The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning. Tuesday, April 8, 1890. BISMARCK AND THE CZAR.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 438, 8 April 1890, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, April 8, 1890. BISMARCK AND THE CZAR.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s. Thy God’s, and truth’s.

Every week there is new evidence of the rapidity with which changes take place nowadays. A few years ago the news that Prince Bismarck had resigned would have been considered the signal for a great war that would have convulsed the world. He has now resigned, but the event has only caused amazement—it has been joyful news to some and very painful information to others, and it may be assumed thnt those who take either view earnestly believe in it. The great man has achieved his work and the time has gone by when services such as the most important ones that he rendered are any longer needed. He did a great work in consolidating the Power over which the young Emperor now rules, and he has lived to see the glorious results of his work. But a lengthened peace has given opportunity for the people to become inspired with new hope, and a desire to better their social existence. The “ Iron Prince ” has been an irresistible barrier to any dealings of that nature with the people, and unfortunately there is too great a tendency to think lightly of good work done in the past, and to be impatient with those who, though having done such good work in the past, make themselves a great obstacle in the path of reform. Prince Bismarck has indeed lived to be a very unpopular man in his own country, while the new Emperor has shown a remarkable desire to promote the social well-being of his subjects. The note of condolence said to have been addressed to Prince Bismarck by the Czar, may be given a very deep meaning, or it may simply be a mere formality suited to the occasion. Does it echo the mind of the great autocrat ? Is it intended to indicate his antipathy to the desire which the Kaiser has evinced to ameliorate the condition of the working classes, whose lot is a very severe one on the Continent ? During the last few weeks the Czar has himself given evidence of a tendency to meet some of the wishes of his people, and so stave off for a time that revolution which must one day sweep away the rotten fabric of monarchy by which the people have so long been oppressed. The history of the French Revolution should be a lasting lesson to Monarchies. The recent overthrow of Dom Pedro of Brazil is a proof that revolutions need not in these days be what they were when the frenzied people of France rose against their oppressors. If we are to judge the Czar’s ostentatious condolence with Bismarck as a covert protest against the wish of the Kaiser to interest himself in the improvement of the conditions by which labor is now governed, it will be taken as an unmistakable proof that only a great movement on the part of the people of Russia will free them from the oppressiveness of their rulers. Democracy, it has been sarcastically said, gives the people a right to tyrannise over themselves, but the people are becoming too enlightened to be unable to distinguish between those who have a desire to do what is right and those who refuse to see that the people have become too restless to be long held in check when they discern grave abuses created or tolerated by those who cling to the worn-out assertion that they rule by divine right.