The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-08-30

The note handed by Count Muraveiff
by order of the czar to the foreign rep
resentatives at st. Petersburg is en-
phatically one of the most important
and unique in the diplomatic history
of the world. If the Emperor Nicholas
had issued a ukase granting consti-
tutional government to his subjects he
could not have taken the world more
by surprise. When a war between
England and Russia was belived in ev-
cry chancellery of Europe to be not
alone imminent but inevitable, the czar
proclaims that the maintenance of
peace and the reduction of the exces-
sive ornaments now crushing the life
out of European nations should be the
ideal of government. If the car does
nothing greater during his reign than
to give his imperial sanction and prac-
tical adherence to this humane and pol
itic policy he will have done more for
his country and more for the advance
and progress of civilization than all the
kings and queens that have held
thrones in Europe since the dawn of
the conviction that war was the cul-
mination of desolation, but this is the
first instance in history in which a po-
tentate has had the courage to sub
scribe to the conviction and, what is
more important by far, the power prac-
tically to dictate the conditions upon
which 1t can be enforced.
Count Muraveiff calls the ideals of
czar lofty and magnanimous. They are
very much more. They are the human
itarian ideals for which the world has
yearned in travail and sorrow and new
er yet found. To question the motives
OF the czar at the present moment
would be ungracious, ungenerous and
very probably unjust. 1t is true the re-
lations between Great Britain and Rus
sia had become so critical that only a
step such as the czar has Just taken
could avert one of the most calami-
tous wars that the world has vet seen
Lord Salisbury had sufficient confidence
in the czar's pacific intentions to hold
his countrymen in check. But the
time had come when neither the queer
nor her prime minister could have
averted war by the mere assertion that
the czar loathed war as heartily as the
queen herself and that he was carried
by the chauvinism of his army ant
navy altogether beyond the bound.
he had circumscribed for himself as 8
monarch. The timing of the czar'.
proposal, therefore, was most adroi
and its beneficial effect is likely to bC
immeasurable.
The czar must not be supposed Il
have proclaimed his adhesion to {
peaceful policy of international arbi
tration lightly. The conviction mus
have grown upon him, and as the read
lest means of averting a European war
he gave public expression to the faitl
by which he is animated. Nicholas l
has not outraged the proprieties o
monarchial Europe by his idosyncra
cies, vagaries. and oratory as the En-
peror William has. 1t is true that up
on more than one occasion he has an
nounced his determination to main
tain the peace of Europe, with yer,
unequivocal intimations that il reste
with him to do it; but since he ascend
ed the throne of the Romanoffs he ha
not up to the present departed fron
their traditional policy, either in hom
or foreign affairs. Neither is he tn
first of his own house in whom abhor
ence of war seems constitutional Th
late czar was an implacable enemy @
war. Probably his son has become con
scious Of the fact that he possesses a
much of China as he will readily as
simulate into his unwieldy and hereto
geneous empire. His imperial rule ca
scarcely cover successfully more terri
ritory than 1t now comprises. Gres
as is the bureaucratic concentration Q
government in Russia, 1t must some
time reach a limit
1t is not necessary now TO enter in
TO particulars of the immediate consC
quences TO the world of the cars pre-
posals. There is no government in Eu
rope which will not welcome them wit
enthusiasm. with perhaps the exceptio
Of France. VIII the French republi
as part of the alliance accede to III
cars proposals as readily and er