THE TSAR'S VISIT AND RADICAL CRITICISM.
Our condemnation of the tactics of the extremists is in no sense due to any cynical disregard of the cause of liberty, or to any wish to deprive the people and the Press of this country of the right of criticism • in international affairs, or, again, of: their right to further the aims of the representatives of Liberal and Constitutional principles in Russia. We are proud of what England did for the cause of liberty in Italy and elsewhere, and we sincerely hope and believe that at the end of the next generation we may be able to look back with equal pleasure and satisfaction to the results of British influence in Russia. But in this matter, as in all others, what it is necessary to do is to keep one's eye upon the object. We must not be content with shrieking out a particular formula or regarding the calling of names as if it were an act, and a worthy act, per se. What we want in the case of Russia is the spread of constitutional liberty and representative government. We want to see the Russian people not only secure in individual liberty, but gradually, and without drawbacks and reaction, acquiring complete self-government. At the same time, we desire in the general interests of the peace of the world that while Russia is gradually reaching this goal, the relations between the Russian State and Government and our own shall be of a specially cordial and friendly kind.
If these are the objects which we ought to have in view, as we do not doubt that all sane men will agree, surely it is a very strange way of bringing thorn about to insult the man in whose bands the government of Russia is at present lodged. It may seem to some people a dis- agreeable fact, but none the less it is a fact, that the Emperor is the head of the Russian State, and further, that good relations between us and Russia would be jeopardised by any public act of hostility towards the Emperor. For ourselves, we are inclined to agree with Sir Edward Grey that there is a good deal to be said in defence of the way in which the Russian Government has dealt with the anarchists, and that outrage, oppression, and cruelty have not been by any means entirely on one bide. Even, however, admitting that the case is as bad against the Imperial Government as is alleged by, say, the Daily News or the Nation, can it be urged that we shall be doing anything substantial to mitigate the evils complained of by placing the Emperor of Russia under a ban? The opponents of the Emperor in this country would be logical if they demanded war with Russia in the interests of Russian revolutionaries. But they are not prepared to advocate this step. That being so, surely the more' likely way of producing the result desired is to show friend-' liness and sympathy towards the Russian people as a• whole and to abstain from driving the Emperor into the hands of the reactionaries.
The Russian Monarch has a very difficult task- before him. The reactionaries who have access to 'din are very' important persons, and we may be sure that they lose no opportunities of pointing out to hir., the danoers of making concessions to Liberalism. " Louis XVI'. made such concessions, but they did not save his.life. On the, contrary, they brought him and his wife to the guillotine and called down an even worse fate upon his son." This is the argument which the Emperor's constitutional advisers have to meet. The way to help Russia is to show the Emperor how false is the analogy from the French Revolution, and to make him understand that there is a safe and honourable halfway house between Jacobinism and autocracy. No better way of reaching this result is to be found than through the influence of the British Court and the British Government. Take, for example, the toasts exchanged at Cowes last Monday. The King's very sincere and very tactful reference to the Puma was sympathetically answered by the Emperor. Can any one doubt that such a recognition of the Duma, and the great part which it plays in Russian public life, is an advantage ? Remember that what we have been saying cannot be dismissed as the vain imaginings of an English moderate. The Russian Liberals and Constitu- tionalists have told us again and again that they have no desire to see their Emperor insulted, or even coldly treated, by the British people and Government. On the contrary, they look with the utmost satisfaction upon the Emperor's visit, and recognise that the British influence is working in the direction they desire. The anarchists, who are essentially mischief-makers, would no doubt like to see ill-blood created between the two countries ; but the true Liberals, even when their views are somewhat extreme, are strong supporters of the understanding between Russia and Britain. That' understanding they realise' cannot exist unless the Monarch and the Governments of the two countries are on friendly terms.
We desire to further the cause of true liberty and well-ordered democracy throughout the world, but we recognise that it should be done prudently, and, as we have said, with our eye upon the object. Curiously enough, the Radicals realise that this is the sound policy in almost every other instance but that of Russia. We cannot believe that they think everything is for the best in the other great Monarchies such as Germany and Austria. Yet we do not find them declaring that the German Emperor and the Austrian Emperor ought to be publicly condemned in the way they demand that the Russian ruler should be boycotted. In these cases they recognise that we should do more harm than good by not minding our own business, and that it would lead to nothing but deep ill-feeling, and even war, if we interfered with the private concerns of our great neighbours. Take the case of Germany. In Germany the arrogant claims of militarism and bureaucracy often lead to a tyrauny which, though far better organised and more efficient than in Russia, is hardly less severe. Again and again we have had examples of the brutality shown by German officers and non-com- missioned officers towards their men. We do not want to fall into the very error we are condemning by over- emphasising the tyranny of German militarism, but as an example of what we mean we may quote the comment of the Frankfurter Zeitung upon a case of military tyranny which took place a few years ago :—" A soldier is struck and kicked in the most dishonouring manner and his assailant gets off with a short term of arrest; an officer has only to imagine that a subordinate is wing to attack him and he may strike the man dead. He is held to have preserved his honour." These, however, are cases of tyranny within the Army. The tyranny exercised by officers towards civilians is almost as great. We will mention only one example out of many. A lieutenant was unwittingly pushed by an artisan. The officer, who was not drunk, demanded an apology, which the artisan refused as he was ignorant of having given offence. Thereupon the officer drew his sword and attempted to run the offender through the body. For a time he was restrained by the landlord, and the unfortunate workman attempted to escape. The officer, however, con- sidered himself so grossly insulted that only the man's death could expiate the wound to his honour. Accordingly he searched. the cal& found the workman, and ran him through the back and killed him. The murderer in question only got three years' confinement in a fortress, and the Minister of War in a speech before the Reichstag in effect defended the lieutenant's action. In the same year the Emperor himself, addressing some recruits at the swearing-in ceremony, said : " Whoever lays hands on the bearer of the King's uniform lays hands on the Monarch himself." That is not a remark consistent with the spirit of British Liberalism, but very properly the .gaily News and the Nation do not make it a ground for boycotting the Kaiser.
We could add to such examples of tyranny the tyranny of the law of lose-majeste, which often means, not insult to the person of the Emperor, but to those who act in his name. We do not want, however, to attack German administrative methods, but to point out that those who counsel interference in Russian affairs ought to apply their principles also to Germany. If not, the Russian Govern- ment may very properly accuse us of unjustly picking out for public censure one Continental Government whose action is not consistent with British ideas of liberty, and ignoring similar action in the case of other Govern- ments. As we have said above, Germany does not stand alone. There is plenty of violation of individual liberty in Austria, and, we are sorry to say, plenty also in Hungary. The Czechs of Bohemia and the Slays of Croatia could make out a very strong case for boycotting the Austrian Emperor because of the deeds of oppression done in his name. Nor could protests against friendly Governments, because their ideas of liberty do not tally with ours, be confined to Monarchs. We do not suppose the Daily News and the Naiion, and the other advocates of the policy they recommend as regards Russia approve of the treatment of negroes in the Southern States, or the horrors of the penal contract system in certain of. those. States. They do not of Course, consider as unimportant the practice of saturating negroes in paraffin and setting, them alight, not because they have been found guilty by 4 court of law, but because the mob happens to think them guilty. Yet they do not—and very wisely in our opinion —because of their objection to these things suggest that we should insult the President of the United States or the Governors and Legislatures of the States in which the evils complained of take place, or declare that they are not fit associates of a free people while they allow such things to happen. Take next the case of Japan. There are many things done by the Japanese, both at home, in Korea, and in Manchuria, of which no English. Liberal would approve. Yet here, again, British Liberals do not attempt to insist that Japanese Imperial Princes should not be allowed to visit this country as representa- tives of the Mikado.
The fact is, the true Liberal—that is, the Liberal who does not wish to bemuse himself with words, but wants really to do something to stop tyranny and to spread Liberal ideas—keeps his eye upon the object and asks what will be the policy likely to produce the best results, and does not consider instead what will give him an opportunity of working off a certain amount of superheated rhetoric. Where strong action is possible and likely to be effective we are all for taking such action, but where, as in the case of great European States, it is admittedly impossible, then surely the wise thing to do, as the present Government has done in the case og Russia, is to mind our own internal affairs and let our neighbours mind theirs. At the same time let us encourage, not discourage, intercourse between Britain and Russia and the rulers of the two nations. In matters of conduct, international as well as private, cue ounce of example is worth many tons of precept. Remember, too, that monarchs and autocrats have as great a desire for justice and fair treatment in their own cases as any working man. The Emperor of Russia no doubt feels as strong a sense of injustice if he is condemned on. hearsay, and by those who have no real opportunity of kuowing the facts, as any one else. When he finds that the British people do not, as he would say, treat him unjustly, be is far more likely to take a reasonable view of democratic and liberal institutions than if democracy and liberalism can be represented to him as the essential enemies of him and all that is his.
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