THE PRESS-GAG IN RUSSIA.
1 1 F, as some sanguine people assert, Russia is on the high- road to advanced and advancing Liberalism, it must be admitted that Czarism has just fortified itself by a double dose of reactionary law-making, or rather ukase-making, in its worst form, by way, it is to be hoped, of saying farewell to reactionary ukase-making for ever. The new edict regarding the Press, and not only journalistic literature, but printed matter of every description, leaves nothing to be desired by the warmest admirers of paternal administration. It is a complete return to the practices of the darkest period of the suspicions autocracy of the Czar Nicholas. The petty concessions to Western ideas contained in the Press Law of 1865 are cleanly swept away and abolished. There is no longer even the shadow of an appeal to judicial or quasi- judicial authority. The arbitrary and irresponsible censor- ship, the fiat of a bureaucrat, again reigns supreme over the barren and wasted fields of Russian culture. It was not overmuch liberty which the Press Law of 1865 granted to Russian authors and writers. Even under that law every sort of original composition, reviews excepted, in less than ten pages, and every translation which exceeded twenty pages could be absolutely prohibited by a simple order of police ; and in the case of lengthy original works, the petty kind of translations, and reviews or magazines, their publication was always subject to warnings and suspen- sions which amounted to a practical prohibition by sim- ple order of police. It was still, however, some slight relaxation of previous barbarism that a formal prohibition could only be obtained after resort to the courts of justice, albeit these tribunals were usually less just than courtly. The Imperial Government has come to the conclusion that so alarming an excess of liberty can no longer be tolerated with safety to the State and, what naturally touches the Imperial conscientiousness still more keenly, with safety to the people. The following ukase was accordingly promulgated at the close of last month :—" Whenever a work or the number of a magazine, exempted from the censorship, has been con- sidered hurtful by the Minister of the Interior, he can, with the approbation of the Council of Ministers, with- draw it from circulation. All copies of such interdicted publications are immediately confiscated. The printers, com- positors, and other members of the staff of such establish- ments as seek to evade the regulations will be liable to suitable penalties. When a work contains an incitement to a crime, the author can be prosecuted. Every work of the kind indicated must be presented to the Council of Ministers seven days before being offered for sale, and every number of a review or magazine must be similarly presented four days before distribution to its subscribers." It will be acknow- ledged that their Highnesses the Council of Ministers have taken the most efficacious measures to provide themselves with a copious library of current publications at no expense, unless, indeed, it turns out that, as in times past, current publications, at least of any worthy kind, will unaccountably come to a standstill, in spite of the tender regard evinced on their behalf. Literary genius is strangely insensible to authority. It comes not at the beck of Ca3sars. Nay, if it is not per- mitted, like the wind, to blow " where it listeth," the odds are that it refuses to appear at all. And this seems to be the probable result of Czar Alexander's last piece of literary slave- driving.
There can be no doubt. that Russia suffers from the pest of a literature of red-hot Socialism and mad universe- subverting Nihilism such as no government that did not rest on the enlightened common-sense of a shrewd and free com- munity could dare to tolerate for an hour. The question is, however, whether the arbitrariness of the censorship is calculated to promote the public enlightenment, and whether the propagation of incendiary publications is likely to be best restricted by measures which cramp and discourage every higher effort of culture and refinement. There is no need to go beyond the very preamble of the recent decree, if not to prove its noxious character, at least to throw the gravest suspicions on its wisdom and necessity. The Press Law of 1865, it is contended, permitted the uncensured publication of the larger works—the uncensured publication, though even then they could be suspended at pleasure—on the sun- position that their size alone would restrict them to the graver and steadier classes of society, and that their price would prevent their propagation among the mass of uncultivated readers. It is certainly moving to read this naive admission that the Russian Government set its hopes of tranquillity on the mass of the population being prevented by the high price of books from increasing in information. With such intelligent pre- conceptions every stupidity is possible. The Government pro- ceeds to lament that works containing the most dangerous doctrines have come into universal circulation, while the offi- cial faith in the tranquillising influence of high-priced literature has been made the victim of shameful deception. "Though bad books were found to be sufficiently high-priced at the booksellers, yet when the object was to disseminate them among the youth of the universities and colleges, they were sold at a third or a fourth of the figure marked on their covers." Pity the sorrows of an autocracy unfortunately placed on the verge of Western activity and Western free-thought. At the same time, the Russian Government makes the follow- ing suggestive confession It often happened that these bad and mischievous books contained no formal infraction of any provision of the law, and were accordingly beyond the reach of penalties." This sentence calla up some curious reflections. The best that can be said is that it is hard fully to enter into the views of paternal authorities who complain that as the law has not been "formally infracted," that is to say, has not been broken at all, it is necessary to punish as a crime what is not a crime, what even Russian police cannot distort into a crime.
And how does the new edict work? Every account bears witness to the rage for suppression and confiscation which has suddenly possessed the "Minister of the Interior," or rather the underlings who are the real executors of coercive legisla- tion of this description. Every sort of book is being confis- cated. A romance by M. Kornev, with the innocent name "Without Ceremony," was the first to be seized. Even novels which have been for years in circulation, and have passed through several editions, are not allowed to plead any rights of prescription. The whole second edition of the works of M. Boberixine have thus been added to the literary accumulations, we must not say pilferings, of the Council of Ministers. It is true that we must plead guilty to never having read either M. Kornev's "Without Ceremony" or M. Boberixine'ssecond edition. When we find, however, that Lecky's "History of European Morals" has been confiscated in the printing establishment of M. Skariatine, we cannot help suspecting that the zeal of the Russian censors is greater than their sense or their equity. To put a finishing-stroke to the picture, the "Central Ad- ministration of the Censorship" has announced that the columns of the Messager Officiel will contain for the future "a weekly indicator" of the works of foreign and domestic authors which the public are permitted to read, all others being, as it were, placed on a Russian Index The farce of Paternal government can no further go. Happily the "Cen- tral Administration of the Censorship" has been possessed with the additional idea of announcing a weekly list of forbidden books. Russians will therefore know by a glance at the Official lists what volumes they are to order from their contraband agents, and what volumes may be safely neglected, as stamped with the insipidity of the official sanction. Might we suggest to the Minister of the Interior, the Council of Ministers, and the Central Adminis- tration of the Censorship, that the complete abolition of all needless trammels on culture and science, the studied en- couragement of cheap and healthy literature — the only true antidote to cheap and unhealthy literature—coupled, of course, with a sensible criminal law, judicially and not arbi- trarily exercised, would form a "Preventive Code" which would have this at least in its favour, that it had not been already tried, and turned out a miserable failure, in Russia before ?
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