Omaha daily bee., 1891-11-14
ornER LANDS rniN ours.

even in the middle ages the voices OF hui
name and enlightened men were effectively
raised to stay tho hand of persecution. HIS
tory relates how the celebrated st. Bernard
OF Clairvaux once fastened TO Germany to
suppress Il crusade against the Jews which q
fanatical monk was preaching to the people
OF the Rhine. The eloquent and pious abbot
succeeded in q~uieting the irrltated people
and In making them feel that Christians
ought not to pers ecute Jews, but to pray for
their conversion. a Bernard of Clairvaux
might preach In vain to the car of Russia
and his minister of foreign affairs. The fact
is that Russia, its government and its politi-
cal and social institutions belong to the dark
ages rather than to the civilization of this
epoch. The efforts of ten generations of
progress have hardly made an impression
| upon this huge block of Siberian granite.
Its government is an Asiatic despotism
transplanted into Europe. Its persecution
of the Jews is part only of a system which
brutality suppresses all who are suspected of
the most vague aspirations toward a more
rational government.
Emin Pasha has again attracted the atten-
ton OF the world to himself by an expedition
to the king Of Ruanda. This portion of
"a 10 Nlhb L ulAlll ID w 1holt, VIZ lllSNLlub
point of three great empires. 1t is a region
of indefinite extent, lying just south of the
equator, and centrally traversed by the thir-
tieth meridian east from Greenwich. 1t in
cludes the southern shore of the great Albert
Ed ward Lake, the northern part Of which
was surveyed by Mr.. Stanley, and it extends
southwark to Urunua, which is at the north
ern extremity of Lake Tanganyika. Within
ito born A. riac ara tho u,,aat n1o I nlFa and
the upper waters of the Luru and Lowwa
rivers, important tributaries of the Congo.
The great highway of from the
Zambesi through Lakes Nyassa and Tan
ganyIka northward to the Nile will more nat
orally and more conveniently pass through
Lakes Albert and Albert Edward
than through Lake Victoria, and will thus
include the Rusizi river and pass through
the heart of Ruanda. Moreover, in Ruanda
the Congo State, British East Africa and
German East Africa meet. The lines that
divide them are drawn or are to be drawn
through this unexplored territory. How
they will be drawn depends greatly upon the
influences that shall first become dominant
at the court OF Ruanda.
1t is thus evident that Enin's work in that
quarter is highly important, and yet is of
such q character that Germany cannot as
sumo responsibility for it, nor England offer
serious objection to it. He will doubtless be
allowed to 60 on as a free lance until the
great powers have leisure to take up the
work of African partition again. Then, If
Emin shall have made treaties in Ruanda
and elsewhere of advantage to Germany that
power will readily discover that it was ali
along responsible for him, and will insist
upon reaping for itself the harvest he has
planted.
Compared with the abiding opposition be-
tween Germany and France, the growing i'll
feeling between France and Italy is in itself
of less importance; but it has been of the
highest Importance in its consequences.
While France and Germany might both do
without allies, Italy could not; and SO she
has joined Germany and the Austro-Hun-
garian monarchy in a strict alliance. With
France, then, as a jealous and suspected
powor on one side, and Russia as u jealous
and suspected power on the other side, 1t fol-
lows as a natural consequence that those
two powers should look to one another as
possible helpers in time of need; and so with
Russia as a factor, we are necessarily
brought to look at tho condition of southeast
ern Europe. The sphere of Turkish OPP
preston in Europe lies In certain parts of
Greece, Bulgaria and Seryia, and tho
difficulty Of getting rid Of the Turk
Is largely due to the crooked pol
icy Of the great powers of Eu-
rope. They are averse to doing any
thing for freedom, and they are also 70.
strained by selfish interests among them
selves. Austria and Russia are the great
enemies of southeastern freedom. Russia
may change for the better; but, as the house
of Austria is the natural aud abiding enemy
of the nations of southeastern Europe.
When men talk of Austria going to Salonica
they forget that this would mean the shat
tering forever of all the hopes of Greece,
Servia and Bulgaria. The outlook, then, in
the southeastern lands is dark. These couu-
tries have not only their own causes of dis
sension among themselves. but they ave
enemies on every side. 1t is over their fur
Their enslayoment that the real conflict in
Europe may begin; ami it is only by making
them free and united that they can form a
barrier against Russian aggression and Aus.
TRAN ambition.
Should present fears be realized and Rus
STA become the starting point of another in
vaslon of western Europe by cholera, the
civilized world will have a terrible account
to settle with the car. For it is at his door
that the responsibility for the present famine
lies, and 1t is he, therefore, who must DE held
ans werable for tho pestllence which is re-
sulting therefrom. Unlike other great fam
ines known TO history, the present one in Rus
STA is dne, not TO natural causes beyond the
reach of human control, but to u purely ad-
ministrative origin. If there has been an
entire failure of the crops, not in
one, but in twenty provinces OF tho
empire, it is attributable entirely to
the fact that little seed was sown,
and that few fields were titled. The larger
part OF the vast agricultural area of Euro
pean Russia was loft uncultivaJei. The rea-
son for this was that the peasantry had had
their implements and cattle seized by tue
government for noG-payment OF taxes, while
the imperial policy of persecution and expul-
sion Of the Jews had deprived the mojiks of
their customary means of borrowing tho
money needed for tho purchase OF seed on
the security of the crops to be grown there
from. And, inasmuch as the scarcity of grain
as we'll as Of money will have the effect Of
still further restricting the area now under
cultivation, IL is probable that the famine
and the consequent pestilence will 10 moro
appalling in Russia next year than they
now are.
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