OCR Text |
Show WITTE FREES HIS COUNTRY i Events have moved faster In Russia than any lover of liberty had dared to hope. The Zemstos called last year as mere men-ln-w altlng to the c'zar, are now securely Installed as national law-givers, the el u mas that met In fear and trembling, are In control of the cities. It is an enormous change; It Is revolutionary; it alters the whole spirit of Russian Institutions M. Witte Is the. man who has brought about this magical change Two years ago he was deposed by the military party retired as an enemy of order, almost banished. But when there was an opportunity to strike for peace, he was the one Russian who was felt to be equal to the task of securing se-curing it He did secure it, and returned to Russia with his prestige enormously enhanced by the astonishingly astonish-ingly easy termH he had secured. But the internal disorders of the empire em-pire were not healed. The people were Still cruelly oppressed, their rights ruthlessly trampled upon. They had no privilege of privacy even In their own dwellings, police visitations visita-tions kept tho people repressed; the administrative officials put the poo-pie poo-pie In jail or banished them, and not the courts. ,nd when laborers were outraged and refused to work, they were driven to their tasks at the polnt of the bayonet. Then came a general strike and revolt re-volt The wheels of transportation and of Industry were stopped throughout through-out the empire. M Wlttp was appealed ap-pealed to by the Czar, but ho WOUld not assume office unless he uas given the power to remodel the administration The ("zar founhf for h1 BUtOt r i c v. bill Wltte ns unvleidlng at St Petersburg as he had heen at Portsmouth, Ports-mouth, and got his way. This Includes a represtntatlve Congress, with actual legislative power It Is as great B popular triumph as was magna chattB in England, but whereas many nobles had part In that, the great charter of Russia Is due to but one M Wltte. |