THE RUSSIAN TERROR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2779, 19 June 1907, Page 28

THE RUSSIAN TERROR.

DISCOVERY OP A PLOT, TWO COLONELS ASSASSINATED THE PLOT AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT. DUMA DISSOLVED.

ST. PETERSBURG, June 15. M. Stolypin has demanded the suspension of 40 Social Democratic deputies and the arrest of 16 others pending an inquiry regarding a plot which has been discovered at the Ohsolo residence, having for its object the overthrow of the existing system of government and the establishment of a democratic republic by means of a military, revolutionary, and fighting organisation with ramifications throughout the Empire. M. Stolypin declared that if his notice was rejected the Government would consider the decision as a refusal on the part of the Duma to co-operate with the Ministry. Strong bodies of troops and police surround the House. Several deputies fled. The Duma referred the motion to a committee. June 16. Colonel Kotlaxoff, deputy commandant of the port of St. Petersburg, has been assassinated. The commission, of .the Duma appointed to inquire into the plot for overthrowing the existing system of government, being unable to conclude its work before Monday, requested the examining magistrate to. supply particulars of every accusation made. Subsequently an Imperial ukase was issued dissolving the Duma, and fixing the new elections in September. Two hundred infantry and two trains filled with Cossacks are standing ready at every railway station. The St. Petersburg deputy, M. Ohsol, at whose residence the revolutionary organisation met, fled from the city, but waa afterwards captured. The Duma has been dissolved. June 17. The anouncement of the dissolution of the Duma was quietly received in St. Petersburg. The city ie full of troops, and newspaper criticism is prohibited. Nine of the accused deputies have been arrested. Many arrests have also taken place at Warsaw. The Council of the Empire has been prorogued until November. The Czar, in a manifesto dated yesterday, attributes the deadlock partly to the novelty of Parliament and partly to the defects in the electoral law, which leturns members not truly representative of the needs and desires of the people. It upholds, the constitutional government manifesto of October 30, 1905, and other rights conferred by the fundamental laws. It also considers that the Duma ought to be Rue&ian in spirit, inasmuch as it ie summoned to strengthen the Russian State. Therefore the other nationalities of the Empiie '"ought not, and shall not, be represented in such numbers as to enable them to be arbiters in purely Russian que&tions." The Czar, who is the sole giver of the electoral law and who is alone able to abrogate it, substitutes another which the Senate will forthwith promulgate. The manifesto proceeds : " Firstly, I am resolved to complete the great work of reformation, and look to my faithful subjects for united and vigorous service in the direction indicated for the country, whose sons at all times have been firm to support its strength, greatness, and | glory." • The sailors of two Russian warships at Tendra Island plotted to throw the officers overboard and seize the- whole squadron under Admiral Tsiwinsky, The officers, however, frustrated the plan, and 60 arrests were made. It is understood that street fighting afc Sebastopol, following tho Tendra Island mutiny, hastened the dissolution of the Duma. Colonel Gueeeekoweky, deputy commandant at Sebastopol Harbour, has been assassinated.. The murderer lias been arrested. '