But the House of Aviz, like the legitimate line of Affonso Henriques, dwindled into debility. It flickered out in Dom Sebastian, who dragged his country into a mad invasion of Morocco and vanished from human ken on the disastrous battlefield of Alcazar-Khebir. Then, for sixty years, not by conquest, but by intrigue, Portugal passed under the sway of Spain, and lost to the enemies of Spain—that is to say, to England and Holland—a large part of her colonial empire. At last, in 1640, a well-planned and daring revolution expelled the Spanish intruders, and placed on the throne John, Duke of Braganza. As the house of Aviz was an illegitimate branch of the stock of Affonso Henriques, so the Braganzas were an illegitimate branch of the House of Aviz, with none of the Plantagenet blood in them. Only one prince of the line, Pedro II., can be said to have attained anything like greatness. Another, Joseph, had the sense to give a free hand to an able, if despotic, minister, the Marquis of Pombal. But, on the whole, the history of the Braganza rule was one of steady decadence, until the second half of the nineteenth century found the country one of the most backward in Europe.

Nor was there any comfort to be found in the economic aspect of the case. A country of glorious fertility and ideal climatic conditions, inhabited by an industrious peasantry, Portugal was nevertheless so poor that much of its remaining strength was year by year being drained away by emigration. The public debt was almost as heavy per head of population as that of England. Taxation was crushing. The barest necessaries of life were subject to heavy imposts. Protection protected, not industries, but monopolies and vested interests.

In short, the material condition of the country was as distressing as its spiritual state to any one with the smallest sense of enlightened patriotism.

King Charles I.—name of evil omen!—ascended the throne in 1889. His situation was not wholly unlike that of the English Charles I., inasmuch as—though he had not the insight to perceive it—his lot was cast in times when Portugal was outgrowing the traditions and methods of his family. Representative government, as it had shaped itself since 1852, was a fraud and a farce. To every municipality a Government administrator was attached (at an annual cost to the country of something like L70,000), whose business it was to "work" the elections in concert with the local caciques or bosses. Thus, except in the great towns, the Government candidate was always returned. The efficacy of the system may be judged from the fact that in a country which was at heart Republican, as events have amply shown, the Republican party never had more than fourteen representatives in a chamber of about 150. For the rest, the Monarchical parties, "Regeneradores" and "Progresistas," arranged between them a fair partition of the loaves and fishes. This "rotative" system, as it is called, is in effect that which prevails, or has prevailed, in Spain; but it was perfected in Portugal by a device which enabled Ministers, in stepping out of office under the crown, to step into well-paid posts in financial institutions, more or less associated with the State. Anything like real progress was manifestly impossible under so rotten a system; and with this system the Monarchy was identified.

Then came the scandal of the adeantamentos, or illegal advances made to the King, beyond the sums voted in the civil list. It is only fair to remember that the king of a poor country is nowadays in a very uncomfortable position, more especially if the poor country has once been immensely rich. The expenses of royalty, like those of all other professions, have enormously increased of late years; and a petty king who is to rub shoulders with emperors is very much in the position of a man with L2,000 a year in a club of millionaires. He has always the resource, no doubt, of declining the society of emperors, and even fixing his domestic budget more in accord with present exigencies than with the sumptuous traditions, the palaces and pleasure-houses, of his millionaire predecessors. It is said of Pedro II. that "he had the wisdom and self-restraint not to increase the taxes, preferring to reduce the expenses of his household to the lowest possible amount." But Dom Carlos was not a man of this kidney. Easy-going and self-indulgent, he had no notion of appearing in forma pauperis among the royalties of Europe, or sacrificing his pleasures to the needs of his country. Even his father, Dom Luis, and his uncle, Dom Pedro, had not lived within their income; and expenses had gone up since their times. The king's income, under the civil list, was a "conto of reis" a day, or something over L80,000 a year. Additional allowances to other members of the royal family amounted to about half as much again; and there was, I believe, an allowance for the upkeep of palaces. One would suppose that a reasonably frugal royal family, with no house-rent to pay, could subsist in tolerable comfort on some L2,250 a week; but as a matter of fact, Dom Carlos made large additional drafts on the treasury, which servile ministries honored without protest. He had expensive fantasies, which he was not in the habit of stinting. The total of his "anticipations" I do not know, but it is estimated in millions of pounds.

These eccentricities, combined with other abuses of finance and administration, rendered even the cacique-chosen Cortes unruly, and our Charles I. looked about for a Strafford who should apply a "thorough" remedy to what he called the parliamentary gachis. He found his man in Joao Franco. This somewhat enigmatic personage can not as yet be estimated with any impartiality. No one accuses him of personal corruption or of sordidly interested motives. His great private wealth enabled him the other day to find bail, at a moment's notice, to the amount of L40,000. On the other hand, his enemies diagnose him after the manner of Lombroso, and find him to be a degenerate and an epileptic, ungovernably irritable, vain, mendacious, arrogant, sometimes quite irresponsible for his actions. A really strong man he can scarcely be; scarcely a man of true political insight, else he would not have tried to play the despot with no plausible ideal to allege in defense of his usurpation. Be that as it may, he agreed with the King that it was impossible to carry on the work of government with a fractious Cortes in session, and that the only way to keep things going was to try the experiment of a dictatorship. Dom Carlos, in his genial fashion, overcame by help of an anecdote any doubt his minister may have felt. "When the affairs of Frederick the Great were at a low ebb," said the King, "he one day, on the eve of a decisive battle, caught a grenadier in the act of making off from the camp. 'What are you about?' asked Frederick. 'Your Majesty, I am deserting,' stammered the soldier. 'Wait till to-morrow,' replied Frederick calmly, 'and if the battle goes against us, we will desert together.'" Thus lightly was the adventure plotted; and, in fact, the minister did not desert until the King lay dead upon the field of battle.

Franco dissolved the Cortes, and on May 10, 1907, published a decree declaring the "administration to be a dictatorship." The Press was strictly gagged, and all the traditional weapons of despotism were polished up. In June, the dictator went to Oporto to defend his policy at a public banquet, and on his return a popular tumult took place in the Rocio, the central square of Lisbon, which was repressed with serious bloodshed. This was made the excuse for still more galling restrictions on personal and intellectual liberty, until it was hard to distinguish between "administrative dictatorship" and autocracy. As regards the adeantamentos, Franco's declared policy was to make a clean slate of the past, and, for the future, to augment the civil list. In the autumn of that year, a very able Spanish journalist and deputy, Senor Luis Morote, visited most of the leading men in Portugal, and found among the Republicans an absolute and serene confidence that the Monarchy was in its last ditch and that a Republic was inevitable. Seldom have political prophecies been more completely fulfilled than those which Morote then recorded in the Heraldo of Madrid. Said Bernardino Machado:

"The Republic is the fatherland organized for its prosperity.... I believe in the moral forces of Portugal, which are carrying us directly toward the new order of things.... We shall triumph because the right is on our side, and the moral idealism; peacefully if we can, and I think it pretty sure that we can, since no public force can stop a nation on the march."

Said Guerra Junqueiro, the leading poet of the day: "Within two years there will be no Braganzas or there will be no Portugal....The revolution, when it comes, will be a question of hours, and it will be almost bloodless."

I could cite many other deliverances to the same effect, but one must suffice. Theophilo Braga, the "grand old man" of Portugal, said: "To stimulate the faith, conscience, will, and revolutionary energies of the country, I have imposed on myself a plan of work, and a mandate not to die until I see it accomplished."

The Paris Temps of November 14, 1907, published an interview with Dom Carlos which embittered feeling and alienated many of his supporters. "Everything is quiet in Lisbon," declared the King, echoing another historic phase: "Only the politicasters are agitating themselves.... It was necessary that the gachis—there is no other word for it—should one day come to an end.... I required an undaunted will which should be equal to the task of carrying my ideas to a happy conclusion.... I am entirely satisfied with M. Franco. Ca marche. And it will continue; it must continue for the good of the country.... In no country can you make a revolution without the army. Well, the Portuguese Army is faithful to its King, and I shall always have it at my side.... I have no shadow of doubt of its fidelity." Poor Charles the First!

At the end of January, 1908, a revolutionary plot was discovered, and was put down with severity. After signing some decrees to that end, at one of his palaces beyond the Tagus, the King, with his whole family, returned to Lisbon and the party drove in open carriages from the wharf toward the Necessidades Palace. In the crowd at the corner of the great riverside square, the Praca do Comercio, stood two men named Buica and Costa, with carbines concealed under their cloaks. They shot dead the King and the Crown Prince, and slightly wounded Dom Manuel. Both the assassins were killed on the spot.

It is said that there was no plot, and that these men acted entirely on their own initiative and responsibility. At any rate, none of the Republican leaders was in any way implicated in the affair. But on All Saints' day of 1910, Buica's grave shared to the full in the rain of wreaths poured upon the tombs of the martyrs of the new Republic; and relics of the regicides hold an honored place in the historical museum which commemorates the revolution.

Franco vanished into space, and Dom Manuel, aged nineteen, ascended the throne. Had he possessed strong intelligence and character, or had he fallen into the hands of really able advisers, it is possible that the revulsion of feeling following on so grim a tragedy might have indefinitely prolonged the life of the Monarchy. But his mother was a Bourbon, and what more need be said? The opinion in Lisbon, at any rate, was that "under Dom Carlos the Jesuits entered the palace by the back door, under Dom Manuel by the front door." The Republican agitation in public, the revolutionary organization in secret, soon recommenced with renewed vigor; and the discovery of new scandals in connection with the tobacco monopoly and a financial institution, known as the "Credito Predial," added fuel to the fire of indignation. The Government, or rather a succession of Governments, were perfectly aware that the foundations of the Monarchy were undermined; but they seemed to be paralyzed by a sort of fatalistic despair. They persecuted, indeed, just enough to make themselves doubly odious; but they always laid hands on people who, if not quite innocent, were subordinate and uninfluential. Not one of the real leaders of the revolution was arrested.

The thoroughness with which the Republican party was organized says much for the practical ability of its leaders. The moving spirits in the central committee were Vice-Admiral Candido dos Reis, Affonso Costa (now Minister of Justice), Joao Chagas, and Dr. Miguel Bombarda. Simoes Raposo spoke in the name of the Freemasons; the Carbonaria Portugueza, a powerful secret society, was represented by Machado dos Santos, an officer in the navy. There was a separate finance committee, and funds were ample. The arms bought were mostly Browning pistols, which were smuggled over the Spanish frontier by Republican railway conductors. Bombs also were prepared in large numbers, not for purposes of assassination, but for use in open warfare, especially against cavalry. Meanwhile an untiring secret propaganda was going on in the army, in the navy, and among the peasantry. Almost every seaman in the navy, and in many regiments almost all the non-commissioned officers and men, were revolutionaries; while commissioned officers by the score were won over. It is marvelous that so wide-spread a propaganda was only vaguely known to the Government, and did not beget a crowd of informers. One man, it is true, who showed a disposition to use his secret knowledge for purposes of blackmail, was found dead in the streets of Cascaes. On the whole, not only secrecy but discipline was marvelously maintained.

At last the propitious moment arrived. Three ships of war—the Dom Carlos, the Adamastor, and the San Raphael—were in the Tagus to do honor to the President-elect of Brazil, who was visiting King Manuel; but the Government knew that their presence was dangerous, and would certainly order them off again as soon as possible. The blow must be struck before that occurred. At a meeting of the committee on October 2, 1910, it was agreed that the signal should be given in the early morning of October 4th. All the parts were cast, all the duties were assigned: who should call this and that barrack to arms, who should cut this and that railway line, who should take possession of the central telegraph-office, and so forth. The whole scheme was laid down in detail in a precious paper, in the keeping of Simoes Raposo. "You had better give it to me," said Dr. Bombarda, "for I am less likely than you to be arrested. Even if they should think of searching at Rilhafolles [the asylum of which he was director], I can easily hide it in one of the books of my library." His suggestion was accepted, the paper on which their lives and that of the Republic depended was handed to him, and the meeting broke up.

On the morning of Monday, October 3d, all was as quiet in Lisbon as King Carlos himself could have desired. At about eleven o'clock Dr. Bombarda sat in his office at the asylum, when a former patient, a young lieutenant who had suffered from the persecution mania, was announced to see him. Bombarda rose and asked him how he was. Without a word the visitor produced a Browning pistol and fired point blank at the physician, putting three bullets in his body. Bombarda had strength enough to seize his assailant by the wrists and hand him over to the attendants who rushed in. He then walked down-stairs unaided before he realized how serious were his wounds. It soon appeared, however, that he had not many hours to live; and when this became clear to him, he took a paper from his pocketbook and insisted that it should be burned before his eyes. What the paper was I need not say. At about six in the evening he died.

Bombarda was a passionate anticlerical, and his murderer was a fanatical Catholic. The citizens, with whom he was very popular, jumped at the conclusion that the priests had inspired the deed. As soon as his death was announced in the transparency outside the office of O Seculo, there were demonstrations of anger among the crowd and some conflicts with the police.

Meanwhile the Revolutionary Committee, to the number of fifty or thereabouts, were sitting in the Rua da Esperanca, discussing the question, "To be or not to be." The military members counseled delay, for the Government had ordered all officers to be at their quarters in the various barracks which are scattered over the city. The intention had been to choose a time when most of the officers were off duty and the men could mutiny at their ease; but this plan had for the moment been frustrated. The military view might have carried the day, but for the determination shown by Candido dos Reis, who pointed out that it would be madness to give the Government time to order the ships out of the Tagus. Finally, he turned to the military group, saying, "If you will not go out, I will go out alone with the sailors. I shall have the honor of getting myself shot by my comrades of the army." His insistence carried all before it, and it was decided that the signal should be given, as previously arranged, at one o'clock in the morning.

That evening, at the Palace of Belem, some two miles down the Tagus from the Necessidades Palace, Marshal Hermes da Fonseca, President-elect of Brazil, was entertaining King Manuel at a State dinner. There was an electrical sense of disquiet in the air. Several official guests were absent, and every few minutes there came telephone-calls for this or that minister or general, some of whom reappeared, while some did not. At last the tension got so much on the nerves of the young King that he scribbled on his menu-card a request that the banquet might be shortened; and, in fact, one or two courses were omitted. Then followed the dreary ritual of toasts; and at last, at half-past eleven, Dom Manuel parted from his host and set off in his automobile, escorted by a troop of cavalry. Two bands played the royal anthem. Had he known, poor youth, that he was never to hear it again, there might have been a crumb of consolation in the thought.

It would be impossible without a map to make clear the various phases of the Battle of Lisbon. Nor would there be any great interest in so doing. There was no particular strategy in the revolutionary plans, and what strategy there was fell to pieces at an early point. It is not clear that the signal was ever formally given, but about the appointed hour mutinies broke out in several barracks. In some cases the Royalist officers were put under arrest, in one case a colonel and two other officers were shot. A mixed company of soldiers and civilians, with ten or twelve guns, marched, as had been arranged, upon the Necessidades Palace, to demand the abdication of the King; but they were met on the heights behind the palace by a body of the "guardia municipal," and, after a sharp skirmish, were forced to retire, leaving three of their guns disabled behind them. They retreated to the general rallying-point of the Republican forces, the Rotunda, at the upper end of the mile-long Avenida da Liberdade. This avenue stands to the Rocio very much in the relation of Charing Cross Road to Trafalgar Square: there is a curve at their junction which prevents you from seeing—or shooting—from the one into the other. On reaching the Rotunda, the insurgents learned that the Rocio had been occupied by Royalist troops, from the Citadel of St. George and another barrack, with one or two machine guns, but no cannon.

There, then, the two forces lay, with a short mile of sloping ground between them, awaiting the dawn. Under cover of darkness, a body of mounted gendarmes attempted to charge the insurgent position, but they were repulsed by bombs.

Meanwhile, what had become of the naval cooperation, on which so much reliance had been placed? It had failed, through the tragic weakness of one man. Candido dos Reis is one of the canonized saints of the Republic; but I think it shows a good deal of generosity in the Portuguese character that the Devil's Advocate has not made himself heard in the case. Dos Reis had undertaken the command of the naval side of the revolt; but oddly enough, he seems to have arranged no method of conveyance to his post of duty. He found at the wharf a small steamer, the captain of which agreed to take him off to the ships; but there was some delay in getting up steam. During this pause, some one as yet unidentified, but evidently a friend of Dos Reis, rushed down to the wharf and shouted to him that the revolt was crushed and all was lost. Dos Reis, who had assumed his naval uniform on board the steamer, took it off again, and, in civilian attire, went ashore. He proceeded to his sister's house, where he spent an hour; then he sallied forth again, and was found next morning in a distant quarter of the city with a bullet through his brain.

There is no doubt that he committed suicide. The theory of foul play is quite abandoned. As it was he who had vetoed the proposed postponement of the rising, one can understand that the sense of responsibility lay heavy upon him; but that, without inquiry into the alleged disaster, without the smallest attempt to retrieve it, he should have left his comrades in the lurch and taken the easiest way of escape, is surely a proof of almost criminal instability. The Republic lost in him an ardent patriot, but scarcely a great leader.

The dawn of Tuesday, October 4th, showed the fortunes of the revolt at rather a low ebb. The land forces were dismayed by the inaction of the ships; the sailors imagined, from the non-appearance of their leader, that some disaster must have occurred on land. It was in these hours of despondency that the true heroes of the revolution showed their mettle.

In the bivouac at the Rotunda, as the morning wore on, the Republican officers declared that the game was up, and that there was nothing for it but to disperse and await the consequences. They themselves actually made off; and it was then that Machado dos Santos came to the front, taking command of the insurgent force and reviving their drooping spirits. The position was not really a strong one. For one thing, it is commanded by the heights of the Misericordia; and there was, in fact, some long-range firing between the insurgents and the Guardia Municipal stationed on that eminence. Again, the gentle slope of the Avenida, a hundred yards wide, is clothed by no fewer than ten rows of low trees, acacias, and the like, five rows on each side of the comparatively narrow roadway, which is blocked at the lower end by a massive monument to the liberators of 1640. Thus the insurgents could not see their adversaries even when they ventured out of their sheltered position in the Rocio; and the artillery fire from the Rotunda did much more damage to the hotels that flanked the narrow neck of the Avenida than to the Royalist forces. On the other hand, it would have been comparatively easy for the Royalists, with a little resolution, to have crept up the Avenida under cover of the trees, and driven the insurgents from their position. Fortunately for the revolt, there was a total lack of leadership on the Royalist side, excusable only on the ground that the officers could not rely on their men.

While things were at a deadlock on the Avenida, critical events were happening on the Tagus. On all three ships, the officers knew that the men were only awaiting a signal to mutiny; but the signal did not come. At this juncture, and while it seemed that the Republican cause was lost, a piece of heroic bluff on the part of a single officer saved the situation. Lieutenant Tito de Moraes put off in a small boat from the naval barracks at Alcantara, rowed to the San Raphael, boarded it, and calmly took possession of it in the name of the Republic! He gave the officers a written guaranty that they had yielded to superior force, and then sent them off under arrest to the naval barracks. He now asked for orders from the Revolutionary Committee; and early in the afternoon the San Raphael weighed anchor and moved down the river in the direction of the Necessidades Palace. In doing so she had to pass the most powerful ship of the squadron, the Dom Carlos: would she get past in safety? Yes; the Dom Carlos made no sign. The officers were almost all Royalists, but they knew they could do nothing with the crew. As a matter of fact when the crew ultimately mutinied, the captain and a lieutenant were severely wounded; but I can find no evidence for the picturesque legend of a group of officers making a last heroic stand on the quarter-deck, and ruthlessly mowed down by the insurgents' fire. It is certain, at any rate, that no lives were lost.

In the Palace, on its bluff above the river, King Manuel was practically alone. No minister, no general, was at his side. It is said, on what seems to be good authority, that when he saw the San Raphael moving down-stream under the Republican colors, he telephoned to the Prime Minister, Teixeira de Sousa, to ask whether there was not a British destroyer in the river that could be got to sink the mutinous vessel. Even if this scheme had been otherwise feasible, it would have demanded an effort of which the minister was no longer capable. At about two in the afternoon the San Raphael, cruising slowly up and down, opened fire upon the Palace, and her second shot brought down the royal standard from its roof. What could the poor boy do? To sit still and be blown to pieces would have been heroic, but useless. Had he had the stuff of a soldier in him, he might have made his way to the Rocio and tried to put some energy into the officers, some spirit into the troops. But he had no one to encourage and support him. Such counselors as he had were all for flight. He stepped into his motor-car, set off for Cintra and Mafra, and is henceforth out of the saga.

The flight of Dom Manuel meant the collapse of his cause. It is true that the Royalists were reenforced by certain detachments of troops who came in from the country, and, beaten off by the insurgents at the Rotunda, made their way to the Rocio by a circuitous route. The Guardia Municipal, too, were stanch, and showed fight at several points. It was the total lack of spirited leadership that left the insurgents masters of the field. Having done its work at the Necessidades, the San Raphael moved up stream again, and began dropping shells over the intervening parallelogram of the "Low City" into the crowded Rocio. They caused little loss of life, for they were skilfully timed to explode in air; the object being, not to massacre, but to dismay. There is nothing so trying to soldiers as to remain inactive under fire; and as there had never been much fight in the garrison of the Rocio, the little that was left speedily evaporated. At eleven in the morning of Wednesday, October 5th, the Republic was proclaimed from the balcony of the Town Hall, and before night fell all was once more quiet in Lisbon.

The first accounts of the fighting which appeared in the European Press were, as was only natural, greatly exaggerated. A careful enumeration places the number of the killed at sixty-one and of the wounded at 417. Some of the latter, indeed, died of their wounds, but the whole death-roll certainly did not exceed a hundred.

The Portuguese Monarchy was dead; and the causes of death, as disclosed by the autopsy, were moral bankruptcy and intellectual inanition. It could not point to a single service that it rendered to the country in return for the burdens it imposed. Some of its defenders professed to see in it a safeguard for the colonies, which would somehow fly off into space in the event of a revolution. As yet there are no signs of this prophecy coming true; but the prophets may cling, if they please, to the hope of its fulfilment. For the rest, it was perfectly clear that the monarchy had done nothing for the material or spiritual advancement of the country, which remained as poverty-stricken and as illiterate as it well could be. Dom Carlos had not even the common prudence to affect, if he did not feel, a sympathy with the nation's pride in its "heroes." The Monarchy could boast neither of good deeds nor of good intentions. Its cynicism was not tempered by intelligence. It drifted toward the abyss without making any reasonable effort to save itself; for the dictatorship was scarcely an effort of reason. "The dictatorship," said Bernardino Machado, the present Foreign Minister, "left us only one liberty—that of hatred." And again, "The monarchy had not even a party—it had only a clientele." That one word explains the disappearance of Royalism.

For it has simply disappeared. Even the Royalist Press is almost extinct. Some papers have ceased to appear, some have become Republican, the few who stick to their colors do so rather from clerical than from specifically Royalist conviction. All the leading papers of the country had long been Republican; and excellent papers they are. Both in appearance and in matter, O Mundo and A Lucta ("The Struggle") would do credit to the journalism of any country. In size, in excellence of production, and in the well-considered weight of their articles, they contrast strangely with the flimsy, ill-printed sheets that content the Spanish public.

The Provisional Government has been sneered at as a clique of "intellectuals"; but it is scarcely a reproach to the Republic that it should command the adhesion of the whole intelligence of the country. Nor is there any sign of lack of practical sense in the admirable organization which not only insured the success of the revolution (in spite of certain cross accidents) but secured its absolutely peaceful acceptance throughout the country. There are no doubt visionary and fantastic spirits in the Republican ranks, and ridiculous proposals have already been mooted. For instance, it has been gravely suggested that all streets bearing the names of saints—and there are hundreds of them—should be renamed in commemoration of Republican heroes, dates, exploits, etc. But the common sense of the people and Press is already on the alert, and such whimsies are being laughed out of court.

Of the Provisional Government I saw only the President and the Foreign Secretary. The President, an illustrious scholar, historian, and poet, is a delightful old man of the simplest, most unassuming manners, and eagerly communicative on the subjects which have been the study of his life. When I asked him to explain to me the difference of national character which made the Portuguese attitude toward the Church so different from the Spanish, he took me right back to the Ligurians—far out of my ethnological depth—and gave me a most interesting sketch of the development of the two nations. But when we came to topics of more immediate importance, he showed, if I may venture to say so, a clear practical sense, quite remote from visionary idealism. The Foreign Minister, Dr. Machado, is of more immediately impressive personality. Younger than the President by at least ten years, yet little short, I should guess, of sixty, he is extremely neat and dapper in person, while his very handsome face has a birdlike keenness and alertness of expression betokening not only great intelligence but high-strung vitality. He is a copious, eloquent, and witty talker, and his remarkable charm of manner accounts, in part at any rate, for his immense popularity. Assuredly no monarchy could have more distinguished representatives than this Republic.

The desire of the Republic to "play fair" was manifested in another little trait that interested me a good deal. In the window of every book-shop in Spain a translation from the Portuguese, entitled Los Escandalos de la Corte de Portugal, is prominently displayed. It is a ferocious lampoon upon the royal family and upon Franco; but in Lisbon I looked for it in vain. On inquiry I learned that it had been prohibited under the Monarchy, as it could not fail to be; but, had there been any demand for it, no doubt it might have been reprinted since the revolution. There was apparently no demand. The people to whom I spoke of it evidently regarded it as "hitting below the belt." "We do not fight with such weapons," said a leading journalist. In no one, in fact, did I discover the slightest desire or willingness to retail personal gossip with respect to the hated Braganzas.



THE CRUSHING OF FINLAND

A.D. 1910

JOHN JACKOL BARON VON PLEHVE BARON SERGIUS WITTE J.N. REUTER

In the midst of progress comes reaction. The far northern European country of Finland had for a century been progressing in advance of its neighbors. It was a true democracy. It had even established, first of European lands, the full suffrage for women; and numerous women sat in its parliament. But Finland was tributary to Russia; and Russia, as far back as 1898, began a deliberate policy of crushing Finland, "nationalizing" it, was the Russian phrase, by which was meant compelling it to abandon its independence, adopt the Russian language, and become an integral part of the empire under Russian officials and Russian autocracy.

Under pressure of this repressive policy, the Finns began leaving their country as early as 1903, emigrating to America in despair of successful resistance to Russia's tyranny. Many of them were exiled or imprisoned by the Czar's Government. Then came the days of the Russian Revolution; and the Czar and his advisers hurried to grant Finland everything she had desired, under fear that her people would swell the tide of revolution. But that danger once passed, the old policy of oppression was soon renewed, and was carried onward until in November of 1909 the Finnish Parliament was dismissed by imperial command. All through 1910 repressive laws were passed, reducing Finland step by step to a mere Russian province, so that before the close of that year the Finlanders themselves surrendered the struggle. One of their leaders wrote, "So ends Finland."

We give here first the despairing cry written in 1903 by a well-known Finn who fled to America. Then follows the official Russian statement by the "Minister of the Interior," Von Plehve, who held control of Finland in the early stages of the struggle, and was later slain by Russian revolutionists. Then we give the very different Russian view expressed by the great liberal Prime Minister, Baron Sergius Witte, who rescued Russia from her domestic disaster after the Japanese War. The story is then carried to its close by a well-known Finnish sympathizer.

JOHN JACKOL

"Russia is the rock against which the sigh for freedom breaks," said Kossuth, the great statesman and patriot of Hungary. Although fifty years have passed, and sigh after sigh has broken against it, the rock still stands like a colossal monument of bygone ages. It is pointing toward the northern star, as if to remind one of the all-enduring fixity. Other stars may go round as they will; there is one fixed in its place, and under that star the shadow of despotism hopes to endure forever.

While yet in Finland I used to fancy Russia as a giant devil-fish, whose arms extended from the Baltic to the Pacific, from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean. Then I would think of my native land as a beautiful mermaid, about whom the giant's cold, chilly arms were slowly creeping, and I feared that some day those arms would crush her. That day has come. The helpless mermaid lies prostrate in the clutch of the octopus. Not that the constitution of Finland has been annulled, as has been so often erroneously stated, and quite generally believed. The Russian Government has made only a few inroads upon it. The great grievance of the Finns is not with what has been absolutely done in opposition to their ancient rights and privileges, nor in the number of their rights which have in reality been curtailed, but with the fact that they have henceforth no security. The real grievance of the Finns is that the welfare of their country no longer rests upon an inviolable constitution, but upon the caprice of the ministers.

In 1898 the reactionists succeeded in getting one of their tools appointed as Governor-General. No sooner had General Bobrikoff taken his high office than he declared that the Finnish right to separate political existence was an illusion; that there was no substantial foundation for it in any of the acts or words of Alexander I. The people were amazed, appalled. But this was not all. Pobiedonostseff, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, and other men as reactionary as he, discovered the fact, or gave birth to the idea, that the fundamental rights of Finland could be interfered with if these fundamental rights interfered with the welfare of the Russian Empire. In other words, they discovered a loophole which they termed legal, on the principle that the parts should suffer for the whole, and that this principle was an integral part of the plan of Russian government.

The abrogation of maintenance of Finland's ancient rights would seem by this decision to rest on the arbitrary interpretation on the part of Russia as to whether or not they interfered with the welfare of the empire. It is possible that, according to the individual opinions of Russian autocrats, they might all interfere with the standard of welfare which certain individuals have arbitrarily established to fit the occasion.

In justice to the Russian Government it should be stated, however, that the joy of persecution was not the motive which led to the arbitrary acts. During the time that Finland was under Swedish control, the Finns had learned to dislike everything Russian. These anti-Russian tendencies were accentuated, after Finland became an appanage of the Russian crown, by the restrictive and often reactionary policy of the Imperial Government. Such a form of government was repugnant to the Finns, who had learned to be governed by good laws well administered, and by an enlightened public opinion. At the same time, owing to their larger liberties, their higher culture, and their susceptibility to western ideals, the Finns exerted an attractive influence over the peoples of the Baltic provinces, and even of Russia proper. A Finn would very seldom become Russianized, while many Russians became Finnicized. Unlike his Russian brother, the Finn enjoyed the privileges of free conscience, free speech, and free press.

To the average Russian such a life was enchanting, and many were so fascinated that they became citizens of Finland. In order to do so, however, they were obliged to go through the formality of changing their nationality and becoming subjects of the Grand Duchy. Doubtless this was distasteful to the Russians, but so many and so great were the advantages accruing from such a change that not a few renounced their nationality.

Such a state of affairs seemed unnatural and antagonistic to the propaganda of the Panslavistic party. Instead of Russian ideals pervading the province, provincial ideals, manners, and customs were gradually spreading into the empire. But there seemed to be no honorable way of checking the progress of the rapidly growing Finnish nationality. The Finns maintained that their rights and privileges and their laws rested upon an inviolable constitution, which could be changed only by a vote of the four estates of the Landtag. That body would never yield.

It was at this juncture that the Procurator of the Holy Synod conceived the idea that the fundamental rights of the Finns can be curtailed in so far as they interfere with those of the empire. Acting according to this new idea the Imperial Government in 1899 took for its pretext the army service of the Finns. Heretofore, according to a hereditary privilege, the Finns had not been called upon to serve in the Russian Army, and their army service had been only three years to the Russian's five. The officers of the Finnish Army were to be Finns, and this army could not be called upon to serve outside of the Grand Duchy. This was the first fundamental right of the Finns to be attacked by the Russian Government. In some mysterious way the very insignificant army of Finland "interfered with the general welfare of the Russian Empire."

Immediately following the Czar's startling proposal for a disarmament conference in 1899 came his call for a special session of the Finnish Landtag to extend the laws of conscription and the time of regular service from three to five years. Furthermore, the new law provided that instead of serving in their own country, the Finnish soldiers were to be scattered among the various troops of the empire. By this means it was hoped to Russianize them.

The representatives of the people had no time to consider the measure before the Czar's decree was issued, February 17, 1899, declaring that thenceforth the laws governing the Grand Duchy be made in the same manner as those of the empire.

It is not necessary to dwell upon the deep feeling of indignation and grief that pervaded the country. It has found a freer expression outside of the Grand Duchy than within its boundaries. Wherever the human heart is beating in sympathetic harmony with universal progress, the oppressed Finnish people have found moral support. In spite of this, one by one the Finns have been deprived of their hereditary rights and privileges. To the Finns this new order of things seems appalling. It is like the drawing of the veil of the dark ages over their beloved country. They have lost everything that is dear to the human heart: their language, their religion, and their independence. They can do nothing but mourn in silence and mortification, for a strict Russian censorship prevents the expression of their just indignation and grief.

The present condition of Finland is apathetic. Last fall the loss of crops was almost complete, and pestilence and famine are devastating the country, which has been drained of its vitality by an excessive migration and military conscription. The young men of Finland are forced to serve five years in the Russian Army, and the country is suffering from a lack of men to till the soil. The credit of the country has been mined, and panic is spreading rapidly. Wholesale migration of the more thrifty has made the already difficult problem of readjustment more complicated. Those who remain behind are literally suffering from physical, intellectual, and moral starvation. There is left nothing to refresh, fertilize, and energize the nation's vitality. The Finns are utterly helpless. In this sad extremity of their people the best men of Finland are exerting their utmost in the endeavor to alleviate suffering and infuse hope and inspiration among the masses. The young Finnish party has become exasperated by the humiliation that has been heaped upon the long-suffering people of their native land, and its leaders have advised active resistance. The old Finnish party has adopted the policy of passive resistance and protest. But the inroads upon the constitution of Finland, in the form of imperial decrees, rules, and regulations by the Governor-General and his subordinates, have been so many and so sweeping in their character that even the most conservative are beginning to lose patience. As long as the unconstitutional acts affected only the political life of the people, many were able to bear it, but when the new rules attacked the time-honored social institutions and customs, indignation could no longer be suppressed. For instance, the order to open private mail caused a general protest. The postal director and his secretary refused to sign the order and resigned. No less obnoxious was the order forbidding public meetings and directing the governors of the different provinces of Finland to appoint only such men to fill municipal rural offices as will be subservient to the Governor-General. The governor of the province of Ulrasborg resigned, while several other provinces were already governed by pliant tools of General Bobrikoff.

The long-suppressed anxiety of the people has changed into a heartrending sigh of anguish. These words of a national poet express the general sentiment, "Better far than servitude a death upon the gallows." A vicious circle has been established. The high-handed measures cause indignation, and the Governor-General is determined to suppress its expression. There is no safety in Finland for honest and patriotic men. The judiciary has been made subservient to General Bobrikoff. Latest advices are ominous. April 24, 1903, was a black day in the history of Finland. It witnessed the inauguration of a reign of terror which, by the ordinance of April 2d and the rescript of April 9th, General Bobrikoff had been authorized to establish.

Bobrikoff returned to Finland with authority, if necessary, to close hotels, stores, and factories, to forbid general meetings, to dissolve clubs and societies, and to banish without legal process any one whose presence in the country he considered objectionable.

For 700 years Finns have been free men; now they have become Russian serfs, and it is well to make closer connections between the Finnish railway system and the trans-Siberian road. Finns are long-suffering and patient, but who could endure all this?

While the expression of indignation is suppressed in Finland, outside of the Grand Duchy, especially in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Russia's relentless tyranny has made the highest officers of state as resentful as the man in the street. Indeed entire Scandinavia is aflame with indignation and apprehension. The leading journals are warning Scandinavians "that the fate of Finland implies other tragedies of similar character, unless Pan-Scandinavia becomes something more than a political dream."

VON PLEHVE[1]

[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission from the American Review of Reviews.]

In criticizing Russian policy in Finland a distinction should be made between its fundamental principles—i.e., the ends which it is meant to attain, and its outward expression, which depends upon circumstances.

The former,—i.e., the aims and principles, remain unalterable; the latter,—i.e., the way in which this policy finds expression—is of an incidental and temporary character, and does not always depend on the Russian authority alone. This is what should be taken into consideration by Russia's western friends when estimating the value of the information which reaches them from Finland.

As to the program of the Russian Government in the Finland question, it is substantially as follows:

The fundamental problem of every supreme authority—the happiness and prosperity of the governed—can be solved only by the mutual cooperation of the government and the people. The requirements presented to the partners in this common task are, on the one hand, that the people should recognize the unity of state principle and policy and the binding character of its aims; and, on the other, that the Government should acknowledge the benefit accruing to the state from the public activity, along the lines of individual development, of its component elements.

Such are the grounds on which the government and the people should unite in the performance of their common task. The combination of imperial unity with local autonomy, of autocracy with self-government, forms the principle which must be taken into consideration in judging the action of the Russian Government in the Grand Duchy of Finland. The manifesto of February 3-15, 1899, is not a negation of such a peaceful cooperation, but a confirmation of the aforesaid leading principle of our Government in its full development. It decides that the issue of imperial laws, common both to Russia and Finland, must not depend altogether on the consent of the members of the Finland Diet, but is the prerogative of the Imperial Council of State, with the participation on such occasions of members of the Finland Senate. There is nothing in this manifesto to shake the belief of Russia's friends in the compatibility of the principles of autocracy with a large measure of local self-government and civic liberty. The development of the spiritual and material powers of the population by its gradual introduction to participation in the conscious public life of the state, as a healthy, conservative principle of government, has always entered into the plans of the sovereign leaders of the life of Russia as a state. These intentions were announced afresh from the throne by the manifesto of February 26, 1903. In our country this process takes place in accordance with the historical basis of the empire, with the national peculiarities of its population.

The result is that in Russia we have the organization of local institutions which give self-government in the narrow sense of the word—i.e., the right of the people to see to the satisfaction of their local economic needs. In Finland the idea of local autonomy was developed far earlier and in a far wider manner. Its present scope, which has grown and developed under Russian rule, embraces all sides, not only of the economic, but of the civil, life of the land. Russian autocracy has thus given irrefragable proof of its constructive powers in the sphere of civic development. The historian of the future will have to note its ethical importance in a far wider sphere as well: the greatest of social problems have found a peaceable solution in Russia, thanks to the conditions of its political organization.

For a full comprehension, however, of the manifesto of 1899, it must be regarded as one of the phases in the development of Finland's relations to Russia. It will then become evident that as a legacy of the past it is the outcome of the natural course of events which sooner or later must have led up to it. The initiation of Finland into the historical destinies of the Russian Empire was bound to lead to the rise of questions calling for a general solution common both to the empire and to Finland. Naturally, in view of the subordinate status of the latter, such questions could be solved only in the order appointed for imperial legislation. At the same time, neither the fundamental laws of the Swedish period of rule in Finland, which were completely incompatible with its new status, nor the Statutes of the Diet, introduced by Alexander II., and determining the order of issue of local laws, touched, or could touch, the question of the issue of general imperial laws. This question arose in the course of the legislative work on the systematization of the fundamental laws of Finland. This task, undertaken by order of the Emperor Alexander II. for the more precise determination of the status of Finland as an indivisible part of our state, was continued during the reign of his august successor, the Emperor Alexander III., and led to the question of determining the order of issue of general imperial laws. The rules drafted for this purpose in 1893 formed the contents of the manifesto of 1899. Thus we see that during six years they remained without application, there being no practical necessity for their publication. When, however, this necessity arose, owing to the lapse of the former military law, the manifesto was issued. It was, therefore, the finishing touch to the labor of many years at the determination of the manner in which the principle of a united empire was to find expression within the limits of Finland, and remained substantially true to the traditions which for a century had reigned in the relations between Russia and Finland. It presented a combination of the principle of autocracy with that of local self-government without any serious limitations of the rights of the latter. Moreover, while preserving the historical principle of Russian empire-building, this law determined the form of the expression of the autocratic power within the limits of the Grand Duchy in a manner so much in accord with the conditions of life in Finland that it did not touch the organization of a single one of the national local institutions of the duchy.

This law, in its application to the new conscription regulations, has alleviated the condition of the population of Finland. The military burden laid on the population of the land has been decreased from 2,000 men to 500 per annum, and latterly to 280. As you will see, there is in reality no opposition between the will of the Emperor of Russia as announced to Finland in 1899 and his generous initiative at The Hague Conference. But, you ask me, has not this confirmation of the ancient principles of Russian state policy in Finland been bought at too dear a price? I shall try to answer you. The hostility of public opinion toward us in the West in connection with Finnish matters is much to be regretted, but hopes may be entertained that under the influence of better information on Finnish affairs this hostility may lose its present bitterness. We are accustomed, moreover, to see that the West, while welcoming the progressive development of Russia along the old lines it, Europe, has followed itself, is not always as amicably disposed toward the growth of the political and social self-consciousness of Russia and toward the independent historical process taking place in her in the shape of the concentration of her forces for the fulfilment of her peaceful vocation in the history of the human race.

The attitude of the population of Finland toward Russia is not at all so inimical as would appear on reading the articles in the foreign press proceeding from the pen of hostile journalists. To the honor of the best elements of the Finnish population, it must be said that the degree of prosperity attained by Finland during the past century under the egis of the Russian throne is perfectly evident to them; they know that it is the Russian Government which has resuscitated the Finnish race, systematically crushed down as it had been in the days of Swedish power. The more prudent among the Finlanders realize that now, as before, the characteristic local organization of Finland remains unaltered, that the laws which guarantee the provincial autonomy of Finland are still preserved, and that now, as before, the institutions are active which satisfy its social and economic needs on independent lines.

They understand, likewise, the real causes of the increasing emigration from Finland. If, along with them, political agitation has also played a certain part, alarming the credulous peasantry with the specter of military service on the distant borders of Russia, yet their emigration was and remains an economic phenomenon. Having originated long before the issue of the manifesto of 1899, it kept increasing under the influence of bad harvests, industrial crises, and the demand for labor in foreign lands. Such is also the case in Norway, where the percentage of emigration is even greater than in Finland.

Having elucidated the substantially unalterable aims of Russian policy in Finland, let us proceed to the causes which have led to its present incidental and temporary form of expression. This, undoubtedly, is distinguished by its severity, but such are the requirements of an utilitarian policy. By the bye, the total of these severe measures amounts to twenty-six Finlanders expelled from the country and a few officials dismissed the service without the right to a pension. It was scarcely possible, however, to retain officials in the service of the state once they refused to obey their superiors. Nor was it possible to bear with the existence of a conspiracy which attempted to draw the peaceful and law-abiding population into a conflict with the Government, and that, too, at a moment when the prudent members of the population of the duchy took the side of lawful authority, thereby calling forth against themselves persecution on the part of the secret leaders of the agitation party. The upholders of the necessity for a pacific policy toward Russia were subjected to moral and sometimes physical outrage, and their opponents were not ashamed to institute scandalous legal processes against them for the purpose of damaging their reputations.

Very different is the attitude of the great mass of the population, as the following incident shows: The president of the Abo Hofgericht, declining to follow the instructions of the party hostile to Russia, was, on his arrival in Helsingfors, subjected to a variety of insults from the mob gathered at the railway station. On his return to Abo he was, on the contrary, presented with an address from the peasantry and local landowners, in which the following words occur: "We understand very well that you have been led to your patriotic resolve to continue your labors in obedience to the government by deep conviction, and do not require gratitude either from us or from any others; but at the important crisis our people is now experiencing it may be of some relief to you to learn that the preponderating majority of the people, and especially in broader classes, gratefully approve of the course you have taken."

It will scarcely be known to any one in the West that when signatures were being gathered for the great mass-address of protest dispatched to St. Petersburg in 1899, those who refused their signatures numbered martyrs among them. There are some who for their courage in refusing their signatures suffered ruin and disgrace and were imprisoned on trumped-up charges. Moreover, the agitators aimed at infecting the lower classes of the population with their intolerance and their hatred of Russians, but, it must be said, with scant success.

With regard to the essence of the question, I repeat that in matters of government temporary phenomena should be distinguished from permanent ones. The incidental expression of Russian policy, necessitated by an open mutiny against the Government in Finland, will, undoubtedly, be replaced by the former favor of the sovereign toward his Finnish subjects as soon as peace is finally restored and the current of social life in that country assumes its normal course. Then, certainly, all repressive measures will be repealed. But the realization of the fundamental aim which the Russian Government has set itself in Finland—i.e., the confirming in that land of the principle of imperial unity—must continue, and it would be best of all if this end were attained with the trustful cooperation of local workers under the guidance of the sovereign to whom Divine Providence has committed the destinies of Russia and Finland.

SERGIUS WITTE

When we talk of the means requisite for assimilating Finland we can not help reckoning, first and foremost, with this fact, that by the will of Russian emperors that country has lived its own particular life for nearly a century and governed itself in quite a special manner. Another consideration that should be taken to heart is this: the administration of the conquered country on lines which differed from the organization of other territories forming part of the empire, and which gave to Finland the semblance of a separate state, was shaped by serious causes, and did good service in the political history of the Russian Empire. One is hardly justified, therefore, in blaming this work of Alexander I., as is now so often done.... The annexation of Finland, poor by nature and at that time utterly ruined by protracted wars, was of moment to Russia, not so much from an economic or financial as from a strategical point of view. And what in those days was important was not its Russification, but solely the military position which it afforded. Besides, the incorporation of Finland took place at a calamitous juncture—for Russia. On the political horizon of Europe the clouds were growing denser and blacker, and there was a general foreboding of the coming events of the year 1812. If, at that time, Czar Alexander I. had applied to Finland the methods of administration which are wont to be employed in conquered countries, Finland would have become a millstone round Russia's neck during the critical period of her struggle with Napoleon, which demanded the utmost tension of our national forces. Fear of insurrections and risings would have compelled Russia to maintain a large army there and to spend considerable sums in administering the country. But Alexander I. struck out a different course. His Majesty recognized the necessity of "bestowing upon the people, by means of internal organization, incomparably more advantages than it had had under the sway of Sweden." And the Emperor held that an effective means of achieving this would be to give the nation such a status "that it should be accounted not enthralled by Russia, but attached to her in virtue of its own manifest interests." "This valiant and trusty people," said Czar Alexander I., when winding up the Diet of Borgo, "will bless Providence for establishing the present order of things. And I shall garner in the best fruits of my solicitude when I shall see this people tranquil from without, free within, devoting itself to agriculture and industry under the protection of the laws and their own good conduct, and by its very prosperity rendering justice in my intentions and blessing its destiny."

Subsequent history justified the rosiest hopes of the Emperor. The immediate consequence of the policy he adopted toward Finland was that the country quickly became calmed and settled after the fierce war that had been waged there, and that in this way Russia was enabled to concentrate all her forces upon the contest with Napoleon. According to the words of Alexander I. himself, the annexation of Finland "was of the greatest advantage to Russia; without it, in 1812, we might not, perhaps, have won success, because Napoleon had in Bernadotte his steward, who, being within five days' march of our capital, would have been inevitably compelled to join his forces with those of Napoleon. Bernadotte himself told me so several times, and added that he had Napoleon's order to declare war against Russia." And afterward, during almost a century, Finland never occasioned any worries, political or economic, to the Russian Government, and did not require special sacrifices or special solicitude on its part.

If we may judge, not by the speeches and articles of particular Separatists, but by overt acts, during that long period of time the Finnish people never failed in their duty as loyal subjects of their monarch or citizens of the common fatherland, Russia. The successors of the conqueror of Finland spoke many times from the height of the throne "of the numerous proofs of unalterable attachment and gratitude which the citizens of this country have given their monarchs." And in effect, neither general insurrections against Russia's dominions, nor political plots, nor the tumults of an ignorant rabble—such as our cholera riots, workmen's outbreaks, Jewish pogroms, and other like disturbances—have ever occurred in Finland; and when disorders of that kind broke out in other parts of the empire or alarming tidings from abroad came in they never evoked the slightest dangerous echo there. It is a most remarkable fact that during the trying time the Russian Government had when the Polish insurrection was going on, and later, in the equally difficult period through which we passed at the close of the seventies, Finland remained perfectly calm; and in the long list of political criminals sprung from the various nationalities of Russia, we do not find a single Finlander.

In like manner fear of Finland's aspirations toward independence, of her inordinate demands in the matter of military legislation, of her turning her population into an armed nation; in a word, all the apprehensions felt that Finland may break loose from Russia are, down to the present moment, devoid of foundation in fact.

"Finland under the egis of the Russian realm," our present Emperor has said, "and strong in virtue of Russia's protection through the lapse of almost a whole century, has advanced along the way of peaceful progress unswervingly, and in the hearts of the Finnish people lived the consciousness of their attachment to the Russian monarchs and to Russia." In moments of stress and of Russia's danger, the Finnish troops have always come forward as the fellow soldiers of our armies, and Finland has shared with us unhesitatingly our military triumphs and also the irksome consequences and tribulations of war-time. Thus, in the year 1812 and in the Crimean campaign, her armies grew in number considerably; in that eastern war almost her entire mercantile marine was destroyed—a possession which was one of the principal sources of the revenue of the country. During the Polish insurrection and the war for the emancipation of Bulgaria Finnish troops took part in the expeditions, and when in 1885 the Diet was opened, the Emperor Alexander III., in his speech from the throne, bore witness to "the unimpeachable way in which the population of the country had discharged its military obligations," and he gave utterance to his conviction that the Finnish troops would attain the object for which they existed.

By way of proving Finland's striving to cut herself apart from Russia, people point to the doctrine disseminated about the Finnish State, to its unwillingness to establish military conscription on the same lines as the empire, and to the speeches of the Deputies of the Diets of 1877-1878 and 1879. But none of these arguments carries conviction.

The theory about the independence of Finland, as a separate realm, which was worked out for the purpose of devising "the means of safeguarding its idiosyncrasies," is far from proving that "Finland aims at separation from Russia." Down to the present moment separation has not been in her interests. She was never an independent State; her historical traditions do not move her to play a political part in Europe. Besides, her population is mixed. The Swedish element constitutes only the topmost layer, and is not powerful enough to move toward an independent existence or toward union with the Power which belongs to the same race as that layer, while the mass of Finns, dreading the oppression of the Swedish party, is drawn more to Russia by the simple instinct of self-preservation. That is why the Finnish patriot may well be a true and devoted citizen of the Russian Empire, and being, as Alexander III. termed it, "a good Finlander," can also "bear in mind that he is a member of the Russian family, at the head of which stands the Russian Emperor."

The unfavorable attitude of the Finns toward the proposal of the War Ministry for extending to them the general regulations that deal with the obligation to serve in the army is also intelligible. That obligation of military service is exceedingly irksome; and it is not only the Finns who desire to fight shy of it, nor can one discover any specially dangerous symptom in their wish to preserve the privileged position which they have hitherto enjoyed as to the way of discharging their military duties. They seek to perpetuate the privileges conferred upon them in the form of fundamental laws, and they strive to avoid being incorporated in the Russian Army, because service there would be very much more onerous for them than in their own Finnish regiments...

If we now turn from the political to the economic aspect of the matter, to the question how far the order of things as at present established in Finland has proved advantageous to Russia from the financial point of view, we shall search in vain for data capable of bearing out the War Minister's opinion that, for the period of a century the Budget of Finland has been sedulously husbanded at the cost of the Russian people.

Ever since Finland has had an independent State Budget, she has never required any sacrifices on the part of Russia for her economic development. Ill-used by nature and ruined by wars, the country, by dint of its own efforts, has advanced toward cultural and material prosperity. Without subsidies or guaranties from the Imperial Treasury, the land became furrowed with a network of carriage roads and railways; industries were created; a mercantile fleet was built, and the work of educating the nation was so successfully organized that one can hardly find an illiterate person throughout the length and breadth of the principality. It is also an interesting fact worth recording that, whereas the Russian Government has almost every year to feed a starving population, now in one district of the empire, now in another, and is obliged from time to time to spend enormous sums of money for the purpose, Finland, in spite of its frequent bad harvests, has generally dispensed with such help on the part of the State Treasury...

Under these circumstances it is hardly fair to assert that Finland has been living at Russia's expense. On the contrary, Finland is perhaps the only one of our borderlands which has not required for its economic or cultural development funds taken from the population of Russia proper. The Caucasus, the Kingdom of Poland, Turkestan, part of Siberia, and other portions of our border districts—nay, even the northern provinces themselves—are sources of loss to us, or, at any rate, they have cost the Russian Treasury very much, and some of them still continue to cost it much, but the expenses they involve are hidden in the totals of the Imperial Budget. A few data will throw adequate light on this aspect of the situation. It is enough, for instance, to call to mind what vast, what incalculable sacrifices the pacification of the Caucasus required from Russia and what worry and expense it still causes us. No less imposing is the expenditure which the Kingdom of Poland with its two insurrections necessitated in the course of last century.... And if we cast a glance at the youngest of our borderlands—Turkestan—we shall find that here also the outlay occasioned by the political situation of the country has already become sharply outlined.... When we set those figures and data side by side we shall find it hard to speak of "our expenditure on Finland" or of "the vast privileges" we have conferred on the principality.

It follows, then, that the system of administration established for Finland by the Emperor Alexander I. has not yet had any harmful political results for Russia, and that it has dispensed the Russian Government from incurring heavy expenditure for the administration and the well-being of the country, and in this way has enabled Russia to concentrate her forces and her care on other parts of the empire and to devote her attention to other State problems.

One can not, of course, contend that the system of government adopted in Finland satisfies, in each and all its parts, the requirements and the needs of the present time. On the contrary, it is indubitable that the independent existence of the principality, disconnected as it is from the general interests of the empire, has led to a certain estrangement between the Russian and the Finnish populations. That an estrangement really exists can not be doubted; but the explanation of it is to be found in the difference of the two cultures which have their roots in history. To the protracted sway of Sweden and Finland's continuous relations through her intermediary with Western Europe, the circumstance is to be ascribed that the thinking spirits among the Finns gravitate—in matters of culture—not to Russia but to the West, and in particular to Sweden, with whom Finland is linked by bonds of language—through her highest social class—and of religion, laws, and literature. For that reason the views, ideas, and interests of Western—and in particular of Scandinavian—peoples are more thoroughly familiar and more intelligible to them than ours. That also is why, when working out any kind of reforms and innovations, they seek for models not among us but in Western Europe.

It is, doubtless, impossible to look upon that state of things with approval. It is highly desirable that a closer union should take place between the interests, cultural and political, of the principality and those of the empire: that is postulated by the mutual advantages of both countries. As I have already remarked, Russians could not contemplate otherwise than with pleasure the possible union and assimilation—in principle—of the borderland with the other parts of our vast fatherland: they will also be unanimous in wishing this task as successful an issue as is possible.....

But what is not feasible is to demolish at one swoop everything that has been created and preserved in the course of a whole century. A change of policy, if it is not to provoke tumults and disorganization, must be carried out gradually and with extreme circumspection. The assimilation of Finland can never be efficacious if achieved by violence and constraint instead of by pacific means. The Finnish people should be left to appreciate the benefits which would accrue to them from union with a powerful empire: for an adequate understanding of their own interests will, in the words of the Imperial rescript of February 28, 1891, "inspire them with a desire to draw more closely the bonds that link Finland with Russia." There is no doubt that even at present a certain tendency is noticeable among the Finns in favor of closer relations with Russia: the knowledge of the Russian tongue is spreading more and more widely among them, and business relations between them and us are growing brisker from year to year. The desirable abolition of the customs cordon between the two countries is bound to give a powerful fillip to the growth of commerce, which is the most trustworthy and most pacific means of bringing about a better understanding and strengthening the ties that bind Finland to Russia.

Harsh, drastic expedients may easily loosen the threads that have begun to get tied, foster national hate, arouse mutual distrust and suspicion, and lead to results the reverse of those aimed at. Assimilative measures adopted by the Government, therefore, should be thought out carefully and applied gradually.

J.N. REUTER

"Might can not dominate right in Russia," said M. Stolypin, Russian Minister of the Interior and President of the Council of Ministers, in the speech which he delivered in the Duma on May 18, 1908, when pressed by the various parties to declare his policy with regard to Finland. This noble sentiment has the familiar ring of Russian officialdom. It may, perhaps, be worth while to consider it in the light of recent history and present-day issues.

Alexander I., the first Russian sovereign of Finland, addressed a Rescript to Count Steinheil on his appointment to the post of Governor-General. Therein he wrote: "My object in Finland has been to give the people a political existence so that they shall not regard themselves as subject to Russia, but as attached to her by their own obvious interests." It is not the place here to give an historical account of subsequent events. It may, however, be briefly stated that the political ideal expressed in the words quoted here was at times forgotten, but was again revived, and, in such times, even resulted in the extension of Finland's constitutional rights. Then, again, this ideal was abandoned, and gave way to a totally different one, which found its most acute expression in February, 1899, when the Czar, a year after the issue of his invitations to the first Peace Conference at The Hague, suppressed by an Imperial manifesto the constitutional right of Finland. The arbitrary and corrupt Russian bureaucratic regime little by little forced its way into the country, while Finlanders watched with bitter resentment the suppression, one by one, of their most cherished national institutions.

This manifesto was condemned in many European countries at the time, and a protest against it was signed by over a thousand prominent publicists and constitutional lawyers, who presented an international address to the Czar begging him to restore the rights of the Grand Duchy.

In 1905, however, it seemed at last that a new era was about to dawn. The change was brought about by the domestic crisis through which Russia herself was then passing. An Imperial manifesto promulgated in October, containing the principles of a constitutional form of government in Russia, was followed as an inevitable sequel by the manifesto of November 4th, which practically restored to Finland its full political rights. In 1906, a new Law of the Diet was enacted. Instead of triennial sessions of the Estates, annual sessions of the Diet were introduced, while an extension of the franchise to every citizen over twenty-four years of age without distinction of sex gave to women active electoral rights. Moreover, the door was opened to new and far-reaching reforms, the fulfilment of which infused fresh life into the democratic spirit of Finnish national institutions. While, however, so much was done to improve the political, social, and economic condition of the country, the promises which were then made have not been fulfilled. The principal reason for this failure to redeem their pledges lies in a change of attitude among Russian officials and their interference in Finnish affairs. It is by consideration of this change and of its effect upon Finland that we may best judge how much truth there is in M. Stolypin's claim that in Russia "might can not dominate right."

Ominous signs of a reversal of policy had appeared before, but the first official expression to it was given in the speech of M. Stolypin already referred to. In this speech he claimed for Russia as the sovereign power the right of control over Finnish administration and legislation whenever the interests of the empire were concerned. This claim meant practically the restoration of the old Bobrikoff regime and was based on the same ideas as those underlying the February manifesto of 1899. M. Stolypin attempts to justify his attitude by arguing that the constitutional relations between Russia and Finland are determined only by Clause 4 of the Treaty of Peace between Russia and Sweden, dated September 17,1809. This clause runs as follows:

"His Majesty the King of Sweden renounces irrevocably and forever, on behalf of himself as well as on behalf of his successors to the Swedish throne and realm, and in favor of his Majesty the Emperor of Russia and his successors to the Russian throne and empire, all his rights and titles of the governments enumerated hereafter which have been conquered by the arms of his Imperial Majesty from the Swedish Army, to wit: the Provinces of Kymmenegard, etc.

"These provinces, with all their inhabitants, towns, ports, forts, villages, and islands, with their appurtenances, privileges, and revenues, shall hereafter under full ownership and sovereignty belong to the Russian Empire and be incorporated with the same."

After quoting this clause, M. Stolypin exclaimed, "This is the act, the title, by which Russia possesses Finland, the one and only act which determines the mutual relations between Russia and Finland."

Now this clause contains no reference whatever to the autonomy of the Grand Duchy, and if it were the only act by which the mutual relations of Russia and Finland were determined, then Finland would have no constitution. The political autonomy of Finland, which has been recognized for exactly one hundred years, would have been without legal foundation. Even M. Stolypin admits that Finland enjoys autonomy. "There must be no room for the suspicion," he said, "that Russia would violate the rights of autonomy conferred on Finland by the monarch." On what, then, does the claim to Finnish autonomy rest and how was it conferred? Clause 6 of the Treaty of Peace contains the following passage:

"His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, having already given the most manifest proofs of the clemency and justice with which he has resolved to govern the inhabitants of the provinces which he has acquired, by generosity and by his own spontaneous act assuring to them the free exercise of their religion, rights, property, and privileges, his Swedish Majesty considers himself thereby released from performing the otherwise sacred duty of making reservations in the above respects in favor of his former subjects."

This entry in the Treaty of Peace refers to the settlement made at the Borgo Diet a few months earlier, and it is under this settlement, confirmed by deeds of a later date, that Finland claims her right to autonomy. M. Stolypin recognizes the claim of Finland to autonomy, but refuses to recognize the binding force of the acts of the Borgo Diet on which alone it can legally be based. This claim gives Finland no voice in her external relations. All international treaties, including matters relating to the conduct of war (though laws on the liability of Finnish citizens to military service fall under the competency of the Finnish Diet), are matters common to Russia and Finland as one empire, one international unit, and are dealt with by the proper Russian authorities. This is admitted by all Finlanders. But M. Stolypin extended Russian authority by making it paramount in all matters which have a bearing on Russian or Imperial interests.

The attempt to curtail Finnish constitutional liberty has taken different forms. Early in 1908 the Russian Council of Ministers, over which M. Stolypin presides, drew up a "Journal," or Protocol, to which the Czar on June 2d gave his sanction. The chief provisions of this Protocol were briefly as follows: All legislative proposals and all administrative matters "of general importance," before being brought to the Sovereign for his sanction, or, as is the case with Bills to be presented to the Diet, for his preliminary approval, as well as all reports drawn up by Finnish authorities for the Czar's inspection, must be communicated to the Russian Council of Ministers. The Council will then decide "which matters concerning the Grand Duchy of Finland also have a bearing on the interests of the empire, and, consequently, call for a fuller examination on the part of the Ministries and Government Boards." If the Council decide that a matter has a bearing on the interests of the empire the Council prepare a report on it, and, should the Council differ from the views taken up by the Finnish authorities, the Finnish Secretary of State, who alone should be the constitutional channel for bringing Finnish matters before the Sovereign's notice, can do so only in the presence of the President of the Council of Ministers or another Russian Minister. But in practise it has frequently happened that the Council send in their report beforehand, and the Czar's decision is practically taken when the Finnish Secretary is permitted an audience.

This important measure was brought about by the exclusive recommendation of Russian Ministers. Neither the Finnish Diet nor the Senate nor the Secretary of State for Finland, who resides in St. Petersburg, was consulted or had the slightest idea of what was going on before the Protocol was published in Russia. It has never been promulgated in Finland, and no Finnish authority has been officially advised of it. The whole matter has been treated as a private affair between the Czar and his Russian Ministers.

The excuse has been made that the Czar must be permitted to seek counsel with whomsoever he chooses in regard to the government of Finland. But this is not a question of privately consulting one man or the other. The new measure amounts to an official recognition of the Russian Council of Ministers as an organ of government exercising a powerful control over Finnish legislation, administration, and finance. The center of gravity of Finnish administration has, in fact, been shifted from the Senate for Finland, composed of Finnish men, to the Russian Council of Ministers.

The Finnish Senate protested to the Czar in three separate memoranda, dated respectively June 19, 1908, December 22, 1908, and February 25,1909. The Finnish Diet adopted on October 13, 1908, a petition to the Czar to reconsider the matter. On the occasion of the opening of the Diet's next session the Speaker, in his reply to the Czar's message, briefly referred to the anxiety prevailing in Finland, with the result that the Diet was immediately punished by an order of dissolution from the Czar. The Senate's memoranda, as well as the Diet's petition, were rejected, the Czar acting on the exclusive recommendation of the Russian Council of Ministers. They were not even brought before him through the constitutional channels, the Finnish Secretary of State having been refused a hearing. As a result all members of the Department of Justice, or half the number of the Senators, resigned.

In the same year another but less successful attack was made on the Finnish Constitution. In the autumn of 1908 the Finnish Diet adopted a new Landlord and Tenant Bill, but before it was brought up for the Czar's sanction the Diet was dissolved in the manner just described. The Bill being of a pressing nature, the Council of Ministers was at last prevailed upon to report on it to the Czar. The latter then gave his sanction to it, but, on the recommendation of the Council, added a rider in the preamble. This was to the effect that, though the Bill, having been adopted by a Diet which was dissolved before the expiration of the three years' period for which it was elected, should not have been presented for his consideration at all, the Czar would nevertheless make an exception from the rule and sanction it, prompted by his regard for the welfare of the poorer part of the population.

The Senate decided to postpone promulgation of this law in view of the constitutional doctrine involved in the preamble. It was pointed out that this doctrine was entirely foreign to Finnish law. The preamble which, according to custom, should have contained nothing beyond the formal sanction to the law in question, embodied an interpretation of constitutional law. Such an interpretation could only legally be made in the same manner as the enactment of a constitutional law, i.e., through the concurrent decision of the Sovereign and the Diet. The Senate, therefore, petitioned the Czar to modify the preamble in such a way as to remove from it what could be construed as an interpretation of constitutional law.

In reply, the Czar reprimanded the Senate for delaying promulgation, recommended it to do so immediately, but promised later on to take the representations made by the Senate into his consideration. Five of the Senators then voted against, while the Governor-General and five others voted for promulgation of, the law. The minority then tendered their resignations. The inconveniences resulting from this new constitutional doctrine proved, however, of so serious a practical nature that the Czar eventually, in July, 1909, issued a declaration that "the gracious expressions in the preamble to the Landlord and Tenant Law concerning the invalidity of the decisions of a dissolved Diet do not constitute an interpretation of the constitutional law and shall not in the future be binding in law."

A third and most important encroachment by the Russian Council of Ministers on the autonomy of Finland was also carried out at the instigation of M. Stolypin. The Finnish Constitution makes no distinction between matters that may have, or may not have, a bearing on the interests of Russia. At the same time Russian interests have never been disregarded in Finnish legislation. It had been the practise, when a legislative proposal was brought forward in Finland, and a Russian interest might be affected by it, to communicate with the Russian Minister whom the matter most closely concerned, in order that he might make his observations. This practise was confirmed by law in 1891. In its memoranda of 1908 and 1909, on the interference of the Russian Council of Ministers in Finnish affairs, the Senate suggested that, in case the procedure under the ordinance of 1891 were not satisfactory, a committee of Russian and Finnish members should be appointed to discuss a modus procedendi of such a nature that the Constitution of Finland should not be violated. On the recommendation of the Council of Ministers, the Czar rejected these suggestions, but the Council of Ministers took the matter in hand and summoned a "Special Conference," consisting of several Russian Ministers, other high Russian functionaries, the Governor-General of Finland, who is also a Russian, with M. Stolypin as President. Their business was to draw up a program for a joint committee to be appointed "for the drafting of proposals for regulations concerning the procedure of issuing laws of general Imperial interest concerning Finland." This conference accordingly drew up a program, approved by the Czar on April 10, 1909, in which it was resolved that the joint committee should suggest a definition of the term "laws of general Imperial interest concerning Finland." These laws, it was proposed, should be totally withdrawn from the competency of the Finnish Diet and should be passed by the legislative bodies of Russia, that is, the Council of State and the Duma. The only safeguard for the interests of Finland suggested in the program is that a representative for Finland should be admitted to these two bodies when Finnish questions were discussed there.

It is impossible to say what laws concerning Finland will be defined as being of "general interest." Having regard, however, to the wide interpretation which Russian reactionaries are wont to put on the expression, there is every reason to suppose that the Russian members of the committee will insist on its extension so as to include every important category of law.

The Finnish members through their spokesman, Archbishop Johansson, declared that they proceeded to work on the committee on the assumption that in case alterations in the law of Finland should be found necessary, having regard to Imperial interests, such alterations should be made through modifications in the constitutional laws of Finland. The Finlanders are prepared to do their duty by the empire, but, the Archbishop said: "Sacrifices have been demanded from us to which no people can consent. The Finnish people can not forego their Constitution, which is a gift of the Most High, and which, next to the Gospel, is their most cherished possession."

M. Deutrich, who spoke on behalf of the Russian members, explained that any law resulting from the labors of the committee would not be submitted to the ratification of the Finnish Diet.

So M. Stolypin's way was now clear. The sanction of the people will not be required. The Finlanders have practically no other help than that given by a consciousness of the justice of their cause. They have no appeal.

In November of 1909 the Finnish Diet was dissolved by a ukase of the Czar. Since then the Russian Government has been passing decree after decree for Finland, giving the constitutional authorities no voice even of protest. So ends Finland.



MAN'S FASTEST MILE THE AUTOMOBILE AGE

A.D. 1911

C.F. CARTER ISAAC MARCOSSON

On April 23, 1911, an automobile was driven along the hard, smooth sand of a Florida sea beach, covering a mile in 25-2/5 seconds. And it continued for a second mile at the same tremendous speed. These were the fastest two miles ever made by man. They were at the rate of a trifle over 140 miles an hour. As this record was not equaled in the three years that followed, it may be regarded as approaching the maximum speed of which automobiles are capable. And as another automobile, in endeavoring to reach such a speed, dissolved into its separate parts, practically disintegrated, and left an astonished driver floundering by himself upon the sand, we may assume that no noticeably greater speed can be attained except by some wholly different method or new invention.

In contrast to this picture of "speed maniacs" darting more swiftly than ever eagle swooped or lightning express-train ran, let us contemplate for a moment that first automobile race held in Chicago in 1894. A twenty-four horse-power Panhard machine showed a speed of thirty miles an hour and was objected to by the newspapers as a "racing monster" likely to cause endless tragedy, menacing death to its owners and to the public. Thus in the brief space of seventeen years did the construction of automobiles improve and the temper of the world toward them change. The present day may almost be called the "automobile age." The progress by which this has come about, and the enormous development of this new industry is here traced by two men who have followed it most closely. The narrative of the "auto's" triumphs by Mr. C.F. Carter appeared first in the Outing Magazine. The account of the industry's growth by Mr. Isaac Marcosson appeared in Munsey's Magazine, of which he was the editor. Both are given here by the permission of the magazines.

C.F. CARTER

When the marine architects and engineers catch up with the automobile makers they can build a ship capable of crossing the Atlantic in twenty-three hours; or, if we forget to make allowance for the difference in longitude, capable of making the run from Liverpool to New York in the same apparent time in which the Twentieth Century Limited makes the run from New York to Chicago. That is, the vessel leaving Liverpool at three o'clock in the afternoon would arrive at New York at nine o'clock the following morning, which, allowing for the five hours' difference in time, would make twenty-three hours.

When the railroad engineers provide improved tracks and motive power that will enable them to parallel the feats of the automobile men, if they ever do, the running time for the fastest trains between New York and Chicago will be reduced to seven hours, while San Francisco will be but a day's run from the metropolis.