. Indeed, the first result of this attempt is to demonstrate that precautions are utterly useless, that no method of life, not even residence in an ironclad, is of any avail, that the Society has agents who, whether by aid of treachery or simply of good acting, can penetrate anywhere ; and that the unhappy Sovereign would probably be safer walking among his people, than in the deepest recesses of any fortress. Without precau- tions he only risks a bullet ; with them he is attacked by far more dangerous and dispiriting scientific appliances. The Society evidently has the information, means, and agents to attack him anywhere — the precautions taken, for example, in Livadia are of the most extraordinary kind— and it is difficult even to think of trustworthy measures of defence. Any building, however guarded or however strong, can be blown up from within, and the Society pene- trates into all recesses. There must be servants, and any ser- vant may be an agent ; there must be soldiers, and any soldier may be a Nihilist ; there must be officials, and any official may belong to the Society, or, as is believed to have happened less than a month ago, may be personated by one of its agents. A man in the uniform of the special employs of the Police, with an urgent message from General Gourko, was nearly admitted to the Czar's presence, and intended, it is said, to shoot him down. Let watchfulness, and repression, and terror be pushed to their utmost limits, and still there is no security that in his bed, at his dining-table, in the church while offering thanks for his escape, the Czar may not go into the air. His enemies have the aid of modern chemistry, they have agents daring enough to use any means which leave them a chance either of escape or suicide, and they are utterly regardless of the amount of misery in- flicted on the innocent. Had this attempt succeeded, not only the Czar, but his daughter, whom no one hates, and Alexander of Bulgaria, a foreign Prince, would have been destroyed with him ; while as it was, fifty-three perfectly guiltless soldiers were killed or maimed, for no reason except that they sat or lounged between the assassin and the Czar. The Society appear capable of destroying a cathedral, merely to reach one worshipper. There is no evidence whatever that the attempt will not be repeated, or that it will not at last succeed, success giving the signal for some outbreak, or, as is by no means improbable, when the history of Russia is remembered, for a prearranged attempt to personate the new Czar.
There never was such a duel fought, and it is impossible even to form an opinion as to its probable ending. Repression has failed signally and decidedly, and there is no proof that any other course of action would certainly succeed. Were we Russians, we should believe that abdication was ex- pedient, if only that the danger might be faced by a new mind, unshaken by these continuous crimes, and un- hindered by the bitter indignation with which the present Czar must regard, and it is stated does regard, the ingratitude of his people. A strong man is wanted, and the strength of Czar Alexander is believed to have died away. As English- men, we cannot doubt that all this repression, pushed, as it is, by subordinate agents to an extreme of tyranny, does but intensify the mischief ; or that orders setting the educated classes free by summoning some kind of representative body, if only with the right to speak freely of all grievances, would bring to the Throne that general support, that readiness to watch on the Sovereign's behalf, which is now visibly wanting in Russia. Every kind of material protection surrounds the Czar, but the atmosphere is not protective. He is guarded by the reverence of the multitude, but he is not guarded by the affection of the classes from among whom his assailants, or at least those who direct his assailants, are almost certainly7 drawn. A cool English statesman in the Czar's place would, we believe, be convinced that the time had arrived for con- cessions, that the old system could no longer be main- tained, and that help for the Throne must be found among the people themselves. But we can easily imagine that to the Czar and the governing group around him such counsel might appear almost infamous, that they would reject with indignation any idea of yielding to terrorism, and would determine either to vanquish the Secret Society or to accept their doom. Men assailed as the Czar has been assailed, by murderers who are careless whose lives they take, if only his may be included, are in no temper to judge quietly of the policy which may permanently prove most effective. Their instinct is to fight the battle out, and make concessions, if at all, only after victory, and, however we may regret their decision, it is impossible to blame it. The mere diffi- culty of ascertaining whether any concession it is possible to make would stop the assassins' hands, is a strong argument in their favour, as is their belief—probably quite sincere—that but for the autocracy the machinery of the Empire could not be worked for a month. Still, there remains the broad fact that a battle, and a very terrible battle, has been fought, and that victory has not arrived ; that the Gover- nors cannot be made more absolute, or the army stronger, or the police more vigilant, or material defences more perfect ; and that the Revolutionary Society has, so far, triumphed over all. In the midst of his own palace, of attached servants, of faithful guards, of a capital in which nine- men in ten would obey any order whatever, the Emperor's own dining-room has been blown up by unknown hands. It is impossible that such a state of affairs should continue ; impos- sible to discern how, -without reasonable concession, it is to be improved ; and we must add, in truthfulness, impossible to be sure that in reasonable concession lies the remedy. History throws no light on a situation without a precedent, and speculation is baffled by our ignorance of the true motives of the actors, who may be, as some of the incidents suggest, pursuing a vendetta as well as governed by a fanaticism. For the present, they have done nothing but deepen the misery of Russian life, and there is no sound reason to believe that they will ever lighten it. It is not true to say that no assassination ever succeeded, but the immense majority have either been mfruc- tuous, or fruitful only in ruin. The Czars are at least as likely to remember that the assassin rests in war-time, as to believe that assassination would cease when opinion was once free.
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