The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-07-17
M. WITTE HAS RISEN BY
 SHEER FORCE OF MERIT

tire mileage, and now there are only | three or four private roads in operation in the whole of the Russian dominions. while nearly 800 miles OF new track has been laid down by the government or is in course of construetion. Great manu- 1 factories have been started all over Rus- sia, over fifty towns and cities have been l lighted by electricity, the currency has
 been established on gold basis and the equilibrium of the budgets restored after
 many years of disastrous finance. These
 are only a few features of the immense ! industrial and commercial development of Russia in recent years.
 | M. Witte has known defeat and disap- pointment in some of his great schemes, but the Russians admire him because he
 has never despaired of the destiny of the l empire
 When the public debt was over s400.- 100000 and the finances were none too
 prosperous, he did not fear to add f250.- l 0O0O to that debt for the purchase of existing railways and the building of new roads.
 | One excited statesman after another besieged the Czar. trying to convince him that ''the German, was plunging the country into hopeless bankruptcy. Rus sra is good for ten times the amount was M Wittes answer to all such ob- 1 jectors, and he had his way, as he usual ly does, sooner or la.er
 The military party, headed by General Kuropatkin, M. Witte's greatest political , enemy, objected strenuously to so much
 money being spent for railways. They wanted it spent for more soldiers.
 But what is the good of having sol-
 diers." M. witte argued, If you cannot
 move them? By giving you railways I
 multiply each one of your soldiers by i ten"
 l They saw this patent fact at last, and :! enthusiastically aided his plan Today there is no man moro popular with the
 war party than M. Witte, because he has Linked the far east 'ith European Rus l sia and made it possible to pour troops 1 into Manchuria. Yet 1t is quite certain | that his influence has always been ex- | erted on the side of peace, and 1t is known that he shared with M Bloch the responsibility for the Czar's peace re- l script.
 1 M Witte has never posed as political reformer, confining himself strictly to his
 own work of railwa. administration and l finance; but there is little doubt that he l is strongly in favor oe more liberal gov erment for Russia. He has taken no part
 in the oppressive measures which have | been so sternly enforced in recent years
 against the working classes, the Jews.
 the non-conformists and the Nihiistic students.
 In September. 1902, he took daring
 step which plainly showed his liberal sympathies. He appointed a number of
 committees to investigate the acute agri- cultural and industrial depression Of Rus l sia. The members of these committees
 were men whom he had trained and in- fiuenced, and under his guidance they made up a list of hundreds or reforms 1 which they helc to bn necessary to the 1 welI-being of Russia Some or these re- forms might have been taken direct rom | tha nroaramme of the Nihlists. They oovared tbe social and industrial ills of p,ss,a and even advocated startling con | stitutional reforms tending in the dlrec- t,on of democracy. IT bureaucratic sys-
 tenn of government and the crushing pur- liens of military service and indirect tax alton were bitterly complained or The Russian bureaucrats were aghast at the audacity of such report, espe- | csal,v when M Witte sent It to the Czar with his strong indorsement All ms enc ,n,es united to seize the chance to crush him and 1t seemed for time as 1T mex had achieved their purpose. He Tell out 1 of favor. and had to resign some or ms l offices.
 M. de Plehve. the reactionary minister of the interior, declared that such oiscus- | sion of public affairs was 'Tevolutionary' and even went the length of imprisohins .or,e of M. Witte's committeeman But evidently the Czar has discovered that ne oarro+ do without his wizard of nnance'
 ,t vv,tta has been restored to office ana promoted to the pos. of imperiai chan ce,lor-the greatest in all the Hussias' excepting only that of the moharcn' ] Aro,a all the internal troubles and for 1 a,gn complications of Russia, M. Witte | ,-eans . lively faith in the destiny or the o,,,,,,ra That was shown plainly in his.
 ,ast hraqet report in 1a02 in which. while admitting that grave industrial oepres- sion existed. he declared that the gen eral prosperity of the country showed no sien of diminishing. and that he had i, ..saa,sr faith than ever in the rapid pro- gress of Russia. l Anott BEN ADHEM, MOVE uPJ