The Irish standard., 1917-11-10

cree of 1861 is we'll set forth in the
peasants own words, eve are yours,
but the land is ours.'
Since the Japanese war reform in
Russia has chiefly taken the direction
of parliamentary institutions. Russia
has now Chamber of Deputies called
the Duma, freely elected by the people,
and an upper house called the I'm.
perial Council, whose members are Sc
lected partly by election and partly by
nomination.
The Russian Duma, which CORE
spends to the American House of Rep
resentatives or the British House of
Commons, is most picturesque con-
clave of the peoples representatives.
Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, writ
ing of it in his most recently pub
lished work on Russia, Our Russian
Ally" says. There are among it's
members landed proprietors not I'M
like English country squires; long,
haired priests in ecclesiastical robes;
working men from the factories and
peasants from the villages in their
Sunday clothes; one or. two Cossacks
in uniform and Mussulmans from the
eastern provinces in semi-oriental at
tire"
And what a racial representation in
that Duma gathering! Great Rus
SLAMS, Little Russians, Lithuanians,
ussoGermans, Caucassians, Tartars
and, until recently, Poles. Politically
these representatives are divided into
conservatives, nationalists, liberals,
radicals, labor members, social demo-
Gratis and socialists.
The smallest legislative unit in Rus
STA is the mir. It corresponds some
what to the town council of American
colonial days. The meetings are held
in the open air and the assembly dis
cusses matters that pertain to the
communal welfare. Indeed, its COM
petence is very wide. Then comes the
zebstro, which as local administra-
ton supplements the action of the
rural communes and takes cognizance
of those higher public wants which
individual communes cannot possibly
satisfy. The zemstro is established in
"a provinces. Out of the total revenue
the zemstro spends about % per cent
under the heading Of public health
and benevolent institutions, and about
Is per cent for popular education,
while it devotes only about per cent
to roads and bridges. 1t is not to be
wondered at that the roads in Russia
are bad-very bad!
Russia is essentially an agricultural
country. In no other part of Europe
do so many of the people live upon
the soil as in Russia. Two other Euro
pean countries largely devoted to agri-
culture are Bavaria and Ireland. In
Ireland 70 per cent of the population
are engaged in agriculture, in Russia
80 per cent. OF the land in Russia
"a per cent of it belongs to the state,
80 per cent to the peasantry, 21 per
per cent to private owners-Church
and towns-and the remaining per
cent is unfit for cultivation.
BY the way it should be added here
that in Russia both the family and
commune are protected against the
legal consequences of insolvency, as
the family cannot be deprived of it's
house or necessary agricultural imple-
ments, nor the commune of it's land,
by unfortunate creditors.
1t is needless to say that the Church
plays an important part in the life of
the Russian people. About S7,000,O00
of the Russian people belong to the
orthodox Graeco-Russian Church, 49,,
100000 to the Roman Catholic, $780,
900 to the Lutheran, while there are
about 100000 Jews and 100000
Mohammedans. The Russian Greek
Church has it's own independent
synod, but maintains the relation of
a sister church with the four orthodox
patriarchates of Constantinople, Alex
andria, Antioch and Jerusalem. The
Holy Synod, the board of-government
of the Russian Church, was estab-
lished by Peter the Great in 1921. 1t
is composed of the Metropolitans of
st. Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev, the
archbishop of Georgia (Caucasus) and
several bishops sitting in turn. The
affairs Of the Catholic Church are en-
trusted to collegium. There are two
Roman Catholic Archbishops, their
sees being at Warsaw and Mohiley,
and each has six suffragan bishops.
Many efforts have been put forth to
unite the eastern and western church
es-the Greek and Latin churches, but
without any permanent success. 1t
will be remembered that one of the
chief defects in converting the Coun-
Gil of Lyons in 1874 was to effect this
union. Again in 1439 at the Council
of Florence it was thought the schism
was finally healed, but the work was
undone soon after the Greek repre-
sentatives had returned to their
homes.
On the educational side, while Rus
STA is far behind nearly all the other
European countries as regards the ed
ucation of the masses, it must be con-
fessed that she has made great strides
in this direction during the past TWEEN
ty-five years, nor is her superior edu-