BEVENTA SERIES
VOLUME XXXII.

No. 3240 August 11, 1906.

{FROM BEONLX.

Vol.

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.

IV.

CONTENTS. 1. The First Month of the Duma, By Professor Paul Vinogradoff

INDEPENDENT REVIEW 323 II. • Soft Siena" and Her Children. By Rose M. Bradley

NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER 332 111. Wild Wheat. Chapter XVII. Through an Attic Window. By M. E. Francis (To be continued.)

LONGMAN'S MAGAZINE 342 The Vegetarian Guest. By Alfred Fellovo8 .

MACMILJAN'S MAGAZINE 346 V. The Fairway. By Nliver Onions BLACKWOOD's MAGAZINE 853 VI. Religious Education in Public Schools. By Arthur C. Benson

NATIONAL REVIEW 366 The Warwick Pageant. By Harold Spender

SPEAKER 373 VIII. The Dominion's Fortieth Birthday

OUTLOOK 375 IX.

ACADEMY 377 The Dread of Boredom

SPECTATOR 381

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VII.

The Poetry of Modern Pantheism. By Professor Edward Wright

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THE FIRST MONTH OF THE DUMA.

There has hardly ever been in history cumstances, the doings of the new a task equal in magnitude and diffi- Representative Assembly should not culty to that which has been placed display, by the side of noble aspirabefore the first Russian Parliament. In tions and regenerating ideas, the feathe religious and political struggles of tures of violence and passion, the oneseventeenth-century England, the fab- sided judgment and lack of equilibric of society remained solid on the rium, so characteristic of revolutionary whole; tendencies like those of the Lev- epochs. ellers and of the Fifth Monarchy Men Every revolutionary assembly is, in a were not widespread, and not difficult sense, the direct offspring of the reto restrain. The leaders of the Puritan gime which it is called to overthrow: Government came mostly from the it is generally led by the law of conranks of the same middle class which trast to assume the counterpart of what subsequently carried out the Restora- has been held before, and, for this very tion; and the fierce civil war, which at reason, acts on the same plane with one time seemed to endanger the very its most deadly foe. Oppression existence of the country, resolved itself engenders violence, centralism-disinto a compromise under the guidance ruptive tendencies, privilege-levelling of a parliamentary oligarchy. The schemes, militarism-pacificism. This French Revolution produced a deeper spirit of contradiction does not conupheaval of the social order, and broke duce to high statesmanship; but it more thoroughly with historical tradi- is not such statesmanship that seems tions; but it never put national unity in wanted in the beginnings of a revoluquestion, and redeemed its most terri- tion, but the action of elementary ble features by an exaltation of patri- forces.

Only when those have spent otism which held Europe at bay, and themselves to a certain extent, the conreconciled to New France many of its scious, scheming agencies of political staunchest opponents. The Russian forethought begin to assert their right. revolutionary movement is aimed, not Quite apart from the complexity of only at a complete reversal of a rotten the thousand and one questions accupolitical system, but also at a renewal mulated before the Duma, from the imof society itself by the most sweeping patient cravings of classes and groups reforms of modern times. And, at the pressing for recognition and satisfacsame time as the efforts of popular tion at the same time, there is the ini. representation are concentrated in St. tial difficulty of dealing with an imPetersburg in a death struggle with possible and yet legally powerful GovMinisterial bureaucracy, all the con- ernment. A new authority has to be quests and acquisitions achieved by created at all costs in the place of the Russia in the course of three hundred old bankrupt one, which nevertheless years are challenged by the minor na- holds the field in a formal and matetionalities subdued, but not reconciled,

And this task has to be efto Russian rule. And the predominant fected by means, not of a civil war, if people itself seems to have entirely lost possible, but of parliamentary action. all sense of national personality, and Georg Brandes declared once that the all wish to assert its claims. It would Russian crest-the double-headed eagle be strange indeed if, under these cir- --reminded him of one of those double

headed monsters wbich, according to them one has to look to the Council of the newspapers, are sometimes brought the Empire, where some stalwarts of into the world. The irreverent com- this stamp are still to be observed. Not parison turns out to be a prediction. long ago it was believed that the maIn its present political condition, the jority of the peasants would send Russian Empire has certainly two staunch defenders of autocracy, orthobeads and two brains; and the result doxy, and exclusive nationalism, to the of this monstrous duplication is the Lower House; but if such elements exparalysis of the whole system.

ist among the more backward of the Before reviewing the chief acts of peasants and clergymen, they have not the Duma during the first month of its mustered strength to show color. existence, let us glance at its leading An even more remarkable spectacle groups and parties, and try to realize is presented by a group which at one some of their psychical peculiarities. moment seemed likely to become the In a sense, the Duma consists, not of ruling party in the country-the Octoseveral parties, but of one. There is brists. By their condemnation of revhardly any other House of Representa- olutionary agitation, and their advocacy tives which has put on record so many of moderate reforms, they seemed on unanimous votes. Men coming from the way to attract most of those who the most different corners of an im- have much to lose by any revolution, mense Empire, men who have nothing even the most unavoidable onethe in common as to social standing, educa- propertied and commercial classes, the tion, manners, men who can hardly well-to-do among the peasants. By understand each other's speech, have their appeal to historical traditions, again and again joined in almost unan- they struck a note which ought to have imous resolutions when they were

found an echo in the hearts of patriotic asked to condemn the policy of the Russians. As a matter of fact, they Government. The faint disagreement succeeded in bringing into the House of some seven or ten out of a House only a score of men; and even this of four hundred, on some of these oc- small number melted considerably in casions, only served to put more em- the heat of the first debates. We need phasis on the overwhelming predomi- not dwell at length on the causes of nance of the spirit of opposition. The this defeat. Only one, the chief one, Duma is at one as an Opposition group; has to be noticed, as it is characteristic and discord begins only when it is not of the attitude of their remnant in the faced by a Government which seems Duma. A party of moderate reform to possess a magical power of remov- and national tradition cannot do withing all dissensions from its midst. out a substantial national authority of And yet, while the country was still some kind.

If it is driven to opin the preparatory stage of elections, pose and condemn all the acts and there was an abundant crop of com- officials of the monarc it wants to binations calling themselves parties: support, it is left with nothing but one could easily reckon up some nine- a shadow to defend. Indeed, with teen or twenty of these. Where are the best of intentions, the Octobrists they now? Most have burst like soap have not done much more hitherto in bubbles; and even those few that sur- the Duma than to cavil at some of the vive have generally shrunk to a very expressions used by their more fortusmall compass.

The Extreme Right, nate competitors in their denunciations the Reactionaries, are not to be found of the old régime of bureaucracy. Nor in the Duma. In order to discover is it less significant that the party has