Arizona republican., 1905-03-21

1 q parliamentary
 system cause the downfall of Russia :
 This involves no change in the sub
 stance of the problem for. as a parlia
 mentary system must be the corner stone of any constitutional regime, to prove that parliamentarism would
 wreck the Russian state will involve l the coroiiary that autocracy is indis-
 sable to this country.
 My readers probably know that ev-
 cry civilized state must in it's evolu- tion pass through the following stages:
 autocracy constitution, republic. This i proposition may be considered axio-
 matic by all who have in mind the | history of the past two centuries in western Europe and America. But one | circumstance which always accompa- nies such an evolution may have been
 overlooked, a circumstance which with
 two exceptions of which I shall speak 1 later, has helped the progress Of all countries and saved them from dis solution. I refer to the existing centri- petal force of nation; the more typ ical examples of this are Germany and
 Italy, where the evolution from cbso- | luttsm to constitutionalism went hand
 in hand with the powerful national ! tendency to unite in one strong whole.
 In France likewise, all the great gov
 ernmental upheavals, from the down
 fall of the monarchy in 17S9 to the es- | tablishment of the republic in 1STO
 were accompanied by a strong nation alistic feeling and no one even thought
 of the dismemberment of France. that
 France which through the policy of RicheliCu and Louis XIV was so firmly
 bound together that even the German
 Alsace felt itself an integral part No
 need to mention the smaller states
 such as Greece, Belgium, Holland.
 which represent strongly united en-
 titles, incapable of division, since they
 have no parts. And who does not know of the ideal national energy Of
 Switzerland, which will always remain
 one, though composed of three different natioHalities.
 But now for the other side of the
 picture. In Great Britain we already see signs of an insufficient centripetaI
 force, due to an insufficient feeling of national duty In the eighteenth cen
 tury it lost it's American colonies and
 the present relation of the mother
 country to it's foreign possessions is weakening to such an extent that the very name of British Empire is be-
 coming questionable. We will say nothing of Ireland-that eternal open
 wound in the body polite of the 'em- pire-' In the same manner the reIa- tfons between Sweden and Norway arc constantly growing weaker; these two countries could not unite into one whole in 1914 and now they will never do so. But the most striking exam pl. of centrifugal, anti government force is offered by the Austro- -Hunga- rian monarchy. During the unlimited autocracy of the Hapsburgs (since 16S9), it presented one political whole. firmly u-ited under that system;- but when in the year 184S the era of dem ecratic constitutionaIism began, the monarchy was shaken to it's very roun- dations. Hungary separated from Austria, retaining only an outward tie which. if not today, will tomorrow be broken. The Hapsburgs have forever lost the Italian provinces. have been driven from Germany. and the Austria of today represents a rabbIe of autaS- onistic natiOnalities. rendering an ideal political life impossible. As Professor GumploVich of GratZ. an expert in state law and sociology. writes:
 Tn Austria the parliamentary sys- tenn has existed no wthese forty years and more and what is the lesson it has taught us? That a parliamentary sys- tenn for Austria is an utter impracti- cability. It was transpIanted hither from the west, but took no root The more the strength of the Germanic ele- ments decreased and that of the other natiOnalities grew, the clearer could il be seen that national struggles make parliamentarism impossible. Political and social parties are possible in parliament not national. For 9 strug- gle between nationalities is in every way different from struggle between parties within a nation.
 AS with Austro- Hungary on a small scale, so with Russia on a colossal one, and the peril with which parliamentarism menaees l Russia is therefore infinitely greater than that which the Hapsburgian | state faces. The Russian empire is ! vast but it's vastness is still of very | recent origin. It's western and eastern l frontier possessions, Finland, the Bal | tic provinces, Poland, the Caucasus, l and the Central Asian regions, have | not only not yet assimilated themselves | with Russia proper but they do not even desire to do so; they entertain l hopes of an independent national and | even political existence. In view of | this their centrifugal force is much more powerful and intense than that | of the smaller nationalities of Austria ! which cannot even think of complete political independence outside of the | sway, those fragments of | he Italian and Servian peoples who | are endeavOring to join themselves to -he Italian and Servian kingdoms alone excepted.
 Let us now suppose that the autoc- -acy, which has created and preserved in its entirety the great united Rus sian empire, be swept away and in it's place be substituted constitutional Darliamentarism. What takes place in his parliament? A process of dfsin- egration as in it's Austrian prototype, he fragments arraying themselves not nto political but into national parties, which enter into an implacable conflict among themselves. This conflict will put a stop to the whole march of po- itical life and will end only when III Russia haaY1 TAd11pad fo