586 



The Review of Reviews, 



Uecember 1. 1906. 



THE PREiVlIER OF RUSSIA 



M. Stolypin and his Prospects. 

 The Special Commissioner of the National Re- 

 vircc in the October numljer, writing on '" Russia 

 from Within,'' devotes most of his article to a dis- 

 cussion of the person and the policy of the present 

 Prime Minister, M. Stolypin. 



STOLYPIN THE MAN. 

 M. Stolypin enjoys a personal reputation of wbich any 

 public man in Eussia might well be proud. With him word 

 and thought are known to stand in a certain fixed relation 

 to each other, both emanating from motives which are re- 

 garded by his friends and acquaintances as above suspicion. 

 He is a sincere lover of fair play, eschews base actions, and 

 is withal tolerant enough to take men as he finds them, and 

 to make tlie best of very bad bargains. In a word, he be- 

 longs to the highest type of gentleman produced by Russian 

 civilisation. The son of a chivalrous general and of a clever 

 lady, Stolypin was brought up in the traditions of the old 

 school of the Eussian nobility. His mother was a Gorcha- 

 koff, whose widespread reputation for esprit was by no means 

 usurped. A princess not only in the social but also in the 

 intellectual sphere, her double title unhappily died with 

 herself. If intellect were hereditary and will-power were 

 identical with honesty, the present Premier would indeed be 

 the man to lead his people to the promised land. But in- 

 scrutable Nature endowed him with other estimable gifts. 

 At school he was distinguished by modesty and application 

 among his fellows, of whom many were clever and most lazy. 

 Mediocre gifts, good conduct in its bureaucratic sense, and a 

 happy, easy-going disposition were calculated to attract the 

 benevolent attention of his superiors, and P. A. Stolypin has 

 uniformly enjoyed the friendship and protection of the most 

 Conservative administrators of the old regime. Thus it was 

 by appointment, not by election, that he became Marshal of 

 the Nobility in Kovno, and, later. Governor of the Province 

 of Grodno. 



To tlie Premier's personal friends it appears a good omen 

 tliat he invariably stood well with the champions of auto- 

 cracy. He was a favourite even of the most reactionary 

 among them all. They promoted him over the heads of his 

 seniors, suspended traditions and usages in his behalf, and, 

 so to say. pitchforked him into high places. For example, 

 when the Province of Saratoff was greatly disturbed, dis- 

 orders were of daily occurrence, and the redoubtable Plehve 

 cast around him for an energetic man to administer it; his 

 choice fell lipon M. Stolypin, who, though lacking the bureau- 

 cratic qualifications for the post, was none the less appointed. 

 THE PREMIEB AND HIS POLICY. 

 But precisely because of his admirable personal qualities, 

 his influence upon the Ciown and the nation appears to un- 

 biassed Eussians to be fraught with disaster to both. To the 

 Crown, because he may all the more easily persuade the 

 monarch to fritter away in petty palliatives the precious 

 respite bestowed by fate, which might well be used to recon- 

 cile people and sovereign and bring together a practical 

 Duma. And on the nation his political influence appears not 

 less baleful, because with all his sterling qualities M. Stoly- 

 pin is sadly deficient in the stern moral fibre which distin- 

 sruishes a genuine people's patriot from an easy-going cour- 

 tier who sees everything, including his own amiable weak- 

 ness, through the roseate medium of optimism. 



His adjoint, M. Kryshanoffsky, recently laid before M. 

 .Stolypin a plan for the revival of the Tsar's popularity by 

 means of a great money sacrifice to be made by the Imperial 

 family. The peasants, he said, want land, and we want the 

 peasants' confidence and co-operation. Let the Tsar distri- 

 bute, to those peasants who really need more land, cer-tain 

 portions of the appanages whence the Imperial family draws 

 the funds requisite tor the support of its members. These 

 appanages bring in two millions a year. 



M. Stolypin adopted the proposal as his own. 

 The Tsar rejected it, but M. Stolypin did not re- 

 sign. The scheme was a mad one: — 



It would have put the Imperial house in the power of the 

 coming Duma and aroused the passions of the peasantry 

 against the landowners. It was just the final touch which 

 would have sufficed to send the revolutionary scale down- 

 wards and to break the monarchy. 



Vet, says this "Special Commissioner,'' 



the Russian Premier, who has done his best under most tr.v- 

 iug conditions, deserves the hearty support of all the patri- 

 otic elements in the country. For the cause he represents is 

 that of order, of law. of humanity. He is an honest admin- 

 istrator in a trothless environment; he is politically little 

 in a movement of elemental magnitude, a straw in the eddies 

 of a seething maelstrom. Truly he is well worthy of genuine 

 sympathy. 



ME. GOLDWIN SMITH'S 'VTEW. 

 Mr. Goldwin Smith has some sensible remarks in 

 the Positivist Review for October on the Russian 

 Revolution. He says : — 



The way in which we have regarded this revolution has 

 hardly been philosophic. The Tsardom is the offspring, not 

 of Satan, but of the necessities of a primitive era, though it 

 is now out of date, and calls for the exercise of the high 

 wisdom which can make the past glide smoothly into the 

 future. For all those peasant millions it still forms the only 

 bond of allegiance to the State. In the French Revolution, 

 the monarchy, instead of being constitutionally limited, was 

 prematurely destroyed. The bond of allegiance was broken, 

 and tliere followed civil war. 



In the same Review Mr. .Suinnev jjoints out the 

 differences between the preseiit movement in Russia 

 and the Revolution in France. 



How to Reform the House of Lords. 



Mr. Fretleric Harrison returns to his thesis as 

 to the right way to mend the House of Lords in the 

 October Positivist Rcviac. He says : — 



All that is wanted for the moment is to turn into an 

 understood political system the example tentatively set by the 

 Prime Minister in selecting childless men and bachelors for 

 all new peerages. If a hundred or a hundred and fifty cap- 

 able men could be drawn from the House of Commons (pre- 

 sent or past), from the diplomatic, colonial, civil, and mili- 

 tary services; from County Councils, public institutions, co- 

 operative and trade societies; from the ranks of Privy Coun- 

 cillors, Judges, King's Counsel, Eoyal societies, and great 

 companies, publicists, professors, and learned societies — and 

 without the paraphernalia of heralds, or the endowment of 

 families, such men could be infused into the existing House 

 without any legislation or bitter contest— tire nucleus of a 

 true Senate would be there. The thirty or forty debating 

 Peers would he glad to receive fresh blood. The five hun- 

 dred silent and absent Peers would remain silent, abserrt. 

 and harmless. 



This scheme is not put forward in any party sense. Both 

 parties ought to be represented. But, in view of the enor- 

 mous disproportion of Peers at present, new creations should 

 be in inverse ratio to the actual balance of parties. The cre- 

 ation of hereditary Peers might still be retained as at pre- 

 sent for those who court rank and honour without power. 

 An ancient mjnarchy naturally involves a gradation of rank 

 and royal favours. Only this — newly-created Peers uith here- 

 ditary titles should have no right to sit in a Eeformed Upper 

 Cliamber — either for themselves or tlieir descendants. 



