Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/296

274 The power to decide when a man is "prejudicial to public tranquillity," and when exile and surveillance shall be resorted to as a means of "preventing crime," is vested in the governors-general, the governors, and the police; and in the exercise of that power they pay quite as much attention to the opinions that a man holds as to the acts that he commits. They can hardly do otherwise. If they should wait in all cases for the commission of criminal acts, they would not be "preventing crime," but merely watching and waiting for it, while the object of administrative exile is to prevent crime by anticipation. Clearly, then, the only thing to be done is to nip crime in the bud by putting under restraint, or sending to Siberia, every man whose political opinions are such as to raise a presumption that he will commit a crime "against the existing imperial order" if he sees a favorable opportunity for so doing. Administrative exile, therefore, is directed against ideas and opinions from which criminal acts may come, rather than against the criminal acts themselves. It is designed to anticipate and prevent the acts by suppressing or discouraging the opinions; and, such being the case, the document which lies before me should be called, not "Rules Relating to Police Surveillance," but "Rules for the Better Regulation of Private Opinion." In the spirit of this latter title, the "Rules" are interpreted by most of the Russian police.

The pretense that administrative exile is not a punishment, but only a precaution, is a mere juggle with words. The Government says, "We do not exile a man and put him under police surveillance as a punishment for holding certain opinions, but only as a means of preventing him from giving such opinions outward expression in criminal