RUSSIAN AFFAIRS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2144, 29 July 1907, Page 2

RUSSIAN AFFAIRS.

BOYCOTTING THE DUMA.

United Press Association —Copyright

Received July 23, 4.10 p.m. ST. PETERSBURG, July 27. In order to boycott the third Duma the Pan-Russian Railway Union has resolved to organise local strikes' to stop trains carrying electors, and compel the cessation of railway traffic throughout Russia when the Revolutionary Bureau give orders.

AN AMERICAN VIEW. One question looms largo in Russia, says the New York Times. Ia there enough political wisdom and political skill in the. Russian Empire to effect, without a tragical convulsion compared with which the French Revolution may come to seem tame, the inevitable modernisation of the ltusan rule? Will there be, on either side, a sufficient appreciation of the actual conditions to permit of a peaceful transformation ? Will there be, on either side, enough of political education? This is the real --uestion. In comparison with this it is idle to reckon up the number of separate factions or “groups” the Duma may contain and try to arrange such and such of them into an effective “bloc,” I a prevailing coalition. Once, at least, the Czar was well I counselled. It was in the promulgaI bion of the decree of 30th October, 1905. This has given its name to one lof the factions of the Duma, - the faction of the “Octobrists,” which | apparently exists for the purpose of I holding the aristocracy on one hand, I the Russian people on the other, to I the pledges of that manifesto. It is I worth quoting once more, even in the I terms of an unskilful translation: I We therefore direct our GovernI ment to carry out our inflexible will I in the following manner: I First —To extend to the population I 1 the immutable foundations of civio liberty based on the real inviolability of person, freedom of _ conscience, speech, union, and association. Second —Without suspending the already ordered elections to the State Duma, to invite to participation in the Duma, so far as the limited time before the convocation of the Duma will permit, those classes of the population now completely deprived of electoral rights, leaving the ultimate development of the principle of electoral rights in general to the newlyestablished legislative order of thingß. Third —To establish as an unchangeable rule,.that no law shall be enforceable without the approbation of the State Duma, and that it-shall be possible for the elected of^ the people to exercise real participation in the supervision of the legality of the acts of the authorities appointed by us. To read this, an American has -to road not only through an unskilful translation, but also actoss institutions and ways of thinking entirely alien to his own. But, with all its difficulties, the manifesto does hold out to the people of ■ Russia the pledge of what may fairly be called “constitutional” limitations upon arbitrary power. It does constitute what one may fairly call a “Bill of Rio-hts” for the Russian people. If it were possible at once to_ hold the nominal author of it to his position, and to bring the representatives of the Russian people to that position, to induce them to aim at the practically attainable instead of the ideally desirable, one would say" that the “Octrobists,” whose aims those seem to be, were the sanest and safest of Russian political factions, even though the “Octrobists” numerically amount, as it seems they do, even in conjunction with the “Moderates,” who are virtually -of their wa- of thinking, to only’ a negli"ible faction of the Duma. - But the Tsar is in the ->osition of Pharaoh, who softened or hardened his heart according as the plagues directed against his unjust rule diminished or increased in intensity. No hereditary ruler in the Tsar’s position could have a worse curse fall upon him than to be “of the opinion of the last speaker.” And that appears to be this hereditary ruler’s congenial and chronic plight. Having been moved by a patriotic statesman to isue that October manifesto as a whole, he has been persuaded b- the evil counsellors of the Grand Ducal ring and the bureaucracy to retract it in detail. Nobody can possibly have the face to say that the Tsar has really, or that the Russian' “institution” has reall- lived up to the spirit or even the letter of the manifesto. The Octobrists and the Moderates are politically negligible. In times of stress it is not to a calm and rational “Gironde” that a wronged and deceived people turn. It is to the energetic and impulsive “Mountain.” And so it threatens to be with the Duma. The struggle threatens to be between the indignant Radicals and the bigoted and unreasonible"'and “stand-pat” Reactionaries. These latter have too good reason to believe themselves to be hacked by the whole military power and police power of the Empire, a power which did not make much showing against Japan, but which is terrible when directed against its own people. And then there is the pressure of famine and pestilence to sharpen the indignation of the Russian people. How, out of such a situation, can come a peaceful solution? The hope of such a solution grows- pathetically and pitiably small.