The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-06-23
The Latest News From Russia.

The kilograms from St. Petersburg
indicate that NICHOLAS ii. is still wa
vering between cancellation and violent
repression. There are times when it is
wisest to do nothing, and the present
Russian crisis might be n of them if
the session of the Duma were about to
expire by limitation and il there were
signs of a lull in the public agitation for
reform. This is far from being the
case.
On the surface of things the expe-
diency Of the Cars refusal to take
any official notice of the Dumas vote Of
want of confidence in the Goremykin
Ministry may seem to have been demon
trated by events. Members Of that
Ministry have continued to address the
national assembly, and although they
have been interrupted by protest and
clamor President MURoMTzEFF has in
sisted on their right to be heard. Mani
testify, there are wise heads in the Con-
stitutional Democratic party, and they
are determined that when the irrepara-
BILE breach comes between the Duma and
the autocracy their grievance shall be
one that will come home to the peasants,
who constitute a vast majority Of the
Russian people. What do the mujiks
know or care about the principle Of
Ministerial accountability 1t is also a
deplorable fact that the mujiks as a body
are so deeply %prejudiced against the
Jews that even if it could be proved that
the massacre at Bielostok was insti-
gated by the Minister of the Interior
himself, the Constitutional Democrats
could hardly venture to make the in-
famous act a pretext for civil a
They have evidently no intention Of
being drawn into a false strategic posi-
ton. The report Of the, COMMITTEES sent
to investigate the atrocities Of which 80
many Jews were victims at Bielostok
has not yet been made officially, but its
chairman, Mr.. SCHEPKIN, has announced
that it will absolve the st. Petersburg
Government of direct responsibility for
the massacre, which seems to have been
concerted surreptitiously by subordi-
nate police officials. Speaking in the
Duma on Thursday, Prince URUsoFF,
who plainly had the confidence Of his
colleagues, declared that when he was
Assistant Minister of the Interior neither
he nor his superior officer had the faint
est idea OF the subterranean machina-
lions carried on in their own depart
ment. He begged his auditors to be-
heve that the sovereign and the Russian
people were all equally in need of de-
li~verance from the hordes Of minor
bureaucrats who have had a police spy
education and whose political tenets
lead straight to organized homicide. He
was thought to intimate, however, that
while the bureaucratic c%ontrivers of the
butchery at Bielostok had acted against
the known wish of the Ministry of the
Interior, they may have been secretly
co%untenanced by some conspicuous pri-
vate adviser of the sovereign. Some Of
his hearers believed General TREPoFF
to be aimed at. 1t is a sinister fact that
the man deemed capable of such villainy
Is supposed to have been singled out
tor the head Of a reactionary Ministry
should the Car bring himself to ap-
Sufnt me-.
II locke IS if it would 1901 be too late
for the st. Petersburg Government to
try violent repression. The members Of
the Duma, it is understood, are resolved
TO submit neither to dissolution nor even
to propagation, and have pledged them
selves that in the event Of their expul-
sion by force from the Tauride Palace
they will meet neutrality-suspicious. in
Finland. The whole responsibility for
the bloody civil war which will then be
inevitable will rest upon the Gar. and
the mujiks will hold him personally
chargeable with the collapse or post
ponement Of the Dumas plans for the
permanent Satisfaction Of their land