THE DUMA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 78, 28 September 1907, Page 19

THE DUMA.

We suspect t£jys the Westminster Gazette) that the Mo.ning Po."-t coriespondent. i 3 right when he Sdys that the Duma is dissolved not because it has failed but hocause it v. as going to succeed. A moderate, steady, business-like activity is precisely what these monopolists fear, and thoir object is nut to encourage an experiment on these lines, but to lind pretexts for stopping it at the earliest moment. Unfortunately, theso pretexts are afforded by a small section of revolutionaries, who have been very noai-ly as anxious to destroy a moderate Duma as the reactionaiies are to prevent any Duma at all. Thus far these, two paities have played into each other's hands, and betweon them the Government and tho Tsar appear to bfa helpless. The Tsur is said to mean well, and he might possibly do well if he were an autocrat in fact as well as in name. But after short bursts of reforming veal he is perpetually pulled back on to the reactionary side. The reform movement, ur the revolution, whichever we call it, is thus still in a, highly confused aud inchoate state, nnd until the Autocracy, which means the million officials in addition to the Tsar, have made up their minds or are compelled by ovsnts to accept the' Constitutional principle, the Parliamentary experiment will remain in suspense.