New-York tribune., 1902-12-10

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The spectacle is now seen in Russia of gov
ernment apparently discriminating between two
classes Of industrialists in favor of the less and
against the greater. This was strikfngly set
forth in a single dispatch from st. Petersburg
the other day. 1t was stated first that Mr
Won PIehwe, Minister of the Interior. had
given the artisans of st. Petersburg permission
to hold meetings for the airing of their griev-
ances and discussion Of means Of betterng their
condition, and had even promised them his sup
port in such movements. Then In the next
paragraph we were told that Prince Dolgorou-
koff. president of the Soudja District, had been
deposed and put under police surveillance as a
suspicious character because he had permitted
the farmers in MS district to hold such meet
ings and adopt various resolutions looking to a
betterment OF their condition. Evidently in
Russia what is sauce for the goose is not sauce
for the gander. Workingmen in the great cities
may do with impunty and with government
sanction things which farmers in the country
must not do under penalty of the knout and
Siberia.
Yet the farmers have the greater cause for
agitation, for the policy of the government in
finance bears far more hardly upon them than
upon the urban artisans. That was the grava-
men Of the resolutions adopted at Soudja and
elsewhere for permitting which Prince Dol
goroukoff has been degraded and punished.
The local agricultural commissions declared that
the government seemed to be encouraging man
ufaCturing industries at the expense of agricult-
ure, and 70 be increasing to crushing degree
the burden of indirect taxation upon the agri-
cultural classes. 1t was pointed out that in the
last twenty years indirect taxation has been in
creased by 100 per cent, or by 81 per cent per
capita of the population; and this is so ar
ranged that it falls chiefly upon the farmers.
The indirect taxes are not, as some have sup
posed. levied upon articles of luxury and thus
upon the purses of rich mobiles They are levied
upon the barest necessaries of life. such as even
the humblest moujiks must have 1t is against
such a state OF affairs that the agricultural
committees have protested. But their protests
are regarded as treason, and the Governor who
tolerates them Is removed from his post and
treated criminal
Such policy on the part of Russia certainly
seems Illogical for Russia is pre-eminently an
agricultural country, and must long remain so.
The masses of the people are peasants. The
wealth Of the country is in its farms rather
than in its factories. 1t is, of course, commend
able for it to seek to develop manufacturing in
dustries, but it would be best first to put agri-
culture upon prosperous basis. There is little
use in trying TO rival England and Germany in
manufactures while the tens Of millions of peas
ants are living like swine in filth and squalor,
and are perishing of famine and plague like
flies in a frost. The possibilities of Russian
agriculture are enormous They deserve en-
couragement and development rather than dis
coura cement and repression. The reported atti-
tude of Mr. Won Plehwe toward the artisans of
st. Petersburg is rational and commendable,
and is auspcious Of progress. 1t Is thousand
pities that It is not assumed toward the agri-
cultural classes, too, instead Of one that is ex
actly the reverse