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Title: Notes [Aug, 1890] Author: Freedom Press (London) Date: August, 1890 Language: en Source: Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Vol. 4, No. 45, online source http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3062, retrieved on April 14, 2020.
The Czar's Cat's-paw.
The Republican rulers of France have consummated their own disgrace by
sentencing to three years' imprisonment seven young men of whom is
Russian majesty was afraid. Some of these were studying chemistry and
experimenting on the force of explosives, and the Czar has his reasons
for objecting to his faithful subjects becoming too learned in that
line. The absurd charge of conspiracy fell through at the trial, but the
popular dread of "anything that might go off" was cleverly used to make
the prisoners appear dangerous. The spy who worked up the affair-the
gentleman one of whose many aliases is Landesen -was condemned to five
years by default, i.e., after he had had time and means given to him to
get out of the way. All of which as so gratified the Czar that he has
decorated the Russian ambassador in Paris, and given a fine now house to
the French Ambassador in St. Petersburg.
To the Soldiers.
"You are men of the people; do not fire upon your brethren. Fire upon
anyone who commands you to fire upon the people." For distributing this
advice among the soldiers of Paris, on the eve of May 1st, Comrade
Merlino and four other Anarchists have been condemned to two years'
imprisonment and a big fine. They are not much the worse, however, &a
they were all absent when sentence was pronounced, not caring to explain
their conduct before D. court where the president was both prosecutor
and judge and the middle-class jury had condemned them beforehand.
Comrades Merlino and Stoianoff sent in a declaration claiming the entire
moral and legal responsibility for the "Appeal to the Soldiers," and
stating that they had written and distributed it in the hope of averting
the threatened massacre of the people of Paris by the troops. In both
appeal and declaration our comrades plainly avow their Anarchist
principles.
Resistance to Authority
Is it not remarkable that last month's strikes have all been revolts
against authority quite as much as against economic exploitation? The
Guards and policemen were enraged by vexatious regulations, the postmen
by the refusal of their right to combine, Allen's girls by the arbitrary
dismissal of a comrade. It is a sign of the times that even soldiers,
policemen, Government servants, and women will not stand unlimited
bullying any longer.
"A tell-tale straw."
Last mouth we published an invitation to Herbert Burrows to, send us a
full report of his lecture on 11 Social Democracy, Anarchism, and
Anarchists," that we might print it in Freedom, together with our reply
to arguments which the report in Justice declares the Anarchists present
at the lecture were "unable to answer." This invitation was written on
the 14th June, and, as we informed Mr. Burrows, we went to press on the
24th. It Was Dot until the 25th that we received a letter, in which Mr.
Burrows declines to send us a report of his lecture, on the ground that
it was delivered from very few notes, which he had no time to write out.
He states, however, that he will shortly "publish it, with additions, as
a pamphlet." Whenever it appears we shall be glad to deal with it. It is
hard work to get these Social Democrats up to the scratch.
A Cry from Australia.
Comrade J. A. Andrews writes from Alexandra, Victoria, as follows:-The
movement here is going on slowly at present. Many have, I regret to say,
been terrified by prosecutions out of continuing active propagandist
work, and many, myself included, have had to seek our bread in the
country, where it is almost impossible to effect any propaganda, owing
to the fact that except the moving population, who are only accessible
in the large towns, the agricultural laborers are the sons of
proprietors and will be proprietors and exploiters in their turn. There
am only two active propagandists left in the city, which is the most
important place for the work, as it contains half the population of the
colony, and nearly all the salariat, excepting, as I have said, the
moving population and the children of the bourgeoisie, the laborers of
the country being more independent, like the industrial master workmen
of Europe a few centuries ago. I can do no more than I am doing, which
is to write out posters for the two Melbourne comrades to stick up; but
that is very little, and I therefore ask those of the readers of Freedom
who have friends in Australia to try and introduce the subject of
Communism and Anarchy to them when they write and to send them their
anarchist papers when they have done with them. If any of them know of
Anarchists in Australia, and especially in Victoria, I shall he glad to
be placed in communication with them, as I wish to form a group. There
ought to have been many more Anarchists within my own knowledge, but
many have been tainted with opportunism and gone running after single
taxes and other inventions of the capitalistic devil, until they have
forgotten the profession as well as the principles of Anarchy. Any
communications from English or other comrades on the matter of Anarchism
in Australia can be addressed to me at my permanent postal address, P.
0., Richmond, Victor Australia, and any comrades intending to set out
for Australia are especially requested to write.
ANARCHISM IN JAPAN.
We are apt to consider the Japanese as a semi-civilized race of people
to whom Anarchism and Socialism are unknown, and when we proclaim
ourselves as Internationalists, many of us never dream of including in
the universal brotherhood those islanders of the Far East, precisely
because we do not know them, and in an indistinct sort of way perhaps we
fear them as a reactionary force. But Progress has been making giant
strides of late. The Far East is waking up. Quite recently a Mr. Kaneko
was sent to Europe by the Japanese Government to get ideas as to the
formation of a Parliament, and for a long time the Japs have been
introducing innovation after innovation copied from Europe or America.
Mr. Kaneko's sympathies are of course, as becomes an official, with the
aristocracy. He is "lost in admiration of the culture and charm of the
English nobility." He regards our peers as "the finest flowers of the
human race," and the workers he considers "fiendish and brutal." All of
which shows what a little difference there is between the aristocrats of
the West and the aristocrats of the East. The Freiheit of New York
recently gave some interesting information on the workers' movement in
this far off land. Comrade Hoffmann of Osaka and Kobe is the informant.
There is as yet no Organization. Only a literary movement. Books on
Socialism and Anarchism written by natives are prohibited, but we are
told works by foreigners are allowed and even translations of such works
into the Japanese language have been made and circulated without
interference. The leader of the first movement was Talui Tokitchi who
was rewarded by three years' imprisonment. His party wish neither king
nor government of any sort. Kageame Hiddle a schoolmistress, one of the
most active workers, in one of her speeches said, "The end to be
attained must be communism, communalism, or something of that sort." An
organ of the party called the Nineteenth Century, was started but
suppressed by the authorities. It was succeeded by Tgui, which means
Freedom. This paper is printed in California at San Francisco. Its first
number appeared on December 13 last year. Only 500 copies of each
edition of the paper are yet issued, and of these 200 are circulated in
the United States and 300 in Japan. Of the Nineteenth Century 93 numbers
appeared down to last December during a year and nine months in which it
existed. The editor of Tgui is S. Shikitsu of 314 O'Farrell Street, San
Francisco. Those who wish to help on the cause in Japan cannot do better
than send any Socialist papers, pamphlets or books they have to spare,
to Julius Hoffmann, No. 62 Seventh Street, New York, U.S.A., stating
that they are for Japan.
A later number of the Freiheit gives particulars of an interview between
Dr. Hoffmann and Kageame Hidde at Osaka, Japan. Kageame has very
sympathetic features, she speaks well and persuasively and her general
appearance conveys the idea of great nobility of character. She says
that the object of her party is a society without government, and all
her conversation shows that she is absolutely Anarchist. Kageame has
already spent five years in prison. She desires to enter into relation
with the revolutionaries of all the countries of the globe and she asks
for journals, and pamphlets. She will find translators among her
friends.