THE CASE AGAINST THE DUMA.
BY DR. DILLON.

DR. DILLON in the Contemporary Review rejoices with exceeding joy over the fall of the Duma. For the action of M. Stolypin he has nothing but praise :—

It was in the best interests of representative institutions in Russia that the Second Duma was dissolved. It is to be hoped that the third experiment will be successful. The Cabinet has done its best to bring about this result. The Imperial Manifesto struck the right note. The promulgation by the Tsar himself of the new electoral law was another step in the right direction. Whatever the outcome of the new measures may be, the Premier has done his duty, and deserved well of the community.

THE PATRON OF ASSASSINS.

The case against the fifty-five deputies whose exclusion was demanded by M. Stolypin was an exceedingly strong one. Few normal parliaments would have hesitated under the circumstances, but the Duma was far from being a normal assembly. It was the patron and defender of assassins :

The majority would never prevail upon itself to condemn any crime against the person or property except that which was ascribed to the extreme reactionaries. It never expressed sympathy for any of the victims of violence, barring those who were enemies of the authorities. It laughed outright when the murder of reactionaries was deplored by Conservatives.

A large number of the deputies were not men of good-will:

They had put their faith in violent measures and had come to the Tavrida Palace solely for the purpose of organising a vast popular movement, into which the troops were to be drawn, and of leading it against the Government and the régime. Almost at the opening of the Duma about half its members listened with satisfaction to the statement made by their spokesman that they had come not for legislative work, not to pacify the country, but to revolutionise it. And the declaration was loudly cheered.

ITS EVIL EFFECT ON THE NATION.

The action of the Duma on the nation was unmistakable, but it was irritating, not tranquillising. Lawlessness spread, murderers were heroes, property was a crime, life a gift to be taken back if used against the terrorists. The Constitutional Democrats were shrewd, shifty, and resourceful, a party of tactics, but not of principles. They were made of soft, yielding stuff, and their programme was a mirage. They were altogether out of place in an assembly where the majority of the deputies were in grim earnest trying to pull down the whole political and social fabric. Their negotiations with the Government for the formation of a Centre Party broke down because they were compelled to rely upon the Poles for support. They finally precipitated the decision to dissolve the Duma by their failure to come to a prompt decision over the question of the deputies. Dr. Dillon's indictment against the Duma amounts to this that it was composed of men who did not believe in it, and merely utilised it as an instrument to effect a revolution and bring about the downfall of the existing régime.

THE THIRD DUMA.

Dr. Dillon approves of the new election law, and believes that the majority of the new Duma bids fair

to be at least capable of legislating for the nation. He gives a useful summary of the changes effected under the new law :—

In future the number of deputies will be smaller than it was, 442 instead of 520; the number of cities with separate representation will be fewer-five in lieu of twenty-six; the total of non-Russian elements in Parliament will be considerably curtailed, and the loss will fall mainly upon the non-Russian elements of the population. Thus European Russia will send 403 representatives to the Duma, and the remainder will be delegated by the Kingdom of Poland, the Caucasus and Asiatic Russia. The Polish Club, which counted forty-six members in the Second Duma, will have but ten in the Third, and will, therefore, be unable to turn the scales now to the Right, now to the Left. The Caucasus will also have ten deputies to look after its needs, but two of them will be chosen by the Caucasian Cossacks. Russia in Asia will send fifteen members to the Duma, but seven of them will be elected by the Russian elements of the provinces of Tomsk and Tobolsk, and three by the Cossacks. Consequently the provinces and districts which are inhabited by non-Russians will be represented by twenty-five deputies all told, and Turkestan in particular will have none. In the five citiesSt. Petersburg, Moscow, Kieff, Odessa and Riga-which retain a separate representation, the ballot will be direct, that is, the constituents will vote not for delegates who are to choose the deputies, but for deputies. Everywhere else the voting will be indirect as heretofore. Again, the peasants will no longer obtain a lion's share of representation in the rural districts. The other landowners will inherit all the power which the peasantry heretofore wielded over and above its own fair share.

An interesting report is current that the Mikado's Ministers have intimated to our State Department a willingness to conclude with us an agreement similar to that for which Russia and France are negotiating, and by virtue of which our own title to the Philippines, and Japan's title to Formosa, the southern part of Saghalien and her other conquests in the Far East, would be reciprocally guaranteed. If a like compact should be made by Japan and Germany, it is manifest that the danger of war in Eastern Asia would be averted for a long time to come. In that quarter of the globe, at least, a partial disarmament would then seem to be practicable, though it has now been settled by the action of Germany, Austria, and Italy, that, so far as Europe is concerned, the question of a move toward the reduction of armaments will not be mooted seriously at the Hague.

A MEDITERRANEAN ALLIANCE.

In the Deutsche Revue for June Vice-Admiral Freiherr von Schleinitz has an article on a Mediterranean Alliance from a Naval Point of View. In the Moroccan affair he says France will come to recognise that she would have gained more and would not have needed to sacrifice her interests in Egypt had she not been content to come to an understanding with England and Spain only-that is to say, had she included Germany in the scheme. For Germany a friendly Italian neutrality, so far as German sea-interests are concerned, would be more useful than active participation. Germany can look upon a Mediterranean Alliance with indifference, for in the Mediterranean she has nothing to consider but the interests of free marine communication. The preservation of Turkey is rather a land question in which an understanding with Austria, Russia, and the Danube States would be necessary.

THE CRISIS IN THE FRENCH WINE INDUSTRY. CAUSES AND REMEDIES.

SEVERAL articles in the French reviews this month dealing with the crisis in the French wine industry enable the English reader to understand the causes which have led to the uprising of the wine-growers in the South of France.

DISASTERS DUE TO ADULTERATION.

In the Grande Revue of June 10th Paul Pelisse says that never at any time in French history has there been

such a rising of the people for purely economic reasons. It is a revolution, some will say. No, says the writer; peremptory arguments from men dying of hunger. Since 1900, when the crisis began to be felt, there have been all manner of congresses and deputations to Ministers, with little result. After the phylloxera the worst enemy of the wine-grower has been the cheapening of sugar. Disaster has followed disaster, the land has depreciated, and the Crédit Foncier will not assist any new enterprise in the South of France. The worst part of the business is that all this misery has not been brought about by the victims of it, but that it is the consequence of fraud.

No OVERPRODUCTION OF NATURAL WINE.

By courtesy of the "Daily News."]

nothing owing to the complicity of the Government of 1903, which favoured the introduction of sugar in the manufacture in order to balance its budget.

As one remedy M. Pelisse suggests that when sugar is used as alcohol it ought to be taxed as alcohol. The mere suppression of adulteration with water and sugar would not suffice to dispel the crisis; more abundant distillation should be encouraged.

WHY THE GOVERNMENT HAS FAILED.

M. Marrel says there is still such a thing as unadulterated wine.

Both this writer and Francis Marre, who has an article in the Correspondant of June 1oth on the same subject, quote statistics to show that there is no over-production of natural wine. Before the appearance of the phylloxera the production was indeed higher than it is at present. The markets are glutted with wine adulterated with water and sugar in its manufacture. The law, says Paul Pelisse, must set limits to the amount of water which may be used; but as regards the use of sugar the Legislature can do

He explains how much the chemist can do by analysis, but he says there are anomalies in the law which should be removed forthwith. The Chambers have omitted to furnish the Government with the means to enforce the law as to adulteration. But though Parliament has not voted sums to defray the expenses of analysis in the laboratories, the Minister of Agriculture has placed certain sums at their disposal. Unfortunately, however, no laboratories were at first qualified to examine properly the samples seized, and now only a few exist. There are, in fact, still fifteen French Departments in which the suppres sion of food adulteration is not possible. When a Parliamentary Commission demands the immediate rigorous enforcement of the law relating to fraud,

it asks a thing absolutely impossible, since the analytical laboratories do not know either officially or legally how to detect adulteration by water.

The Commission defines wine as the liquid exclusively obtained by fermentation from the juice of the fresh grape. Such a definition condemns all forms of adulteration, including water and sugar. But much more is necessary than a correct definition. All the measures proposed and adopted are futile so long as

close study, and throws a wild searchlight on the economic state of the modern world.

Of the "religious crisis" he neither saw nor heard any sign. The agitation seems to have practically settled itself.

FORCING PLANTS WITH DRUGS.

SOME amazing results from drugging plants are given by Mr. Clarke Nuttall in the World's Work for July. It has been found, first by Dr. Johannsen of Copenhagen, that anæsthetics applied to plants accelerated their development. A lilac put under ether or chloroform, and then placed under suitable conditions of growth, will far more quickly gain its full maturity of beauty than if it had not been drugged. The moment the plants are released from the anæsthetic they begin to put forth buds, and development goes on apace Lilacs prefer ether, lilies of the valley chloroform. There is said to be a universal consensus of opinion that this anæsthetic process is the most advantageous for the purpose of increasing and quickening growth and for producing finer and more luxuriant flowering.

the State laboratories are not put in possession of the legal means which will enable them to adopt methods by which all fraud wherever it exists will be condemned. French legislation in regard to the wine frauds resembles a famous horse which had every good quality and only one defect-namely, that of being dead.

THE CRISIS IN FRANCE.

IN the Positivist Review Mr. Frederic Harrison, who has been recently spending some time in France, says that economic struggles have taken a form of passion and discipline that entirely defy political and patriotic reasons. Unrest and discontent have grown both in range and in depth. The pressure of military service and of gigantic taxation, both national and municipal, is being felt throughout the Southern and Western provinces to be an almost intolerable burden. Speaking of the two great local strikes-that of the seamen and of the vine-growers-Mr. Harrison says:

Both were on a vast scale, and for the time produced a state of social anarchy greater than any Interdict in the Middle Ages. They were strikes which had characters unexampled in any economic war. No questions of wages, hours, or terms of employment were at issue. Employers and employed, capitalists and workmen, officers and privates, all stood together and combined for the same end. Both strikes, reducing the localities to complete paralysis, were directed not against industrial chiefs, but against the Government and the Legislature. Both were designed to induce senators and deputies to make some quite minor amendments in the administrative machinery. The first was to obtain some small benefit for the Naval Reserve. The second was to obtain a better price for the poorest wine grown in France. A struggle so new in all its conditions, and so fraught with tremendous possibilities in the future, deserves very

The theory offered in explanation by Dr. Johannsen is that when a bud is formed in summer in preparation for the following year, it passes through three states of rest-initial, until September; complete, until the end of October; final, until the end of January. Now, he argues, when a plant is anæsthetised, these periods of rest are, so to say, condensed, and thus deepened in quality while shortened in time. It is as though a certain quantity of repose were essential, and it does not matter if it be taken in a concentrated form during a short space of time, or in a more diluted form over a longer interval. But the greater the intensification of the resting state, the more rapid and easy is the

recovery.

If this theory is borne out by the facts, the inquiry presents itself, "How far might a similar process be applied to the human being?" Can any drug be found to concentrate our eight hours of sleep into one, and make the remaining twenty-three hours of the day correspondingly intense?

THE possibility of an intelligence in the plant is the subject of a study by S. Leonard Bastin in the Monthly Review. He says it is now an established fact that plants can feel. Do they not also possess a discerning power? Many very interesting evidences of discrimination in plants are adduced.

IGNORING THE HAGUE CONFERENCE

IN the first June number of the Correspondant Charles Dupuis, who reviews a publication on the Usages of War, by the German State-Major, notes with surprise how little the years which have elapsed since the first Hague Conference have been utilised by the States signatory to instruct their armies in the decisions arrived at in 1899. Worst of all, he says, the State which prides itself on being the first military Power in the world seems to attach only little importance to those decisions, if we may judge by this book on the usages of war in Continental warfare, published in 1902. Doubtless it represents the doctrines, and will dictate the practice, of the laws of German warfare. The title of the book, says the reviewer, reflects the spirit by which it is animated. It is not the laws of war, but the usages, thereby implying more latitude. Nothing, says the German, is to stand in the way of the interests of war, but certain humanitarian concessions may be made when circumstances permit, by which may be understood such as would not compromise or even retard victory and the submission of the enemy. It is stated that he cites the rules laid down at the Hague, but misunderstands them and distorts their meaning. He seems to regard the Hague Conference only as a moral authority, and seems to suggest that the States signatory are free to obey or to set aside its proposals.

One of the most surprising of the statements in the book is that this German authority would permit prisoners to be put to death, not only for crime or resistance, but in case of necessity, when there are no means of keeping them, or when their presence constitutes a danger to the existence of the captor. Altogether he seems to take great liberties with the Hague resolutions, which is all the more astonishing because Germany played an effective and brilliant part in the elaboration of the rules laid down by the Conference.

THE FRENCH AFRICAN EMPIRE.

WHAT IT MAY BECOME.

"MOROCCO, the Derelict of Diplomacy," is the subject of a paper in the American Review of Reviews by Mr. W. G. FitzGerald, who has just returned from that land. He declares Morocco the world's richest prize, and estimates that her potential trade, after a couple of decades of development, would amount to forty millions sterling a year. Morocco contains

300,000 square miles of earth's most fertile land, lying at Europe's very door, 1,300 miles of coast line, on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, a granary that would feed an Empire, limitless fisheries, copper mines richer than the fabulously rich Rio Tinto property just across the Straits, and ten millions of a hardy fighting race that might well yield a superb army of half a million troops for use in Europe should occasion arise; a climate, the lovely climate of Southern Spain, a soil that will grow anything from wheat and barley to oranges. Even now, in its backward state, its trade totals four millions a year. By pacific penetra

tion, scientific missions, military pervasion, "France is swallowing Morocco." Morocco is a rich prize, but it is only a key to a stupendous scheme of Empire which is but dimly realised even in Europe. France is working her way southward through the rich date country of Tafilat till she reaches the Atlantic at Cape Bojador. Then she will have her prey completely enveloped. As mistress of Morocco, France will be free to consolidate her vast African Empire and go down 1,600 miles to Timbuctu and Lake Tchad, and then north again to the great emporium city of Ghadames in the hinterland of Tripoli :—

To this mighty scheme Morocco is the key; and once let France get it in her possession, and she will surely close all doors from Tunis to Senegambia, a coastal range of 3,200 miles. She will then have a monopoly of trade totalling between 400,000,000 dols. and 450,000,000 dols., and an empire exceeding that of Hindostan, whose very name has for thousands of years been a synonym for riches. And this new empire will lie at France's own door, delightfully salubrious in climate and with barely 30,000,000 of a native population to keep in order. It will embrace Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Senegambia, the French Sudan, French Guinea, and the French Congo; the whole with a trade exceeding 600,000,000 dols.

Mr. FitzGerald imagines that this gigantic empire of our ally will cause Great Britain trouble. He says:-Great Britain will be seriously embarrassed on the sea both as regards her navy and her merchant marine. At least one-half of her stupendous ocean-borne traffic of five billions passes within measurable distance of Morocco; and there will be no friendly spot from Tunis to Senegambia; while as to her naval bases, we shall see Gibraltar watched by Tangier and possibly Ceuta; Malta by Toulon and Oran, and Cyprus and Egypt by Bizerta.

The task we have now to face is how we are to make it clear to the Commonwealths that they must take up a fairer share of the Imperial load and recognise both in matters of administration and defence an Imperial authority, not imposed upon them from without, but exercised by a Department of which they are a part.

He anticipates that the new Secretariat, as a beginning, which will develop its own dynamic, will become a real Imperial Office, placed as it is on the border lines of the control of our Premier, Foreign Secretary, and Colonial Minister. Mr. Macdonald's most valuable contribution comes at the close. He says:

Having looked through this huge volume of six hundred pages and having read most of it, the need of an Imperial Labour Conference impresses itself more deeply than ever upon me. As I write, a message comes from the most influential Trades and Labour Council in New Zealand calling for such a conference. If representatives of the workers and the workers" movements of Old Britain and of New Britain beyond the seas were to meet at Westminster in 1908 or 1909, the parties and the classes of privilege, interested in high rents and dear food, wedded to militarism and profiting by bloated armaments and excessive military expenditure, would attempt to capture the Imperial Conference in vain. The people would see that their Prime Ministers represented them-a precaution which was not taken in every case this year.