The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-11-10

enemy, and it did not take long t
create a sharp division between ther
and the regularly appointed govern
ment officials. Secret but deadly strif
was the outcome.
THE REVIVAL OF TERRORISM.
The last years of the eighties were
marked by the revival of terrorism
laid at the doors of the zemstvos anG
Liberals, and open reaction began il
earnest. A man who looked to repre-
sentative government as a solution wa.
marked; if he dared speak on the sub
| Ject, he was doomed. The police grew
more powerful every year, and no one
was safe in his home. If zemstvO
man became in any way prominent
he was offered a good government po-
( sition; in other words, bought, if he
was for sale; if he could not be bought
his life was very uncertain. Many of
| the best of them We're imprisoned
| banished-there was no telling when
and from where the deadly blow would
fall. Uneasiness, feeling of uncer-
tainty, were coupled with apprehension
of what the morrow might bring. The
best workers began to desert the in
terior-they felt they could do no good
under the existing conditions, that
they We're sacrificing their lives for a
hopeless dream. So, if still at liberty,
they joined the Radicals or fed abroad.
Thus the great movement, known in
Russian histroy as " Nazodnitchesto-
wo, - was broken up and wasted.
NO CONSTITUTION INTENDED.
An idea prevails in this country that
Alexander II. was ready to sign con-
CHI -ha,, h. al
is absolutely unfounded The papers
left by Count Loris Melikoff, and pub
lished after his death. reveal only a
project of calling together a consulta-
tive body, composed of men appointed
by the government, a body not differ
ing from many of the existing govern
ment institutions. 1t was evidently
meant only as temporary, concilia-
tory makeshift, to appease public opin-
ion, and could not have remedied any
thing.
THIRTEEN YEARS OF REACTION.
The reign of Alexander III. lasted
thirteen years, thirteen years of reac
ton, pure and simple. In liberal Rus
STA he is justly nicknamed "the leaden
Emperor or the great man fog
GER There was nothing vacillating
about him. Every state measure en-
acted during his reign was some abro-
cation or reduction of the rights of the
people.
The press, already much curtailed in
the last years of the reign of Alexan-
der IL, was completely muzzled. Elab
crate measures, including the waste
full lending of the people 5 money,
were undertaken to elevate and
strengthen the nobility, class which
lost its raison d 'etre by the abolition
of slavery. and kept alive by purely
artificial means, as one of the props Of
autocracy.
EMASCULATION OF THE ZEN
STVO.
The zemstvo was reformed in the di
rection of giving absolute preponder-
ance to the nobility. 1t lost its repre-
sentative features, the lower classes
being barred from participation. Every
officer and every employe Of the
zemstyo must be confirmed by the
Governor of the province; its scope of
action was greatly reduced, so, too, It's
power of taxation. The zenstvo was
restricted in its expenditure for public
education or public health to certain
very low per cent. Of its total budget.
ONLY mobiles can be elected to office;
and when confirmed, became members
of the regular bureaucracy, and have
even to wear a uniform. From indie
pendent representative institutions OF
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