Daily globe., 1879-04-21

life of the car are being met in anticipa-
ton by
MOST VIOLENT RESISTANCE
and self lf-assertion on the part of the people,
and state of civil war may almost be said
to exist throughout the entire empire. Tax
ing all the news together, there is reason to
fear Russia is on the brink of revolution.
GOVERNOR GENERALS APPOINTED.
Western Associated Press.
ST.. PETERSBURG April 2O.-AAn official de-
cree is published appointing Professionally
Gen. Gourke governor general !of st. Pc
tersburg. General Todleben, governor gen.
eral of Odessa, and General Loris Melikoff,
governor general of Charkoff. General To,
dleben and Melikof will command the troops
in their respective governorships. It is also
blioved General Melikoff will also rnle the
adjoining governments of Pattarea, TcheI
ringzoff, Rurak and Orel.
LONDON PRESS CRITICISM.
LONDON, April 20.-The Pal Mall Gaset.A
commenting upon the ukase of the czar
ordering the appointment of governor gen,
erals for six districts of Russia says, that th5
foes of authority are small but a determined
band of evil doers, as described in the nkase,
is incredible. The Russian government only
condemn their own sweepingly oppressive
measures by putting forward such pre-
tense. Were this true, the ordinary powers
of the state would have availed to root
out the evil, but it is far deeper and
more widespread than this account admits,
and it is because the police themselves form
one of the classes among which the revolu-
tionary propaganda has been at work, that
the czar's advisers have felt the need of seek
ing new, more swift and more deadly in
strument for the work of repression. The
police having failed them, they are about to
resort to simple dragooning. Russia is vir-
tually placed under martial law, and that law
is to be administered in the most thorough
and merciless fashions; i'll such fashion, in
deed, as must, unless we are to suppose half
the population are conspirators, inflict the
most cruel injustice upon thousands of
innocent persons. Six military officials
are to have the right of i'm
prisoning for an indefinite time
all suspicious persons, of transporting
to Siberia without trial, as many as they
choose, and of executing in conformity W ith
sentence passed, those they may happen to
regard as especially guilty. Nor are these
persons confined to political criminals. Reg
ular criminal procedure appears to have been
altogether suspended. Ordinary offenders,
when suspected of plotting against the state
are to be made subject to martial law. More.
over the ukase is retrospective. The gov
ernors general are empowered to try pris-
oners arrested before the issue of the de-
cree, provision designed apparently to
authorize the holding of a sort of bloody
assize upon prisoners variously estimated at
between 1000 and 10000, who
have been recently imprisoned
in mutinous districts. Unless the czar and
his ministers are guilty of the most sweep
ing and reckless cruelty, they cannot believe
themselves confronted with a small but de-
termined baud of evil dosrs, nor even with
larger and determined band. OF course
their account of the matter is not true
one. The measures they have resolved up
on make US aware of what in their view really
is the enemy they have to combat. They sub
ject great part of the country to dragonnade,
which at the same time threatens all the
rest, for they are convinced that revolution
ary dangers confront them over the whole
area of their intended operations. The ire
mendous agencies of suppression already in
their hands have long since been known to
have failed.
If this ukase is carried out we shall see
political assassination on one side answered
by political assassination on the other, for
one such crime On ne 81 te hundred on
the other, and these last inflicted on men
and women innocent vi all ofense whatever
1t is truly an awful state of things, nor is il
possible to foresee how it may end.
The DAILY Ne,0s, pro- Russian, says: We
cannot attempt to forecast the result of the
duel between nihilism and militarists, tc
which this proclamation has to be chal
| lenge. It is an attempt to meet disturbers
with something of their own weapons an6
to put down lawlessness by the sus
pension of law. The mere con
! fess1on that such an attempt i:
necessary must seem very serious step fo1
! the government, which, for some years, has
aimed at being considered civilized govern
ment. For the time during which this ukas,
lasts, and in the wide and important district
to which it applies, Russia ceases to be wha
she has recently been, and relapses to con
kdition of practical barbarism. At once an,
without even form of anything that can b
called trial, any mans life or his fortun
may be taken from him in thes
six great cities and the1
dependencies. All inconvenience of such
state of things must be borne by the million
in order that small but determined band 9
evil doers may be suppressed. Perhaps thi
evil state of things would not be too much
bear>if it were likely to relieve the countr
of the malignant political disease from whic
it appears to be suffering, but if such relic
was to result from such measures, it woul
be for the first time in history. The mil