UNHAPPY FINLAND

Evening Star, Issue 11863, 17 April 1903, Page 6

UNHAPPY FINLAND

AN ABSOLUTE DICTATOR. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. ST. PETERSBURG, April 16. (Received April 17, at 8.55 a.m.) General Babrikoff has been made absolute dictator of Finland for a period of three years. He is empowered to close factories, officer, and shops at his discretion, and to assign recaldtrants to residences in various places within the Russian Empire, [The ‘ Finnish Gazette,’ the organ of the Russian Governor-General, recently gave an account of a remarkable protest made by the native governors of four Finnish provinces against the new military law, and their consequent dismissal from their posts. It appears that General Bobrikoff had sent a circular to all the provincial governors, in which he ascribed the failure of the conscription of 1902 to the machinations of revolutionary agitators, and urged the governors to take vigorous measures for securing the success of this year’s conscription. The three Russian governors, in their reply, announced their intention of doing everything in their power to carry out these instructions, but four Finns, the Governors of Abo-Bjomeborg, St. Michel, Vasa, and Uleaborg, sent the GovernorGeneral a long memorandum in answer to his circular. In this memorandum thev maintained that the failure of last year’s recruits to appear was not the result of any agitation, but was caused by the sense of Ifiw and justice of the mass, of the people; that the new military law violated the fundamental laws of Finland; and that it could therefore not be obeyed by Finnish citizens. They argued that tranquillity could not he restored to the country until the military service edict had been submitted to the Diet. In conclusion, the four governors requested that their memorandum might be forwarded to the Emperor. This, says the ‘Finnish Gazette,’ was done, and His Majesty’s reply has been to dismiss its four authors from their posts. J