Arizona republican., 1904-11-20
The czar FacIng 3 RebeIIIon.

The Czar Facing a Rebellion
 This mornings news from St. Pet
 ersburg gives a hint of the serious in-
 ternaI situation which confronts the
 Russian government. There is reason
 to believe that there is grave danger
 of a revolutionary outbreak Of the
 people against autocratie misrule
 Yesterday. it seems. the vacnlating
 ear, after having first given his per
 mission for the zemstvos. to petition
 the throne, withdrew his assent and forbade the holding of a pubic meeting. More than one hundred zemstvos had
 joined in the movement for discus sion Of flagrant wrongs and a respect
 full request to the emperor fer a great
 CT measure of self government, includ-
 ing national constitution
 A zemstvo Is a local elective assem-
 ply for the oversight and regulation of affairs within its territory. Fer the past fifteen years there have been zemstvos for the districts into which the governments are divided, and also for the governments themselves with nominal jurisdiction of local taxation, schools, roads, public sanitation, etc. All the functions of the zemstvos are. however, subject to the arbitrary in terference of the governors and other officials of the imperial government. Nominally the zemstvcs are very much like village and town governments in the United States. but the tyrannicaI system of espionage and interference on the part of the imperial officials makes the lccal councils an inn potent factcr in the system Of govern ] ment. The slightest disposition to criticise. existing conditions is severe ! ly repressed, and all protests meet with | rigid punishment
 The people must have reached a | state of desperation, therefore. when ! more than one hundred zemstvos went ! so far as to take steps towards gen eral meeting and proposing constitu- tior.
 London papers for several weeks ; have been publishing letters from Rus ! sia to the effect that many provinces l are ripe for instruction. and the As | sociated Press news direct from St. l Petersburg now confirms the London view. IL should be remembered that ! all telegrapbic news from St. Peters burg relating to news of Russia must be read between the lines. The dis patches are carefully censored by the government. It Is only the dispatches from the seat Of war which come through without St Petersburg cen sorship. When MT. Melville E. Stone. general manager of the Associated Press, went to Russia last winter. he succeeded in getting the censorship lifted from the war news, it being ar ranged that after dispatches from the l. front had been censored by the army chiefs the news should not be mutilat- ed in Russia proper. But the Russian government reserved the right to cen | sor all dispatches originating in Rus sia, and it must be taken for granted that conditions are really worse than the meager news given us would in- dicate
 The refusal of the czar to sanction any oS ltei LiOii III IdNOI or even . mod | flied constitutional government stamps him as one Of the most reactionary rulers Russia ever had. When his Alexander IT., was mur- dered in 1881, a constitution for the empire had just been completed and approved and would have been pro- within a few days There was some excuse for Alexander III. burning with hatred for the revolution ary movement which had led to the assassination Of his father, to withhold his sanction from every suggestion looking to greater freedom for his sub iects, but the present czar has only his own narTOwness to be offered in explanation of his mulish opposition to all liberal tendencies.
 In the wisdom of providence. Mich olas II. may be an instrument for Rus sian liberty. If Japan wins in this war, it will probably lead to a Rus sian instruction. All the signs point that way. The dispatches tell us that en route to the war have mu- tinied, and when it is admitted that the II town governments are ready to )mutiny, the earthquake seems near at hand.