490 



The Review of Reviews. 



Noremher I, 1906. 



THE DUMA DENOUNCED. 



By Dr. Dillon. 



In the Contemporary Review, Dr. E. J. Dillon 

 deals out censure with a liberal hand. He declares 

 that Russian opinion regards the meeting of King 

 and Kaiser as a consultation of surgeons prior to a 

 post mortem on Russia ! The Tsar, he says, feels 

 nettled that his deposition should be discounted 

 beforehand by his British friends. Sir Henry 

 Campbell-Bannerman's " Vive la Duma !" is in- 

 terpreted to mean that he knows the victory of the 

 Duma means the triumph of revolution, the break- 

 up of the Russian colossus, and the supremacy of 

 England. According to Dr. Dillon, Russia is an 

 unknown land, not merely to foreigners, but also 

 to the members of the Duma, to the Tsar, and — 

 the reader is tempted to add — to everybody except 

 Dr. Dillon himself. 



WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEtN I 



He is especially severe on the Duma. He says : 



The Russian Reform Party had a golden opportunity in 

 ite grasp. The Tsar, who had ever refused even to enter- 

 tain any project that savoured of constitutionalism, had 

 at lii5t coi^sented to limit hie own power. From the point 

 of view of the prince brought up as an autocrat it was a 

 vast sacrifice. It is not easy fully to realise all this 

 meant to him. Liberals, who a twelvemonth before would 

 have been contented with some means of controlling the 

 acts of the bureaucracy and of putting an end to arbi- 

 trary inisrtile, now had a charter in their hands on which, 

 by exercising prudence and patience, they might inscribe 

 rights as extensive as those of any other monarchical 

 country on the Continent. 



,\nd " this rare opportunity was simply thrown away. 

 Nothi!ig was attempted that ought to have been under- 

 taken, and many acts were deliberately performed that 

 ougiit to have been s?dulousIy avoided. 



The reply of the Duma to the speech from the Throne 

 contained no word of thanks to the monarch for the 

 rights he had liestowed upon his people. Threats, re- 

 proaches, strictures, abounded, but no expression of grati- 

 tude for an .'tct unprecedented in Russian history. As a 

 political writer has iiointed out, in other countries the 

 rulers who gave constitutions to their peoples have monu- 

 ments to immortalise and reward the giver. But in 

 Russia ? In Russia the first Tsar who bestowed a constitu- 

 tion was blown to pieces, and the second has to shut him- 

 self up lest the same fate overtake him. The beet men 

 in Russia refuse to call themselves his loyal subjects. 

 An assembly which sets about governing a noteworthy 

 part of the terrestrial planet may reasonably be expected 

 to displ.'Ly an average sense of dignity and courtesy. It 

 ought not to borrow the methods of a mere mob meet- 

 ing. It should have lauded the monarch for the 8t.ep 

 he had already taken and encouraged him to take an- 

 other in the same direction. It could and should have 

 proved to him that he might with safety to his peoplie 

 and his dynasty ttirn from the interested bureaucracy to 

 a disinterested and patriotic democracy. 



■ I LOOKED. AND THERE WAS NO MAN." 



The Tsar, says Dr. Dillon, was pliant. A wise 

 and moderate political party, ready to share his 

 responsibility, would have been a Godsend. A fairlv 

 clever statesman would have cultivated the good 

 disposition of the monarch, and transformed his 

 conscientious readiness for political reform into 

 genuine enthusiasm for national regeneration : — 



But there was none. The Russian revolution haa brought 

 no great man to the front, has formulated no new prin- 

 ciple, embodied no fresh idea. It is anonymous, jejune, 

 imitative. .\nd not only was there no statesman visible in 

 the Duma, there was no business-like committeemen there 

 who would sit down to humdrum work for the good of 

 the community. 



A PARLIAMENT WITHOUT BACKBOXE. 



They neglected the work they could do to 

 indulge in dreary and truculent eloquence: — 



And what struck many observers still more forcibly than 

 this dearth of politicians and leaders was the exiguity 

 of men gifted with moral courage, what we generally term 

 backbone, such as you lind in almost every English Non- 

 conformist; men who stand upright and square to the 

 htorm and the current, whose faith is unaffected by fear, 

 whose hope leaves nothing to hea.ven which their own 

 right hand can do. 



Patriotism, adds X)r. Dillon, is another of the 

 qualities the manifestation of which Russian ob- 

 servers sadly miss in the acts and discourses of the 

 Duma. The Deputies were declared to be simply 

 playing at revolution. They exhorted the nation 

 to refuse to pay taxes, regardless of the fact that 

 direct taxation is as dust in the balance compared 

 to the annual revenue, only remembering the 

 French precedent, and declaring : " Refusal to pay 

 taxes forms part of the programme of modern 

 revolution." 



THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TSAR. 



Towards the Tsar Dr. Dillon seems to be soft- 

 ened. The Quarterly Rcviav portrait of Nicholas 

 n., published two years ago, he describes as one 

 that closely resembled caricature. He adds: — 



The plain truth would appear to be that even the Tsar 

 may mean well to his people and his countr.v whatever 

 the effects of his acta may be; that be would rather rule 

 over a well disposed nation than over a rebellious people; 

 that he does not really order heca.tombs of the Jews to 

 be arranged l)y his police, because it would be unpolitic 

 as well as immor.al; that he is not fitted by nature, by 

 training, or by divine grace to play the part of Machia* 

 velli's Prince, and that he does not delight in imprison- 

 ing, shooting, persecuting. This view may of course be 

 wholly wrong, bitt although I am open to conviction, I 

 shall cling to it until I have had some proofs that I am 

 mistaken. 



Victory, he declares, awaits the peasants. The 

 Mujik dominates the situation. 



THE END OF ALGECIRAS. 



Mr. Frederic Harrison, in the Positivist Review, 

 explains the real meaning of Algeciras, " the desire 

 of a great military Power to dominate in Europe," 

 and conjures up a dreadful picture of what the 

 Kaiser will do now that Russia has collapsed :^ — 



The Germanic dominions of Francis Joseph must almost 

 antomatically sink into the German Empire^whef her by 

 intrigue, alliance, or force, or a judicious mixture of all 

 these. When the dream of the Pan-Germans is realised. 

 and the Kaiser sits astride Central Europe from the Baltic 

 to the Adriatic— from the Tosges to the Carpathians— with 

 a population double that of France — the German Kaiser 

 will be all that Napoleon hoped to be. and. for a briefi 

 sp.ace. was France will hold the same position with re- 

 spect to him that Austria has done for years past — the 

 obse<iuious " second in my duels." says William. Italy will 

 be at his beck and call; and even Switzerland may begiB 

 to tremble at the Pan-German spectre. 



Then also will " unsere Zukunft " be in reality 

 " auf dem Wasser," and Kaiserdom have become a 

 World-Empire. To ward off which danger but one 

 thing is possible — a close defensive alliance between 

 England, France and Russia, with Italy, Switzerland, 

 Holland and Belgium as " benevolent neutrals." 



