The record-union., 1897-01-18
DELIGHTED WITH RUSSIA.
A Member of Parliament Says English
Notions Are All Wrong.

n VlCDiUCT vi Indii1Cul
Notions Are All Wrong.
This summer two English members of
Parliament, Mr.. kearley and MIR. Lough,
were invited to visit Russia by General
Annenkoff, famous Russian General,
and a member of the Council of War.
The oStenSible object of the tour was
TO give the General some advice in the
development of his estates, but this
would hardly account for the gigantic
distances over which they were taken
by the General and the state with which
they We're treated from first to last.
Mr.. Lough frankly holds a brief for
the Russian Government. I'VE hear
nothing over here" he says, but the
tales of nihilists and exiles. That side
of the case has been heard enough. /
want to tell of the great work | have
seen being done in RUSSIA work of
government very similar to and scarcely
smaller than is being done by ourselves
in India. What the English people will
not recognize is that the arguments
against constitutional government
which are still valid in India are Also
valid in RuSsia-that the upper and mid
! die classes of Russia are mere drops in
an ocean of ignorance and poverty-a
few millions out of one hundred and
twenty; that the religions of Russia
vary as much as its populations; that
its frontier is constantly extending in
much the same way as our Indian from
tier, and that the Government of this
! great empire, as far as the peasants are
concerned, is intelligent and humane.
| Our representative was shocked and
astonished at seeing so great a change
in one whom he had always regarded as
the bulwark of constitutional radical
ism. He had heard of such converSa-
| tionS before, and of the methods by
which the Russian Government brought
| them about But in this case there
had obviously been no employment of
force. Mr.. Lougn's countenance for
bade all thought of a Russian dungeon.
So our representative, with an irrele-
want kind of logic, turned the subject to
an inquiry as to the nature of Mr..
Lough's tour and the way in which he
| had enjoyed it.
| HUMANE TREATMENT OF PRIS-
ONERS.
Never enjoyed a tour better" said
Mr.. Lough. General Annenkoff, you
know, is such a swell that special wa
gon was attached to every train in
which we travelled, with sitting rooms,
bed rooms and everything provided as
| luXuriously as in a small house. We
! lived off the very best, our dinners every
night costing more than IL. At every
/ provincial capital we were introduced
| to the Governors and to all the sWells of
the place. We saw everything and drove
! everywhere. To the General every door
was opened, and, living on his estates,
we We're able to watch the working of
! the whole social system. 1t was the
same thing with the army. General An
nenkoff is one of the greatest soldiers
at the present moment. 1t was he who
mobiliZed the Russian army after the
defeat at Plevna, and he who built the
Trans Caspian Railway and subdued
| Bokhara. Wherever he went he could
show us the troops, and the regimental
band would play what tune he pleased"
Our representative began to under
stand.
We'll, and did he introduce you to
many nihilistS?'
I'VE saw one. She was a young
woman with short hair. smoking a
CIS GtlS. tSIIt was WANING OH TIE
platform of railway station. General
Annenkoff nudged me and said, Look.
There is a nihilist' | asked him about
them, and then he spoke in the most
friendly way. My dear fellow he
said, I like the nihilists. They are gen.
orally young women between 20 and 30
Later on they get toned down and give
it up"
But in spite of that, the General
puts them in prison?'
'As to that, all our English notions
are wrong. / was told by the British
Consul at Moscow, Mr.. Medhurst-who
is paid f100 a year by the Foreign
Office for that arduous post and who
has just spent four months in Siberia
that the stories about the treatment of
prisoners are shockngly exaggerated.
The Russian penal system is far more
humane than ours, and the Russian
peasant really has quite a good time
when he goes to Siberia. The nihilist.
being generally a cultured man, suffers
more than the peasant. But he. too, is
allowed far greater freedom than our
political prisoners, and after a time is
allowed 10 have his own house and to
live as a colonist. l saw a number of
prisoners being conveyed down the Vol
ga in steamer. They We're in a large
cage guarded by sentries-not particu-
larly comfortable, but certainly much
freer than the cells in which they would
have been placed in England"
And the Jews? Are we as wrong in
our ideas of their treatment as in re-
gard to the nihilists? If the nihilists
are provided with happy homes in ST.
IBERIA by a beneficent State. what par
ticular kind of benevolence did YOU find
that State exercising toward the
Jews?"
THE HAPPY JEWS.
'We have not got a clear grip of that
problem, either" said Mr.. Lough. un-
swervingly continuing his brief. ''The
laws which have been recently carried
out against the Jews are not new. but
old. They have existed for a long time
and are aimed not against Jews so
much as against usury. AS long as the
Jew keeps to some regular industry. |
and can be classified under some trade
or profession, the Russians leave him
alone. But if he is only living by be-
ing a usur9r on the peaSantry. drawing
them into debt and finally devouring
their substance, the Russians expel
him. But even this course has only
been taken by a few provincial govern
ments. In many parts of Russia 7 |
found Jews living as peacefully and in
dustriously as the Jews in England |
The provincial governments have the
power of putting these laws into force
and the imperial Government has not