THE CZAR'S OBJECTS.
IT is becoming increasingly evident that the tour of the Emperor of Russia to Western Europe must have some considerable objects. His Majesty can hardly be Woying a mere holiday. FewSovereigns enjoy, as lliam II. does, life on board ship in the rough North seas, and on shore even a Sovereign, who is trained to endure the burden of State, must be bored to death by ceremonials, receptions, and carefully prepared speeches. Nicholas II. is not, like his cousin, proud, and with justice; of his abilities as speechmaker, and would be far • happier in an informal yet courtly circle in Denmark than either at Potsdam or Compiegne. He sees an equal, to be sure, for two or three half-hours, which must be an infrequent experience; but equality is a poor substitute for friendship, and the Court of Copenhagen is the only one where his equals are trustworthy friends. Besides, the journey has a most disagreeable accompaniment. Even though a President has just been done to death, we are unable to believe that the extraordinary precautions taken in France to protect the Czar, precautions which harass an Army, profoundly irritate three cities, one of which is Paris, and involve expenditure which will be perceptible even in the Budget of France, are dictated by nervous- ness alone. Neither M. Loubet, M. Waldeck-Rousseau, nor Prince Orloff is a nervous man, and the French police, besides being the keenest in Europe, has on such occasions command of much money for espionage. The French Government has no lancy fOr being ridiculous, and unless it is much better informed than the public, some of its orders, especially those regarding Dunkirk and Compiegne, which seem based on the orders that used to be given in Constantinople when a Sultana went abroad, will subject it to much ridicule. President Loubet must have positive information, which he, at least, believes, that there are real dangers threatening his visitor ; and though much is always kept back from an autocratic Sovereign. the Czar must perceive that with all France welcoming him he is not considered safe. His Majesty, who is fairly safe at home, though Count Muravieff said the Nihilists are rather cowed than extinct, would not have plunged into all that welter, and risked so much for his country as well as himself, unless he had perceived objects which he felt it imperative to secure. As rumour suggests adequate objects, and objects really attainable by the tour, we are inclined to think that rumour has in this instance a solid foundation.
. The first object, no doubt, is to render it easier to obtain money. M. de Witte, pressed by the Siberian expendi- ture, by the famine in several provinces—which hits the Russian Treasury exactly as the same calamity hits the Indian one, not wounding mortally, but embarrassing everything—and by the necessity of " supporting " the great industrial schemes he is fostering, needs a large loan. The English are possessed with a notion that Russia, though she paid interest to all creditors throughout the Crimean War, is always over-spending herself, and a loan would not be taken up in London except at rates which allow a margin for insurance,—greedy rates M. de Witte doubtless considers them. The Germans have just now enough to do in paying for their Emperor's schemes, and financing their own over-expanded manufacturing specula- tions. American financiers are well loaded already, and the American public, which could raise any amount, is devoted to industrial speculation, and has a dozen methods. of earning a safe 4 per cent. at home. There remains, therefore, France; and as in France the subscriptions come from the cottages, and the oottagers know no more of Russian finance than of Icelandic bonds, it is necessary to do something more than ask for money. The lenders must be pleased, and as nothing will please them better. than a visit from the Czar, the visit is paid. We see nothing ignoble in such a motive, and nothing of which able politicians ought to be ashamed It is as essential to Russia to be solvent as to secure a great ally, and if an Imperial visit will refill the Treasury as well as cement a necessary alliance, it is a matter of good policy that it should be offered.
The second object, which probably comes even closer to the Russian Emperor's heart, is to secure peace in his time, and we strongly incline to the belief that he has secured it. The' German Emperor informed the people of Dantzig, with quite unaccustomed earnestness, that the result of his conversations with his guest was that peace was assured for many years, and we see no reason to believe that he was either over-optimistic or attempting to deceive. The Russian Emperor, who has been personally annoyed by the failure of the Conference at the Hague, has, it is rumoured, fallen back upon the more practical proposal of a ten years' truce, during which, " on the faith of. Sovereigns,' neither Russia nor Germany will volun- tarily engage in war. If that agreement has been made— and all the evidence points that way—peace, at all events for a period, is secured, for France cannot fight alone, and the English interest is always peace. The Chauvinists of Paris, with M. de Cassagnac at their head, may protest, and declare, as he has done, that all this means a conse- cration of a Treaty under which France lost two provinces and five milliards ; but if a Bourbon or a Bonaparte were on the throne he could hardly declare war in the face of such an agreement. He might, no doubt, menace England; but England has faced France pretty often, and there is nothing to content the French Army in a series of maritime engagements which might be for France mari- time defeats. There is no reason in Asia, why the Powers should quarrel for the present, and even in the Balkans, though all the materials of a conflagration are well laid, they can hardly blaze up while both the Alliances stand prepared with such mighty engines to put out the fire. It is, of course, true that America is left out of the combi- nation, that the d.tath of the Emperor of Austria or that of the Sultan might produce a wholly new set of circum- stances, and that—in short, as Bulwer once wrote, " every accident is a Providence, and before a Providence snaps every human will " ; but the Russian Emperor does not pretend to bea prophet or to - possess irresistible control, even in the political world, but up to the limit of his power he desires peace, and so, till his Fleet is completed, does his German cousin. Both are sincere, for both are compelled by strong interests to be sincere, and we confess we do not see, if they are agreed, where, leaving America out of the question, the disturbing force is to be sought. The French notion that Mr. Chamberlain designs an attack on France is purely fantastic, and no other Power is strong enough or ambitious enough to claim the right of initiating a great war. W hat does Austria want, or where would Italy find free resources ? If the rumours are true there will be in Europe peace for some years.
At least there will be if the third object attributed to the Czar can by possibility be attained. This is the restraint of the Anarchists as a sect by international agreement. We doubt if it can, for Anarchy is too like a creed, and creeds, however diabolical, are never suppressed by international action. The only case in which the experiment has ever been tried was the suppression of the Templars, and whether the Order had ever adopted an evil creed, or, which is much more probable and more in accord- ance with the evidence, had suffered an evil creed to be embedded in some of its Preceptories, is to the last degree doubtful. But it may be taken as certain that the subject was discussed when the Emperors met, and exceedingly probable that the project they considered was the banish- ment of all suspected Anarchists to an island in the oeean, a kind of St. Helena, though probably not in the tropics. That is a plan which would be likely to find favour with the owner of Siberia—Saghalien may be the very island in view—and would exactly suit the Continental readiness to sanction preventive arrest, and the Conti- nental reluctance to endure capital punishment for any- thing but a completed crime. The project will fail, for neither America nor Great Britain is as yet in a temper to consent ; but we may be sure that it, or some one like it, will be carefully considered. It is nearly unendurable to the politicians of all countries as well as to the Kings that the fair prospect which for the next ten years might open before the Western World should be endangered by the action of a minute sect who do not even profess to know the results their murderous malignity may produce. That it may endanger it is clear, for any such peace as we more than half believe to have been arranged must depend on the lives of the Sovereigns who have arranged it, and those lives are in danger so acute that even to the inhabitants of Dunkirk and Compiegne M. Loubet's precautions do not seem absurd, but only precautionary to.the point where absurdity begins. To clear the streets of a town which is welcoming a guest of all its inhabitants lest- that guest should be murdered is at all events a flaming advertisement that Anarchists are feared.
Previous page
