THE LATE RUSSIAN PROCURARTOR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 30 March 1907, Page 4

THE LATE RUSSIAN PROCURARTOR.

Constontine Pctrovitch Pobiedonostzcff, whose death is announced at the ripe age of eighty years, will be regarded by posterity as o»e of the most I noted figures of the latter part of the nineteenth century, but more particularly of the opening years of the twentieth, for twenty-five years he occupied the position of Procurator of the Holy Synod of Russia, resigning this office in November, I'JOJ. His influence with the Czars of his time has always been powerful, and he has consistcncly exerted it as the enemy of liberalism, and the advocate of bureaucratic i and reactionary ideas. It was Pobiedonostzeil who was mainly instrumental in preventing Alexander 111. at his accession from adopting a liberal programme. On March 20tty 1881. Alexander 111., who had just succeeded his murdered father, convened a grand council of the principal dignitaries to ask their opinion of his dead father's project of convening a representative nlaitional assembly. The majority declared for the assembly, and Alexander agreed, saying: - 'l share this opi.nTon »df the majority, and wish that the re ; form ukase shall lie published.''' Here, hdwever, the Procurator stepped in and prevented the promulgation of the iukas4 asserting that it would only create excitement, and increase the existing fermentation. The part taken .'by Pobiedonostzeff in the recent Russian troubles that followed on the war ,w* t th Japan are stiil fresh in our memories. He was the backbone of tho .reactionaries, and immovable in his Support of the autocratic power of the Czar. Us religious fanaticism was notorious—his persecuting zeal beinc manifested Impartially to all sects "outside the orthodox church—unless, perhaps,! he reserved his bitterest resentment for the Jews. Tito Uniatcs, that isj tho Catholics who have the Slav litnr\f t were mercilessly deported to Siberia if they refused to have their children baptised by an orthodox Pope. Like so many persecutors and zealots, Pobiedonostzeff wag a man of blameless integrity in his private life.