THE CZAR.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2573, 6 August 1909, Page 5

THE CZAR.

CABLE NEWS.

LANDS ON THE ISLE OF WIGHT.

ELECTED MEMBER OF ROYAL YACHT SQUADRON.

United Press Association— Copyright. (Received August 5, 9.55 p.m.) LONDON, August 5. - King Edward and the Czar landed quietly and visited the Naval College at Osborne House. King Edward banquetted the members of the Royal Yacht Squadron in honor of the Czar’s election to membership.

Recent demonstrations in London against the Gear of Russia have moved a writer styling himself “A Russian Diplomat” to fill a column of space in the London “Daily Express” with a defence of Nicholas 11. He says that to denounce the Czar as a savage mediaeval despot is ridiculous. He was the best of sons, as he is the kindest and most affectionate of husbands and fathers. As Heir-Apparent, we are told, he openly professed Liberal sentiments, and since his ascension to the throne he has initiated the Hague Confevencc, given his country a Constitution, and often against the advice of his most trusted Ministers, remained the steadfast friend of Britain during the whole of his reign. The writer admits that within the -last few years the number of arrests of political offenders has been very large, and that the suppression of incipient revolution has been attended by a “certain muchexaggerated ruthlessness,” but he urges that no single individual could possibly control all the ramifications of a sometimes corrupt bureaucratic machine. Nicholas 11. has, however, according to the writer, ceased to he the slave of the bureaucracy, and has to some extent become its master. Even- day the present Duma is quietly 'getting new powers into its own hands. The path of progress determined upon by the Czar is one of quiet gradual evolution, aiming at the transference of power from the hands of an irresponsible bureaucracy into those of “some kind of modified democracy, which will be in character with the needs of the Russian people.” No man was ever less eager to be an Emperor than the present Czar of all the Russians, but having been raised by destiny to exalted responsibility he has never wavered in his determination to do his duty as he understands it, and to woi'k for the best interests of his country and his people. He is intellectually alert, widely sympathetic,! almost phenomenally industrious, and for all his instictive shyness and timidity, persistent and determined. The ‘reformers” are represented by this writer to be the enemies both of the Czar and their country, inasmuch as they have ceased to represent the great mass of the people, or even to understand them, and are doing more harm than good by their anxiety to thrust upon a virgin and unprepared soil institutions which haVe taken centuries to develop in more western lands.