764 



RUSSIA. 



during 1897 was 8,376, of 1,868,713 tons, of which 

 5,871, of 822,907 tons, were Finnish; 528, of 83.414 

 tons, Russian; and 1,977, of 902,392 tons, foreign. 

 The total number cleared was 8,354, of 1.8(51,177 

 tons. The Finnish merchant marine on Jan. 1. 

 1S98, consisted of 1,790 sailing vessels, of 248,809 

 tons, and 218 steamers, of 35,103 tons. 



The principal avenues of internal communica- 

 tion are the canals connecting the lakes of Fin- 

 land, through which 24,332 vessels passed in 1896. 

 The railroads have a total length of 1.535 miles, 

 all belonging to the Government except 20 miles. 

 The number of letters and postal cards carried 

 in the mails in 1896 was 11.123,781 ; of newspapers, 

 10,631,868; of parcels, 1,939.899. 



Under the military law of 1878 all Finns at 

 the age of twenty-one have to present themselves 

 to be drawn by lot for service in the army, which 

 lasts three years with the colors and two years 

 in the reserve; those not drawn for active serv- 

 ice pass into the reserve, and during the five 

 years are called out three times for instruction. 

 The officers and underofficers must be of Finnish 

 nationality, under the chief command of the Gov- 

 ernor General. The Finnish troops in 1898 con- 

 sisted of 1 battalion of rifles, incorporated in the 

 Czar's bodyguard at St. Petersburg, 8 battalions 

 of rifles of the line, and 1 regiment of dragoons; 

 total effectives, 236 officers and 6,020 men. Of 

 Russian troops there were stationed in the grand 

 duchy 8 battalions of rifles, 2 battalions of fortress 

 infantry, 4 batteries, 16 companies of fortress 

 artillery, and a detachment of sappers; total 

 strength, 300 officers and 9,200 men. 



In 1898 the Senate was called upon by the 

 Grand Duke to prepare a scheme of universal 

 obligatory military service for Finland. On Jan. 

 25 the Parliament, which was convoked every 

 four or five years between 1861 and 1888, but 

 had not met since the latter date, was called to- 

 gether in extraordinary session, and Gen. Bobri- 

 koff, who had just been appointed Governor Gen- 

 eral in succession to Count Heydon, read to the 

 representatives of the four estates of the Finnish 

 people a speech from the throne, in which the 

 Czar announced that since Finland had no need 

 of troops separate from those of the Russian 

 army, being indissolubly united with the empire 

 and under the protection of the entire Russian 

 state, the law of military service in Finland must 

 be made uniform with that of the empire at large. 

 At the same time, it being desirable that the 

 new law should be made to harmonize with local 

 conditions as far as possible, the project of the 

 law would be submitted to the Diet. The ob- 

 literation of the special privileges and national 

 Constitution of the Finns has been the desire and 

 aim of the Slavophile party since the time of 

 Alexander III, who would not countenance the 

 Russification of the grand duchy to the extent 

 that process was carried on in the Baltic prov- 

 inces and in Poland before the close of his reJgn. 

 On Feb. 15 an imperial manifesto was published 

 stating that all legislation affecting the empire 

 at large, as well as Finland, would in future be 

 transacted by submitting projects of new laws 

 to the Finnish Diet for its opinion as to the best 

 method of adapting them to the conditions pre- 

 vailing in the grand duchy, after which they will 

 be passed over to the Russian State Council to 

 be dealt with and promulgated in the usual way. 

 In such cases the Emperor will be approached only 

 by the imperial minister whom the projected law 

 concerns and the State Secretary for Finland. 

 The discussion of such laws in the State Council 

 will be attended by the Governor General and 

 the State Secretary, and when necessary by cer- 



tain members of the Finnish Senate appointed 

 by the Czar. In this way the Finnish Parliament 

 and Senate will no longer have the exclusive 

 right of discussing measures designed for the pur- 

 pose of bringing Finland into closer conformity 

 with the rest of the empire, and therefore also 

 affecting Russia. The manifesto declares that the 

 existing system is maintained in full force as re- 

 gards the promulgation of local laws touching 

 exclusively the internal affairs of Finland, but 

 reserves to the Emperor and his advisers the ulti- 

 mate decision as to which laws come within 

 the scope of the general legislation of the em- 

 pire. This decision to treat any Finnish ques- 

 tion that a Russian minister may consider to 

 be connected with the requirement's of the stair 

 in general as a matter to oe decided by the Rus- 

 sian Council of State, leaving the Finnish Diet 

 only a consultative voice, was totally unexpected, 

 and it created a profound depression in Finland. 



The Finnish people saw in this new funda- 

 mental law the virtual abrogation of their self- 

 government and the prelude to the obliteration 

 of their customs tariff and fiscal independence, of 

 their currency, of their separate railroad admin- 

 istration, of their system of education, perhaps 

 of their language and religion in the end. Their 

 Parliament would be reduced to the position of a, 

 Russian provincial srmstw. When the imperial 

 manifesto liecaiiie known at Helsingsfors thr ladies 

 and most of the men put on mourning. At lir>1. 

 the Finnish Senate did not wish to promulgate 

 the new law without having first protected and 

 made an effort to have it repealed. Tin- party 

 known as Finnish, which is opposed in Finland 

 to a so-called Swedish party, was divided in opin- 

 ion at first, having on previous occasions ju>tiiied 

 Russian interference because the Russian authori- 

 ties have usually befriended the peasantry in 

 their conflicts with the Swedish nobility. The 

 chief of the Finnish party resigned his teal in 

 the Senate as a protest against holding l>a< k 

 the Czar's manifesto. Later the bulk of the 1 in 

 nish party were of the same mind as their former 

 opponents as to the seriousness of the Rus-iaii 

 attack on the chartered liberties of the grand 

 duchy. The Senate, in spite of the irregularity 

 of the procedure according to the Finni-h < "ii 

 stitution, which declares that the Emperor and 

 Grand Duke shall not make a new law without 

 the knowledge and consent of the Diet or abolish 

 an old law, decided to promulgate the manifesto 

 and the new law that accompanied it, and at the 

 same time to send a deputation to St. Peters- 

 burg, consisting of the talman, or spoke-man, of 

 each of the four estates, to plead with the r/ar. 

 The Minister State Secretary sought for this 

 deputation an audience with the Czar, but Nicho- 

 las II refused to receive it, answering that he \\a- 

 deeply affected at learning that it was thought 

 that he desired to break his word. He had given 

 the best guarantee for the preservation of tin- 

 internal legislation of Finland, and he commanded 

 the State Secretary to request the deputies to re- 

 turn to their work at Helsingfors. A long peti- 

 tion coming from the Senate of Finland was for- 

 warded to the Czar at the same time. It called 

 attention to the paragraph of the Constitution 

 declaring that fundamental laws can be made. 

 amended, explained, or repealed only on the 

 proposition of the Emperor and Grand Duke and 

 with the consent of all the estates, and begged 

 the Emperor to declare that no restriction of 

 the constitutional rights of the Finnish people 

 was implied in the new imperial enactment. No 

 response was given to that, and next the Finns 

 circulated a popular petition to which 523,000 



