We do not see much use in the conventional abhorrence
ex- pressed of crimes like these. They are murders, and when innocent lives are risked, murders unredeemed even by the pretence of political motive, but they deserve morally no more censure than any others. The City Court of Common Coun- cil, however, was guilty of grave international discourtesy when on Thursday it refused to congratulate the Czar on his escape from assassination. The motion was defeated by 72 to 47, technically because no notice had been given, but really, as was evident from the opposing speeches, from hatred of Russia, and a sort of belief that any attack on the Czar, however criminal, is a blow struck in defence of freedom. The vote is one symptom, among many others, that the Government and its Press has succeeded in rousing a prejudice against Russia, before which not only common-sense but ordinary preju- dice gives way, till we find Conservatives pardoning a murderous conspiracy because its object is a monarch, and capitalists half-sympathising with a Secret Society which has openly declared war on capital, as one of the worst of kings. There was no necessity whatever for any vote of condolence, which at the present rate of moral progress might have to be
repeated every week, but to refuse it when proposed was an action of which we shall yet hear more. The Russians who say that war with England is inevitable, will have one strong argu- ment the more with which to overwhelm the friends of peace.
