A correspondent of the Daily Express, writing from St. Petersburg
on June 28th, declares that the Czar, who is greatly alarmed by the accumulating reports of discontent in Russia, has resolved to grant audiences to leading journalists, pro- fessors, and even political prisoners, and extract from them if be can the real causes of the commotion and suggestions for its cure. A number of invitations have been issued already, and the correspondent even names some of the more remark- able Liberals who will be allowed to express their ideas to the Czar standing face to face. The Amy is so odd that it has probably some foundation, mole especially as the Czar is well aware that the higher bureaucracy round the throne do often contrive to conceal unpleasant facts, which reach him, if at all, in a roundabout way from foreign capitals, especially Copenhagen, where there is a real wish for the safety of the dynasty. The recent recrudescence of Nihilism must, more- over, have alarmed the Czarina, who, being accustomed to Germany, must be well aware that a splendid and powerful throne can be maintained without the excessive repression at Present practised in Russia. It is not the Sovereign who benefits by the shooting down of peasants.
Of the discontent in the Southern provinces, usually the best off, there can be no doubt, and there must be some muse at work which has not yet been accurately described. The process of events is in all eases the same. The peasants are hungry, in debt, and disposed to violence ; they are told that the Czar has given them the lands of the rich, and they ',Vale a rush either for the chateaux or the Government offices, where, as they think, decrees in their favour are concealed. The landlords make no more fight than the French nobles did in 1789, hut fly to the larger towns, whence the officials send troops to beat back the peasantry. If the soldiers
do not fire, there is anarchy ; but if, as usually happens, they obey orders, there is a massacre, and the de- feated peasants are flogged or imprisoned in scores. The three measures first required are protection for the journalists, who would keep the central authority informed, a thorough reform of the fiscal department, with decent pay for the collectors, and some provision through which complaints can reach the central authority. No one in China, we believe, dare stop a "red" petition to the throne, but in Russia they have not as yet got even so far as that. The hope is in the Czar ; but if he moves he must move strongly, for the entire official world will be against him.
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