KILLING OF M. STOLYPIN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 82, 27 September 1911, Page 2

KILLING OF M. STOLYPIN

STOLYPIN'S MURDERER. By Coble—Press Association—Copyright. St. Petersburg, September 25. Bogroff lias been hanged. | A writer, prior to the death of M. Stolypin, made the following severe criticism:—

| No one in Russia can have been less surprised at the attempted assassination of the Premier than M. Stofypin himself. Since he became Premier five years ago he has moved in daily peril. Several fl.tte.mpts have been made on his life, including the dynamiting of Iris I house, which had serious consequences for his family. With high courage and an iron will he sot himself resolutely to stamp out the revolution. When he was called to tlie Premiership Russia was in a desperate condition. The revolution had degenerated into an orgy #1 murder and pillage. Officials everywhere went in terror of their lives, and no industry was safe from .blackmail and robbery. Russia to-day is, comparatively speaking, a peaceful country, and the change is mainly dnfc to M. Stolypin's strength of purpose. Some of his methods, of course, are abhorrent to our ideas, but it must be remembered that he had to deal with a desperate situation, with conditions of which we have had no experience. "M. Stolypin mightpose for a statue of strong and ruthless autocracy," writes a, trustworthy St. (Petersburg correspondent. "Never in its long history has tile Cwirdom had a fitter mouthpiece, a more suitable representative." We are told that in the revolutionary period "Stolypin's arm smote off its seven heads a day, and never once signed a reprieve." Genis Khan may have committee greater slaughter in his fits of passion, but I do not know of amy dim Oriental potentate whose rage was so cold and so systematically deadly as that of the Czar s President of Council. He has dominated the Duma. His predecessors were shouted down or told to '•go away," but M. Stolypin was never even interrupted. The Revolutionary Left in the second Duma, which detested M. Stolypin, and represented men who sought his life, were eowed bv the force of his words and his powerful .personality. In those perilous days M. Stolypin wais never seen to enter or leave the Duma, save .by the secret police, and he sometimes slept night after night.in the legislative buildings to disappoint the revolutionists who waited for him outside. He never appeared in public, for to do so would have meant death. It may be exaggeration to call him the Russian Bismarck, but there is no doubt that) he is the strongest man who hag come to the front of recent years. Moreover in a country vjhere corruption is rife in official circle* he was an honest man. It is natural, therefore, that the weak Ozar should have leant on him heavily. He is a young man as Prime Ministers go, and if hi; recovers from his wounds, he will no doubt resume his self-appointed task with unabated courage. He is a niuu whom the Czar can ill afford to lose.