The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-01
rRoUnLr AHEAD FOR RUSSIA.

Tn our judgment, the most important crisis the Russian nation has ever been called on to face, at least in modern ends It is not to be supposed that Japan will agree to any terms of peace which do not include an indemnity from Russia, and tho longer the war Is pro- longed the greater will naturally be the Japanese demands. We have already heard it intimated that the amount may be one billion dollars. but whatever the figures may be. the total is apt to be enormous. There will also be demands for sessions or relinauishment of ter ritory. but money must be paid for the losses occasioned by tho war.
 That will bring about the problem to be faced. If the war should end at onoe it would find Russia drained. i'm poverished and almost bankrupt. The strain of carrying on the war has been stupendous one, and the expenses have been enormous. We doubt if Rus sia could obtain a loan or loans suf- ficient to pay the indemnity that is likely to be demanded. Even if the money can be obtained in that way. 1t will add millions to the interest account and both interest and principal must be provided for. In short. nothing can be reasonably expected but that the na- tion's financial burdens will become fearful.
 How is the money to be raised, and from whence will it come7 The only source is the people. The money must come from taxes licenses, imposts and all other ways in which money can be extracted from an unwilling people. A peasantry and serfs already borne down by the weight of exactions almost un- known elsewhere. starving for very bread or merely getting enough to keep life fin them, ground down by genera tions of oppression, embittered by war in which they felt no interest. rem dered desperate by suffering and cruel ty-this is the source from which must be wrung the millions required to pay for a war for which they were not in any manner responsible, and in which they had no heart.
 Is 1t reasonable to expect that a peo- pie under such conditions will submit to other and greater burdens without protest7 And is 1t at all likely that their protests will be confined to words7 If the Russian people were like the Japanese. they would give up their money and property for their country, just as they gave themselves. and count it an honor as well as a duty, as they have shown whenever a sacrifice was demanded, but the Russians are not like the Japanese. The riots and up- risings that have been occurring in various parts of the Kingdom afford ample evidence of the spirit of unres. and rebellion dominating them. The great Russian nation may well be com pared to great seething caldron ready at any time to boil over, or to a volcano just ready for an eruption. Only slight additional disturbance win throw off the lid
 This. as we view it. is the prospect ahead for Russia, and it is not an in- viting one. We can see no reason for surprise if the most dire uprising and revolution of modern times follows tho close of the present war. How or when 1t will end. or what may be the ulti- mate results. no ono can foretell. but if one of the results shall be the remod- cling of the Russian Government and the securing to the oppressed people some degree of human freedom. the end will not be altogether deplorable, even though it may cost many lives before that end comes.