The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1909. RUSSIA'S. PARLIAMENT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2535, 23 June 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times . PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1909. RUSSIA'S. PARLIAMENT.

For some • considerable time the world's pros. 5 has boon strangely silent about the working of Russia’s new constitution. In part the reason is to he found in the series of stirring events which have been, absorbing the attention of the nations and turning elsewhere the eyes of those whoso business it is to gather news. In part, however, the recent silence of the press is due to the absence of such exciting incidents as distinguished the short hut lively careers of the first two Dumas. The third Duma has not come into dramatic conflict with the Court, nor has it wasted itself upon extravagant projects of social reform. Elected, on a more restricted franchise —that prescribed in the Imperial decree of 1907 —it has shown a more judicious spirit than its predecessors. Yet it would seem, with the aid of M. Stolypin, the Premier, to have accomplished, or at least to be well on’ the way to accomplish, in the Russian state a political change quite as significant and farreaching as that brought about by the constitutional rescript of October 30, 1905. The nature of this change, now being surely and. almost silently worked out, was set forth, in an article, four columns long, contributed to the London “Daily Telegraph” of April 17 by That journal’s special correspondent at St. Petersburg, In essence the change is one to which ai very close analogy can be found in our own' history. Briefly put, it is from the; representative Legislature to full responsible government. The constitution which the Czar signed on October 30, 1905, resembled the early typo of British colonial constitution. Under it a Legislature was created, with an Upper House consisting largely of Imperial nominees, and a popular Chamber'; the Duma, made up of elected representatives of the people. To this Legislature was given the power of making new laws; "subject, of course,, to the Czar’s veto.;'.Adulteration in the law of the land could take place without its assent. It-was also made the sole authority for granting supplies. For ■every penny which he required over and above what came to him from liis hereditary Crown domains and from existing permanent taxes the Czar hadjo go- to the Duma. Incidentally the Duma was also accorded the right to discuss the acts of officers of Government, from the Minister of State to the humblest member of flic bureauil L

cracy, but the actual administration of tho Government, as in Germany or in a British Crown colony, was to be -under' the exclusive control of tho Crown. In particular were reserved to the Czar all matters appertaining to the organisation of the army and navy and tho direction of foreign policy. With them the Duma’s only concern was to be the voting of money. There was to be no Cabinet in our sense of the term. The Premier was to be merely president of tho Council of Ministers, while tho heads of the War Office, the Admiralty, and the Foreign Office, were to be responsible to their Sovereign alone, and not to either the Council of Ministers or the Legislature. If we are to beliove the correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph”—and he supports his conclusions with an array of facts —M. Stolypin and the third Duma have contrived to convert this distinctly monarchical form of government into the rule of a responsible Cabinet, which is dominated by a Premier acting with a majority of the Duma. Tho Czar himself appears to have acquiesced in the transformation which virtually hands over the prerogatives of tho autocracy to Premier and Duma, but it is causing grave disquietude among, the conservative and moderate sections oS the community. They have been awakened to the trend of M. Stolypin’s policy by what has occurred in connection with the navy. In 1906, when Russia’s fleet had to be reconstructed de novo, the Czar, acting on expert advice, created a naval general staff. This was well within his constitutional powers, and his act could not have been questioned if he could have found out of existing revenue the necessary £IO,OOO a year. As he could only raise about one-third of the required sum, he bad to have recourse U tlio Duma. Last session M. Stolypin introduced bills, which not only provided the money, but also contained a formal ratification of the Czar’s scheme. Tho Duma at once assumed the right to modify the scheme, and in voting part only of the money greatly altered it in detail. Thereupon the Upper House rejected the bills. M. •Stolypin introduced them again this session with the Czar’s consent, and persuaded a majority of the dissident monarchists of the Upper House to pass them. Thus he has established a precedent which deprives the monarch of his personal authority over the navy. “To-day,” says the “Daily Telegraph” correspondent, “there is not one of the great Continental states in Europe whoso military and naval organisation is so liable to be criticised and modified by non-specialists of tho Cabinet c.rd tiio Legislature as that of Russia.” The Navy Bills form but one of many examples of the encroachments mace by Cabinet and Duma upon the authority of the Crown. M. Stolypin has persuaded or compelled all his Ministerial colleagues to give in to all demands of the Duma, and to submit all their own acts to the previous approval of the Council of Ministers. The Cabinet decision is then laid before the Czar in a form that makes it practically obligatory for him to endorse it. Thus, we are assured, was M. Isvolsky forced against his own and his master s wishes to “knuckle down” to Germany on the Balkans question before he had even consulted with the French and British Governments. What the monarchists contend for is the Czai 5 right to settle great naval, military, and foreign questions with his expeit advisers, without “asking permission from the Russian, German, Polish, Lithuanian, Georgian, Armenian, and Mohammedan deputies, fresh from the plough or the counter.” Were the Russian people trained for self-govern-ment M. Stolypin’s rapid move towards responsible government would be decidedly an occasion for congratulation, but, as it is, a Duma of peasants, country gentlemen, burghers, artisans, and university theorists is a risky ■substitnto for a bureaucracy, which, v it.li all its faults, at least possesses expo t knowledge of the practical work of go vernment. The danger . lies m going too fast ahead. Already the provincial and racial separatists arc hailing M. Stolypin’s methods as means towards the Home Rule they long for. On the other hand, the Russian patriot who desires to maintain the integrity -u the empire is beginning to look longingly for a revival of the autocracy. A too quick advance to responsible meat may mean a sanguinary <vmffi n between the forces of disruption and the forces of reaction.