RUSSIA’S TWO STRONG MEN

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12589, 26 August 1901, Page 6

RUSSIA’S TWO STRONG MEN

(Pall Mall Gazette .) One of the most significant features of the present state of things in Russia is the hostile, attitude M. de Witte and M. de PobiedoDOßtzeff have assumed towards each other of late. Whatever the one proposes, the other strives his best to prevent; whatever the one succeeds in doing, the other looks on askance. This is a new departure ; for although it has long been known that there was little sympathy between the two statesmen, the relations between them have never before, been openly strained: even in the days when M. Pobiedonostzeff, by his persecution of the Jews, was raising up difficulties for M. de Witte on all sides —was driving him to his wit’s end, in fact —there was no breach between them, so far, at least, as the world knows. It is only since the present troubles with the students began that they have taken up their stand against each other openy. And the first to throw down the glove, it is interesting to note, was not the redoubtable Procurator of the (Holy Synod, but the subtle Finance Minister.

Although jthe matter in no •way concerned his department, M. de Witte denounced as at once stupid, and brutal the way the Kieff students were recently treated; and, in defiance of the Procurator, he insisted that it should be changed. Then no sooner did he hear that £M. Pobiedonostzeff had set his heart upon M. Brimunt being made Minister of Education, in the place of the murdered M. Bogokpoff, than h© allowed it to be known that he

INTENDED TO THWART HIM. And thwart him he did. He did not, it is true, succeed in securing the appointment of his own nominee to the office, but he at least prevented its being obtained by the nominee of his rival; and for this he has good reason to be thankful. By making General Vannowsky Minister of Education the other day, the Tsar, quite unwittingly perhaps, dealt a heavy blow on M. Pobiedonostzeffs prestige. Meanwhile, M. de Witte makes no attempt to conceal the fact that his sympathies are with the students rather than with the authorities, in these troublous days; or that he looks upon the excommunication of Count Tolstoi as a blunder fraught not only with discredit for Russia, but with danger. Needless to say, the pros and cons of the struggle that is now going on between, the Procurator and the Finance Minister axe eagerly discussed by Russians, by Germans too, wherever they meet. For the subject is one not only of interest, but of importance. On the one hand, it is argued that the struggle is of a purely personal nature; that it is neither more nor less, in fact, than a fight for preponderance between

Russia’s two strong man. The point at issue is whether M. d© Witte or M. Pobiedonostzeff shall he the chief power in the State—the Tsar’s confidential adviser as well as his official counsellor. And which* ever way it is decided, the result will be—so, at least, they who hold this view of the case maintain—merely a change of men, not a change of systems. On tho other hand, it is argued, vehemently too, that a change of men, when the men in question are such marked personalities as M. do Witte 'and M. PohiedonostzefF, must necessarily entail with it a change of systems. M. do Witte is of the world worldly. He troubles himself not one whit about what his fellows believe, so long as they pay their taxes. His ambition is to make Russia a great industrial Power, on a par in this respect with England, Franco and Germany; and as this cannot be done until

THE WITS OF THE NATION ABB SHARPENED, he objects strongly to. education bein*. sacrificed to orthodoxy. M. PobiedomwM zelf, on the contrary, holds that so as Russia remains orthodox, it matters little how ignorant, or even how poor, she be.

What gives a somewhat personal interest’ to the present strained relations between these two Russian statesmen is that theri was a time when they were close allies* zealous fellow-workers for the same causa. When, some thirteen years ago now,, M, de Witte was appointed chief of the State Railway Department, the only thing tha* could he safely prophesied with regard td him—personally he was then an unknown man in St. Petersburg—was, it was said, that M. Pobiedonostzeff would find in him a most useful coadjutor. For he belonged to tho narrowest school of the orthodox; 1 and M. Platon, the famous Archbishop of Kieff, who preached the first crusade against the Stundists, was his warm friend and protector. He was- a hitter Anti-Semite, too, and had at one time been the editor of the Warsaw journal that took the lead in stirring up enmity against the Jews. Besides, he was a Pan-Slav, an adherent of Katkof, a firm believer in the great work Holy Russia has to do in the world. Thus* on all important points there was compleM sympathy between him and the Procurator ; they were pursuing tie same aims;; bent on carrying cut the same policy; nay, more, the special work in which 'they wera both most keenly interested was practically of tho same nature. For, no sooner waf M; de Witte in St Petersburg than h< threw himself heart and soul into the task of bringing about a reformation among the officials under his control; and M. Pbbiedonostzeff had for years been devoting himself to trying to bring about a reformation among the clergy for whom he, as. chief of the Synod, is responsible. In those days M. de Witte was, of course, a very unimportant personage compared with the all-powerful Procurator, and the support he received from him was of the greatest value. Had it not been fol this support, indeed, it might, and probably would, have fared badly with him ia his career as a reformer; for not only were the officials of Lis own department arrayed against him, but practically all the grea| officials of the State. His appointment ijf 1893 as Finance Minister was bitterly sented in official circles in St Peteirsburfl where he was

LOOKED UPON" AS A MEDDLESOME INTRUDER, with a mania for cutting down the privi« leges of those ai’ound him and increasing their work.. Every reform he has effected, even the introduction of the spirit monopoly, was effected in the face of the most determined opposition. All through ■ his battle with the officials, the Church was on his side; for although M. PobiedonostzcfE never interfered publicly in the matter, he used his influence privately on his behalf, and, if rumour is to be* relied upon, he went out of his way again and again to give him personally a helping hand. The two -worked together, in fact, each in his separate sphere, for years -with the utmost cordiality; and if they have now drifted completely apart, it is because the one is still precisely the same now as he was thirteen—nay, thirty years ago, just as jealous, just as narrow, just as bent an keeping men’s minds in shackles ; whereas the other has changed, has forsaken soma of his old ideals, some of his old pro* judices; has become modernised, in fact.