MANAWATU EVENING STANDARD. Circulation, 3,200 Copies Daily. SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1906. RUSSIAN AFFAIRS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8199, 27 January 1906, Page 4

MANAWATU EVENING STANDARD. Circulation, 3,200 Copies Daily. SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1906. RUSSIAN AFFAIRS.

A lull lias again occurred in the revolutionary struggle which has been taking place in Russia during the past year. It affords an opportunity to review some of the outstanding features of this great movement. Perhaps the most interesting of these is the failure of Count Witte to advance the cause of liberty. The Moscow correspondent of the London Standard, in a recent despatch, dealt with this aspect of Count Witte's work. To begin with, he would have the greater part of the world revise its opinion of Witte, an opinion formed upon his work at the Peace Conference, at which he was really the defeated party. He is by no means as great as he is supposed to be outside Russia. He has enormous brain power and untiring energy, but his chief defect is lack of " character," tho quality so largely possessed by the iron-handed Trepoff. That is to say, while Witte has already been the hero of several causes, he will never be the martyr of one. Trepoff works steadily for a rotten and hopeless cause with a ..persistence which compels admiration, but around Witte there will always be "the damning suspicion of insincerity." But even, if Witte were all and more than he is supposed to be abroad, it is unlikely that he would be .more successful, for the circumstances under which he took office were almost tinprecedcnted in their difficulty. "Personally obnoxious to the Czar, no longer supported by tho once nil-powerful influence on public affairs of the Dowager Empress, suspected of liberal tendencies by the old school and of doubledealing by the new, Count Witte owed his sudden return to power to three reasons —the necessity of making it appear that the altogether unexpected termination of the Portsmouth peace negotiation's was a diplomatic triumph for Russia ; the necessity of securing a large foreign loan m circumstances calcula-

tod to tax even Witte's well-known powers in that department; and, thirdly—this reason aptly consolidating the other two —thanks to the fact that the newspaper Press of the world had created for Witte a reputation abroad such as no statesman of Russia ever enjoyed before." One disastrous effect of his unpopularity at Court is the delay which it causes in the transaction of public business. He is not received more often thin ouee or twice a Meek, and as he dare not leave State papers to be discussed by a reactionary entourage behind his back, instead of taking a pile of important documents and learing them for the Imperial signature, he has t® take one or two at a time, and persuade the Czar to sign thgm before the audience is over. "The country is clamouring tor reforms by the mile," he is reported to have said, " and I have to drag them out by the inch." " Witte hangs by a hair," said a speaker at the recent Zenistvos Congress, " and it would be dangerous to prop him up." That was two months ago, and the hair still supports the Premier.