AFFAIRS IN RUSSIA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1775, 14 March 1906, Page 54

AFFAIRS IN RUSSIA.

CONSTITUTION OF COUNCIL AND LUMA. A LIBERAL SCHEME. ST. PETERSBURG. March 7. An Imperial manifesto announces that tho Russian Council of Empire is to be composed of an equal number of elected and nominated members. The elected members will be eligible to sit for nine years, but a third of the number will be re-elected every three years. Tho Czar is to-convoke and prorogue the Council and Duma annually. Both are to possess equal legislative powers and the same power of initiative in respect to introducing bills. All . bills must pass both Assemblies before being submitted to the Czar for his assent. Tho sittings of the Council and the Duma are to be open to the public. Members of both Assemblies will he immune from arrest during the progress of a session, except by permission ot the Duma and Council. Ministers are to be elighlo for election to the Duma. If extraordinary circumstances arise during any suspension of the Duma the Council of Ministers may lay such matters before the Czar, but any action that may bo taken must be ratified by the Legislature within two months of the commencement of the next session. CRITICISM OF THE IMPERIAL MANIFESTO. RITTER DISAPPOINTMENT. ST. PETERSBURG, March 8. The Duma is to meet at the Tauride Palace, in St. Petersburg. Accommodation has been provided for 564 deputies. The Imperial manifesto defining the powers of the Duma has evoked bitter disappointment. The press denounces th© Duma as a mere mockery, hedged about by a bureaucratic Upper House and an irresponsible Ministry, and completely isolated from the constituents. A SOCIALIST RESCUED. ODESSA ARTILLERYMEN SENTENCED. ST. PETERSBURG, March 8. Many political prisoners loaded with irons, who are to be exiled, passed through Moscow. Twenty armed men entered a hospital in the suburb of Praga, in Russian Poland, and rescued a Socialist, who had been wounded in an encounter with ihe police. Sis artillerymen received sentences

ranging from ten to twenty yeans at Odessa, and twenty-four -were sentenced to minor terms, for refusing to fire upon revolutionaries. THE ELECTIONS. ST. PETERSBURG, March 6. -Twenty-eight Duma constituencies- will elect representatives on April Bth, and the rest on the 27th and May 3rd. Preliminary peasant elections to Disr trict Electoral Colleges in the province of St. Petersburg resulted in the selection of Conservative villagers. ST. PETERSBURG. March 5. Six thousand members of the Industry and Commerce Association met here, and unanimously resolved that irreparable disaster will result if the Czar’s promised reforms are not soon incorporated in the Empire’s laws. Delay cannot longer be tolerated, the association declares, without the gravest menace to the country and dynasty.