The Waikato Times, THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE, AND KAWHIA ADVOCATE. Established Thirty-Three Years. THE OLDEST DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE WAIKATO. THE LARGEST CIRCULATION OF ANY DAILY PAPER SOUTH OF AUCKLAND. MONDAY, MAY 7, 1906. RUSSIA.

Waikato Times, Volume LVII, Issue 7003, 7 May 1906, Page 2

The Waikato Times, THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE, AND KAWHIA ADVOCATE. Established Thirty-Three Years. THE OLDEST DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE WAIKATO. THE LARGEST CIRCULATION OF ANY DAILY PAPER SOUTH OF AUCKLAND. MONDAY, MAY 7, 1906. RUSSIA.

Tiik resignation of Count Witte is the end of the great hopes that were entertained but a few moaths ago. He took otlice as Premier of the first responsible ministry, at the beginning of last November, when the national strike had forced the Government into ostensibly abandoning the bureaucracy, grunting civic liberties, widening the franchise for the Douma and making the consent of that body necessary to legislation. With these Liberal measures, which were embodied in the famous Imperial Maofesto of October -30 th, and with a Liberal minister at the helm, the well-wishers of Russia were fain to anticipate a period of democratic reconstruction, the renewal of law and order, and the reconciliatien of Government and people. The resignation of M. Pobiedonostsefi' almost simultaneously with Count Witte's accession to otlice, and the dismissal of General Trepoff, which quickly followed, were also taken as signs of the opening of a better era, But these events came 100 late. The strikers, once thoroughly roused, were not content with concessions and official changes which ?> year before they would have received with gratitude as valuable instalments of reform. They demanded "the immediate convocation of a Constituent Assembly, elected by the universal, equal, direci and secret suffragrs of all adult citizens." Striices, mutiuies and disorders of various kinds were agaii; commou occurrences. The revolutionists said, in effect, " Give us freedom, ami you shall have public order." Count \Vittfl insisted, "Order first : freedom afterwards. The Douma at last was elected, and although it was reported that the progressive elements of Russian society were largely abstaining from the ballot, yet it was subsequently stated that the majority of the members elected were Constitutional Democrats. Tho reactionaries have continue 1 to be strong at Court, and the Czar has been plied with every instigation to thwart the spirit of reform. According to Mr Stead, lie has resisted all such suggestions, and it was this firm attitude, together with Count Witte's retention of office, which in the eyes of the journalist who, among all his English colleagues, perhaps has the fullest knowledge Jof Russia, const - tuied the only hopeful features of tho situation. And now Count Witte has resigned, and a violent reactionary, a pupil of Pobiedonostsefi and Trepofi, is to take his place. The ex-Preuiier's ideal is said to have been a benevolent autocracy with himself as the brain behind the throne. The movements of Russian statesmanship are to the outside world largely a matter of guesswork, and opinions dilier as to whether Count Witte has lost his office through being too Conservative or too progressive to satisfy his Imperial master. At all events, his regime was in its nature a compromise between the old order and the new aspirations. It ' has failed, and the Czar being thus obliged to choose one of the extremes between which his had

sought to rebuild the Stare, has decided, whether by free will nr on cnnipulsion we do rot know, in f«vour of reaction. Newrthele.ss, as Mark Twain said the (the" day, the Russian republic has only been postponed for a time.