From Our Own Correspondent.
St. Petersburg, December 5.
At fifteen minutes past twelve on the night of November 26, the knell of Rassian autocracy was sounded and Russia approached more nearly to a constitutional state than she has ever yet been, There can be no other issue From the refusal of the majority of the Duma to declare that the Tsar is an autocrat, especially when we remember that this Dama—elected as it is under jerrymandered " election law—is the most conservative Duma that Russia can ever expect to see, and as the election law cannot possibly be tampered with again. This great refusal was made during the discussion on the Address to the Throne. A moderate and loyal address thanking the Tsar for his gift of the right of National representation had been presented by the Centre Party (Octobrists), but it was attacked both by Right and Left. The Right ssid that it should especially declare that the Tsar is an autocrat, unlimited, irresponsible, and absolutely unfettered by Parliament. The Cadets on the Left said that the word "constitution " should be employed, but, (as Plevako, the great Moscow lawyer, who delivered the best speech in yesterday's debate, pointed out to them) the Russian expressions used instead of the only half-naturalized word " Konstitutxin" meant exactly the same thing and the Cadets had been themselves so sensible of the average Russian's unfamiliarity with that foreign word that they bed changed their own original name Constitntional-Demo-crate to a simpler appellation in the vernscal: It is not surprising, therefore, that the Cadets soon withdrew their amendment to the address, which was finally carried by the Left, the Centre and even the Moderates on the Right. The Reactionaries, on the other hand, wanted the address to in a declaration that the Tsar was still an autocrat, and, as they made it very plain that they regarded the address, as it stood, to be a treacherous and disloyal attempt to curtail the power of the Emperor, the position was very delicate.
The snow was falling thickly outside while this great discussion was going on, and owing to the days being short and dark, all the electric lights in the Teuras Palace were burning. On the Ministerial benches sat two Ministers of second-rate importance, but they soon went away. Mr. Gutchkoff, the leader of the Octobrists, opened' the debate in e very tactful speech wherein while making it perfectly clear that in his opinion Russia is now a constitutional monarchy and the Tsar a limited monarch, he sweetened this bitter pill, (for it is notorious that the 'Tsar, urged on by his mother and his uncles, wants to take back the constitution and regards himself as an absolute monarch), by saying that as, owing to human' limitations, it is impossible for even the greatest sovereign personally to direct all the affairs of his empire, so the Tsar has the Camarilla (court Seay on had in the past to depend on
the bureaucracy, and the only change that was introduced by the manifesto of October 30, 1905 was the substitution for the Camarilla and the bureaucracy of the peoples's representatives.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.