POLITICS IN RUSSIA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 268, 3 April 1911, Page 3

POLITICS IN RUSSIA

— ; THE SCITATION IX RUSSIA. « | -M. STOLYPIN AND 111* WORK. Writing of the political situation in Russia some months ago, the correspondent of The Times said: —'It is not by the nature of tilings likely . that the courtiers and all those others whd have profited by the old system should accept the inevitable results of the new regime —the regulation of accounts, the more equitable distribution of favors, the displacement of incompetent, unscrupulous, or corrupt officials." All these people were fighting tooth and nail against the. public criticism to which the new constitution in Russia had opened the door. The Cadets tried to carry the bureaucratic fortress, but did not .succeed. "if. Stolypin and the Third Duma," continues The Times' writer, "represent an endeavor to deal with the same vital issue, but on very different lines. M. Stolypin is for reform from within. He has refused to follow the practice of surrounding the Sovereign with creatures of his own, to bo recompensed for their support of him by their nearness to the source of all favors. He has on occasion shown the sturdincss of a Turgot in refusing to make exceptions to the laws for his privileged and powerful enemies. He has instituted a series of far-reaching investigations into the acts of local administrators, and this courageous action challenges the whole credit of the Empire unless it is to be followed by equally thorough reform. He has carried through, on his own initiative, and even by his own authority, one first-class measure, the Land Law of November 22, liine, which, with all the difficulties and defects in its application, is already rapidly creating a new rural Russia. Lastly, though it was he who successfully dissolved the First Dumn, it is he who has maintained the existence of a National Assembly when the Reactionaries recovered from their panic and did everything to remove both it and him. "The real problem in Russia has all along been the creation of a middle term between the Government and the people. . . .It- is these factors which make the strength of the leader of the Duma, 51. Guchkoff. His family, of peasant origin, rose to wealth and the highest civil dig-1 nities in .Moscow. Affer brilliant studies at Moscow and at Berlin, he threw himself into a life of adventure, now working at famine relief, now riding through Cen- ; tral Asia, in Armenia during the massacres, in Macedonia at a moment of in- ; surrection, in South Africa in the ranks of the Boers. But he found time enough to strengthen his roots in commercial > Moscow; and when he returned from the I Japanese war he sturdily opposed the ' wholesale propaganda of the Cadets, an;' 1 1 helped to orffani.se the Octobrists an „ tparty of Conservative Reformers. This party has sq far held, the ■,balance in ( tls T-hird Duma.- , Containing a nujiibet' oi men of high social'position anil administrative antecedents, and backed in the tfmn bv the commercial world, it set itself to serious work of detail, and has . based its criticism on patriotic grounds, ' calling before all things for real reform of the Army and Navy. As M. Stolypin is still in a measure a hand stretched out from the Government towards the country, M. Guchkoff is a hand stretched out from the country towards the Government. It was in the clasping of these two hands that lay the guarantee for legislative work."