The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-25

funds needed for the purchase OF many
estates Of private proprietOrs.
This appropriation is proceeding as
fast az the straitened condition Of the
Russian Treasury will permit, and
enough has already been done to con-
vince the peasants that while MIR.
SToLYPIN will never consent to seize
private property by violence. he will do
his utmost to transfer by purchase the
greater part of the national soil to those
who till it. He is therefore able to
point to deeds, whereas the orators OF
the last Duma could only offer promises.
To appreciate the difference between
the position Of the present Premier and
that of his predecessor, GoREMYKIN, We
should bear in mind that the latter not
only took no definite step toward distrt-
button OF Crown and appanage lands,
but positively refused to sanction even
a partial application OF the principle OF
appropriation of private estates. Mr..
S%ToLYPIN's agrarian programme, on the
other hand, closely resembles that adj
vOcated by the majority OF the Duma,
differing only by his firm assertion OF
what to individualists seems a funda-
mental truth, that private property may
be appropriated only with the owners
consent, or, II confscated for public
uses, must be paid for. The peasants,
of course, will have to pay in the end for
the lands now given to them, but the
instalments are 30 small and stretch
over so long a period that they seem I'M
likely to resent the obligation.
The great majority of mujiks are to-
tally uneducated and care nothing about
politics, so long rs their wishes are graft
fled with regard to land. Most Of their
leaders in the last Duma, however, were
peasants who had migrated from their
native villages to urban centres, and
there, by n means or another, had ac-
uuired an education. Such OF these as
signed the Viborg manifesto have already
been made by law ineligible for reelec-
ton, while those who, by absence from
Viborg, escaped that disability, are now
disqualified by a decree prescribing that
hereafter the peasants must choose for
their representatives men who have re-
sided continuously in their commHnes.
BY this stroke, it is expected, will be
eliminated all such peasant agitators as,
in conjunction with the proletariat, Or
ganized the Group Of Toll.
So much for the efforts made by the
Stolypin Government to bring about n
tractable, if not a zealously devoted,
attitude on the part of the peasant men,
bers of the next Duma. Energetic ef-
forts are also making to secure adher-
ents in other sections of the electorate.
A circular letter has been sent to the
various provincial Governors ~instructing
them to bend all their efforts to secure
the election of @Government candi-
dates, by which is meant the Octobrists,
although in districts where an Octobrist
has no chance the Governors are ordered
to help Count HEYDES's Peaceful Re
g~enerationsts, y as against the Constitu-
tional Democrats. Moreover, as the
latter. or the still more radical parties
Group of Toll and Sociaf Democrats),
command the support Of almost all the
newspapers, the official gazettee pub
lished in the larger towns of each prov
ince are to be turned into campaign
organs Orders have also been issued
that campaign speakers on behalf Of the
Constitutional Democrats. or the still
more revolutionary factions, are to be
imprisoned or deported on the charge Of
perniciOus agitation. When we repeat
that all of their leaders who signed the
Viborg manifesto are disqualified for
reelection, We cannot but recognize that
the Co lstitutional Democrats have but
n faint prospect Of gaining in the new
Duma' the majority which they had in
the last.
1t is a tremendous task which Mr..
SToLYPIN is essaying, that of returning
a Government majority to an assembly
which only a few months ago was DOM
mated overwhelmingly by it's opponents.
II he succeeds he will deserve to rank
among politicians with EUGENE RoUHER,
Justly known as the brains of the Second
Empire; if not even with the younger
| PITT, who in the name of his royal
master administered in 1854 a terrific
beating to the Wings, who long had been
OmniDOtent in the House of Commons.