The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-24
TOLSTOY GIVES ADVICE
 TO THE CZARsOF RUSSIA

tout. And if many Russian peopl l might De ready to obey the Tsar, the!
 cannot, without feeling insulted, obe.
 those Of their own circle whom the! i despise, and who so often rule the ma tion In the name of the Tsar.
 Mfsled by Peoples Acclaim. In regard to the devotion of the peo. pie to autocracy and its representative -the Tsar--you are probably misIed by the circumstance that when meeting you In Moscow and in other towns crowds of people shout '.Hurrah!' and run after you. Do not believe that this Is an expression of devotion to you these are only crowds of the curious who in the same way would run after any unusual spectacle. Moreover these people, whom you take to be the demonstrators of popular devotion to you, are often nothing more than a crowd collected and instructed by the police for the purpose of representing a people devoted to you-as, for example, with the case with your grandfather at kharkov when the cathedral was full of the people only they all con- sisted of disguised constables.
 So. during the passage of the imperial train, If you could but walk about amongst the line of peasants stationed behind the troops along the whole of the railway and hear what Is said by these peasants--various village elders driven there from the neighborhood to remain in the cold and dirt, without remuneration, eating their own bread, awaiting during several days the pass Ing of the train--you would bear from these most genuine representatives of the people, simple peasants, all along the line, words quite incompatible with devotion to autocracy and it's represen- tative. If some fifty years ago. dur ing the reign of Nicholas l., the pres tige of the Tsar's power was still high, during the last thirty years it has been necessarily falling, and has latterly fallen so low that amongst all classes no one now restrains himself from con- demning not only the measure of the government, but also the Tsar himself, abusing and laughing at him.
 Autocracy is an outgrown form of government which may answer to the demands of people somewhere in Cen tral Africa. apart from the whole world, but not the demands of the Russian people. which is growing ever more enlightened by the enlighten- ment common to the whole world, and therefore 1t is possible to maintain this form of government and the orthodoxy connected with it--as, indeed. is now being done-only by every kind of violence. special control. arbitrary ex- dement's. executions. religious persecu- tions. prohibitions of books and pa- pers, distortion of education. and, in general, every kind, of bad and cruel deeds.
 Such have hitherto been the action of your reign, beginning with the an- swer to the Tyer deputation. which called forth the general indignation of all the Russian public. when you called the most legitimate desires of the people '.senseless dreamings," and continuing in all your measures con- corning Finland, Chinese appropria- tions. your project of The Hague Con- ference accompanied by the increase of the army, your weakening of self-gov- ernment and strengthening of admin istrative despotism. your support of persecution for faith, your consent to the institution of the spirit monopoly i. e., Governmental trading in that poison which is ruining the people and, lastly, your insistence in main- taining corporal punishment notwith- standing all the petitions which are being addressed to you for the aboli- tion of this senseless and utterly use less measure which disgraces the Rus sian people. All these are deeds which you could not have committed had you nut dCCOiuluk kO llc duNlCG OI your lightminded helpers, put before your self the impossible aim not only of arresting the life of the people but of reverting 1t to it's former and out lived condition. Can Cypress, Hut Not Rule. By measures of coercion one can op- press a people. but not rule them The only means in our time to rule the people indeed Is placing oneself at the head of the movement of the peo- pie from evil to good, from darkness to light. to lead them to the attain ment of the objects nearest to this end. In order to be able to do this 1t is first of all necessary to give the people the possibility of expressing their desires and wants, then lending ear to these desires and wants, to full l fill those of them which will answer the demands not of one class or cate gory, but of the majority, the mass of the working people.
 The desires which the Russian peo- pie would at present express, were 1t possible for them to do so, would, in my opinion, be the following:-
 | First of all the working people would say that they wish to be de- livered from those special laws which | place them in the position of pariah, | deprived of the rights of all other citi- zens; then they would say that they desire freedom of removal from place to place, freedom of education. and freedom to profess the religion which corresponds to their spiritual needs and, above all, all the 100 million peo- pie would say with one voice that | they desire freedom in the use of land l I--i. e.. the abolition of the right of landed property.
 l It is this abolition of the right of private property in land which, in my opinion, constitutes that primary ob- ! ject the attainment of which the Rus
 sian Government of our time ought to | take as its aim.
 1 In every period of human develop ment there is proXimate step to the
 realization of those better forms of
 life to which it Cife) tends. Fifty l years ago such a proximate step was
 the abolition of slavery. In our time
 such step is that which is called the
 labor question:. e., the liberation of | the working masses from the minority
 which expresses them.
 In Western Europe the attainment oi i this object is regarded as possible | through the transference of the mines | and factories into the common owner
 ship of the workers. Whether fol | Western people such a solution of the question be correct or not 1t is ob'
 viously inapplicable % Russia as she
 now is.
 In Russia. where an enormous DOT
 tion of the population lives on tho
 land and Is in complete dependence upon the large landlords, the libera
 tion of the workers obviously canno