At
last, after much waiting, the political aspirations of the educated
classes were partially realized, so that Russia has now a Chamber of
Deputies, called the Imperial Duma, freely elected by the people, and an
upper house, called the Imperial Council, whose members are selected
partly by election and partly by nomination.
What strikes a stranger on first entering the Duma is the variety of
costumes, showing plainly that all classes of the population are
represented. There are landed proprietors not unlike English country
squires; long-haired priests in ecclesiastical robes; workingmen from
the factories and peasants from the villages in their Sunday clothes;
one or two Cossacks in uniform; Mussulmans from the Eastern provinces in
semi-Oriental attire. The various nationalities seem to live happily
together--Great Russians, Little Russians, Poles, Lithuanians,
Russo-Germans, Circassians, Tartars, &c. Almost as numerous as the
nationalities are the recognized political parties--Conservatives,
Nationalists, Liberals, Radicals, Labor Members, Social Democrats, and
Socialists. Great liberty of speech is allowed, but the President has
generally no difficulty in keeping order.
Thus, to all appearance, the Duma seems exactly what was required to
complete the edifice of self-government founded fifty years ago; but we
must not suppose that a Constitution not yet ten years old can be as
strong and efficient as a Constitution which has gradually emerged from
centuries of political struggle.
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