The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-11-07
Europe Will Be Returned to State of Despotism Be
 nevolent of Malevolent
PERSONAL LIBERTY
 HAS BEEN CRUSHED
This Is One of Requirements of Sue cess in War-COnStituti0na Devel- opment Dealt Harder Blow Than
 Has Been Received in Century
By RAYMOND WORKMAN

Petrograd October 14.-(Special Corre- spondence.) )-War will demolish triumph ant democracy and return Europe to a stage of despotism, benevolent or malevo- lent. Democracy in the old sense of Individual liberty will perish. So says M. Tchernayeff, a prominent member of the Russian assembly, the "Russkoe Sobran- ye,' a reactionary organization, which with the late Gringmuth, editor of the Moscow ''Viedomosti" at it's head, long ran Russia against democratizing innu- ences.
 Tchernayeff said this in speech at Moscow. His immediate aim was to at tack the liberal "Intelligentsiya," which Is trying to make capital out of the Ga- iicia defeats in order to get a cabinet of ministers responsible to the Duma in- stead of the present cabinet, which is responsible only to the Czar. Tchernay- eff was attacked for this, but he is ex- pressing a truth. All over Europe since the war began, in the belligerent states tndivdualism is decaying; there is sharp CT empha sis on the duty of the individual Co serve the state; a shaper control over Individual actions, and increasing aban- donment of the old guarantees of personal
 
 ing for liberty. But real liberty cannot come from either sides success; because success is only to be had by suppressing liberty. It looks as if the side which SUD- presses liberty most thoroughly, which most unshrinkingly organizes despotism is the side that will win.
 This tendency will survive the war. The victory in the war of organized despotism will be taken as proof of the merits of despotism. Despotism will be needed to provide against the beaten enemys plans of vengeance; the beaten side will learn that to get vengeance it needs more des- potism and subordination. In all the bel ligerent states people will be closer mould ed to the state The neutral state will join in. Already in order to defend their Neutrality they have had to mobilize; to nggravate conscrlption; to establish a cen- eorship over correspondence by mail and telegraph; to issue import and export prohibitions; and to practice on a small scale all the restrictive, despotic meas ures which the belligerents practice on a great scale. This will make for re- striction of individual liberty. When the war is over the neutral states in prep aration for defense of their neutrality in the next war will continue to restrict liberty. So, everywhere in Europe, lib- erty will be rarer. Instead, there will be unshrinking compulson, universal organ ization of citizens; insistence on the cit fzens duty to give his life and his prop erty to the state; to suppress his whims, sport, leisure, idiosyncrasies and all other things which interfere with his duty to serve and buttress the all-exacting state.
 Blow to Constitution
 Herr Weber, the Dresden publicist says that the war has dealt a bigger blow to constitutional development than all the reactions and repressions of the past century. In Austria Hun rar yprr m hal 1f-da constitutions are being crystalliZed by war into permanence. In Germany and Austria, before the war, there were cabinets of ministers which were re- gponsible to the sovereigns and not to the Reichstag or Reichsrat. The left parties were trying, to remedy this. The socialists and the left-liberals, or freisinn, wanted parliamentary cab tnets responsible to the legislatures. such as exist in England and France. In Austria the confusion of political life under the old system was so great that Kaiser Francis Joseph consented to the formation of a parliamentary cabinet, Five years ago Premier Baron Won Beck tried the experiment. It failed because nationality and not party Is the chief dividing line, in Austria's Reischsrat. The war has done away with the hope that Austria, within the coming generation, will see a cabinet Responsible to the Reichsrat
 In Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm and his advisers were against cabinets respon sible to Parliament. This is true also of Prussia and of all the non- Prus- sian states except Bavaria, where quasi parliamentary cabinet was founded three years ago under Baron yon Hertlng. The last demand for reform was made after the general election of January. 1912. Chancellor Bethmann- Hollweg refused to concede a cabinet responsible to the Reichstag. He said that characterization had gone far enough and pointed to France and England as example of the un- suitability to Germany of their system. The German system was based on the necessity for a strong central power, necessary for d country like Germany which has powerful foes to the east and the west. A cabinet fluctuating with the Fluctuations of Germany's five parties would not be strong. Instead -