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4
of Spain. For a man of this kind--a an of eminent
culture and unstained character, the friend and fellow worker of distingaised men all over the occidental world, to be shot without any reputable evidence by a military tribunal regardless of universal protest, was an outrage on civilisation and an insult to European culture. Such an incident, however, might have happened formerly with no result but a few indignant articles in the Continental Liberal Press. This time it has awakened a demonstration all over the Western world which is, we think, unprecedented in history. The solidarity and deep feeling in that demonstration means that the huge inert Leviathan, on whose patient back the aristocratic and middle. class of Europe have built the structure of their polity and society, is about to move. When he really uplifts his giant bulk, what will become of the structure? Will 1t not tumble into pieces off his back and be swallowed up in the waters of a worldwide revolution? The Budget.
It is curious that England which was, a little while ago, the most Conservative and individualistic of nations, the least forward in the race towards socialism, should now be the foremost. The socialistic. Radical, the fore-runner of insurgent Leviathan, is in the Cabinet and has framed a Budget. The Budget is the pivot on which English progress has turned from the beginning. The power of the purse in the hands of the Commons has been the chief lever for the gradual erection of a limited democracy. The same power is now being used for the gradual introduction of a modified socialism, and, by a curious provision of Fate, sems destined to be also the occasion for the final destruction of one. at least of the two vemaining restrictions on democracy, the veto of the Lords and the limitation of the suffrage. The Lords were bound to oppose the Budget, for the triumph of socialism. me RE8 th destruction of the aristocracy. The Lords, therefore, have either to fight or to tall; and the pathos of their situation is that, in all probability, the choice is not theirs and that, whether they fight or not, they cannot but fall. The Lords have only continued to exist because they were discreet enough
KARMAYOGIN
llowed the
to lie low and give a minimum of trouble. As for the limitation of the suffrage, it is not at all unlikely that the daring and unscrupulous campaign of the suffragettes may end in the concession of universal suffrage. For, if women are given the vote, the proletariate will not be content to romain without it. They too can lift crowbars and hammers and break glass roofs ! A Great opportunity.
would never, have strong feeling against the realm of Buddha's ashes to vent it. If sq long in public expression without an assurance at least of favourable consideration. We have waited long for that simple and natural act of statesmanship, but in vain. It is such a trivial matter in itself, concession would be so graceful, natural and easy; yet the harm done by perverseness and churlishThe end of the great struggleness is so immense! We wonder between the last representative of whether our official Governors ever European autocracy and the insurg- think. It is very easy. What ent Demos, is not yet. At present the would they feel if the bones of a Czar holds the winning cards. The great Englishman, say, the Duke of mismanagement of the Revolution Wellington, were so treated! But bya people unaccustomed to political the diseased attachment to prosaction has put advantages into his tige and the reputation of an hunds to which he has no right. But assured wisdom and an inflexible it is significant that the revolution power have sealed up the eyes of still smoulders. As Carlyle wrote these in high places. of the French Revolution, it is un- Students and Politics. quenchable and cannot be stamped down, for the fire-spouts that burst out aro no slight surface conflagration but the flame's of the pit of Tophet. Murder and hatred rising from below to strike at murder and tyranny striking from above, that is the Russian Revolution. Had another man than a Romanoff, the race obstinate and unteachable, sat on the throne at St. Petersburg, the victory of the autocracy after such imminent and deadly peril would have been surely used to prevent, by healing measures and perfectly spontaneous con essions, a repetition of the sanguinary struggle. It is probably the last opportunity Fate will concede to the Czar Nicholas and it is a great opportunity. But he will not take it and in the shadow forces are again gathering which are likely in the end to destroy him. The Czarina is sleepless in deadly anxiety for the safety of her child the Czar leaving her behind, enters Italy and is guarded by an army. In Russia the Ministry balances itself on the top of a frail edifico crowning the volcano that still sputters below. One wonders why they should think it worth their while to bolster up sanguinary injustice for a season at so hirge a
cost. Buddha's Ashes.
Again the powers that bo have committed a blunder. If any of the wise men who weave the tangled web of Anglo-Indian statesmanship at Simla, had a little common sense to salt their superior wisdom, they
All India and especially Bengal ones a debt of gratitude to Mr. Hassan Imam for his strong, manly and sensible remarks on the vered question of students and politics as
President of the Beharee Students Conference at Gaya. Contrast this honest utterance and robust recognition of unalterable facts with the fencings, refinements and unreal distinctions of Mr. Gokhale's utterance. The difference is between a man with an eye and a clear practical sense and a mere intellectual, a man of books and words and borrowed thoughts, proud of his gift of speech and subtlety of logic, but unable to penetrate a fact even when he sees it. With Mr. Hassan Imam a strong personal force enters the field of politics.
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRINCE ITO.
0:
A great man has fallen, perhaps the greatest force in the field of political action that the nineteenth Japan, the conqueror of Russia, century produced, the maker of the mighty one who first asserted Asia's superiority over Europe in changed in a few years the world's Europe's own field of glory and future. Some would say that such a death for such a man Was & tragedy. We hold otherwise. Even such a death should such a man have died, in harness, fighting for his country's expansion and greatness, by the swift death in action, which, our scriptures tell us, carry
