RUSSIA’S SECOND DUMA

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2097, 4 June 1907, Page 4

RUSSIA’S SECOND DUMA

A DISMAL OUTLOOK.

Apart from a few 1 incorrigible optimists, every deputy is convinced that the second Duma will meet the same fate as the first (said the Tribune’s St. Petersburg correspondent last month). The only question at issue is the date of the threatened dissolution, whether the latter will take place immediately or be postponed for a few weeks! -This- horrible feeling of uncertainty and helplessness saps the energies of the deputies. The few who believe that the Duma may be saved say that the representatives of tho nations must not “irritate the Government,” that they must be as moderate as possible, that they must avoid every cause of a conflict; and the deputies, as a body, always excepting tho members of the Union of Russian Men, follow instinctively the lead of the optimists' The Duma is more docile and more carefully respects the limits of the “Constitution” than any other Parliament in the world. The Russian“ Constitution,” however, is the work of the bureaucracy ; every article contains fetters imposed upon the representatives of the people. It is crooked and full of traps for the Duma,while it leaves the bureaucracy,, practically free from any exercise of arbitrary power. Siicli is the present position, a hopeless and undignified one, frqm which there seems no possible escape, The Budget inspired some hope. The bureaucrats use money, which Europe refuses to give without tho sanction of the Duma, and it was hoped that the Duma might exact from tho Government some concessions in exchanjge for the sanction of a loan. Where, however, were tho guarantees that the concessions will not be cancelled as soon as the money ; s obtained? The bureaucrats, like tho Bourbons, have nothing loarned and nothing forgotten. A peaceful development of civic and political liberties,■ for which the unhappy country, exhausted and" bleeding, is yearning,is mado impossible through tho blindness of the Court. Tho ruling casto relies only upon the support of tho military and tho Union of Russian men—tho scum of tho Russian nation. Even tho Octobrists in tho Duma are too Liberal for the Government, and have constantly to vote with tho Constitutional Democrats against M. Stolypin’s Cabinet. The gulf between tho nation and its rulers grows wider and deeper, and, as usual, tho rulers will open their eyes too late, when a new movement convulses tho nation.