The free handling of these governmental methods in the Duma, and the immediate world-wide publicity given to these revelations, if allowed to continue, must inevitably destroy the cause of Russian Bureaucracy.  There were but two courses open to the Tsar.  He must either surrender the autocratic principle, and in good faith carry out his pledges and share his authority with his people, or he must disperse a representative body which flagrantly defied his Imperial will.  He chose the latter course.

Five days after the examination of M. Makaroff, on July 21, 1906, the first Russian Parliament was dissolved by Imperial ukase.

The reason assigned for this was that, “instead of applying themselves to the work of productive legislation, they have strayed into a sphere beyond their competence, and have been making comments on the imperfections of the Fundamental Laws, which can only be modified by our Imperial will.”

The Tsar at the same time declared his immutable purpose to maintain the institution of Parliament, and named March 5, 1907, as the date of the convening of a new Duma.

A body of 186 Representatives, including the Constitutional and Conservative members of the Duma, immediately reassembled at Viborg in Finland, where, in the few hours before their forcible dispersion by a body of military, they prepared an address to “The Citizens of All Russia.”  This manifesto was a final word of warning, in which the people were reminded that for seven months, while on the brink of ruin, they are to stand without representation; also reminding them of all that may be done in that time to undermine their hopes, and to obtain a pliable and subservient Parliament, if, indeed, any Parliament at all be convoked at the time promised by the Tsar.

In view of all this they were solemnly abjured not to give “one kopek to the throne, or one soldier to the army,” until there exists a popular representative Parliament.

The hand of autocracy is making a final and desperate grasp upon the prerogatives of the Crown.  When the end will come, and how it will come, cannot be foretold.  But it needs no prophetic power to see what that end will be.  The days of autocracy in Russia are numbered.  A century may be all too short for the gigantic task of habilitating a Russian people—­making the heterogeneous homogeneous, and converting an undeveloped peasantry into a capable citizenship.  The problem is unique, and one for which history affords no parallel.  In no other modern nation have the life forces been so abnormal in their adjustment.  And it is only because of the extraordinary quality of the Russian mind, because of its instinct for political power, and its genius for that instrument of power hitherto known as diplomacy—­it is only because of these brilliant mental endowments that this chaotic mass of ethnic barbarism has been made to appear a fitting companion for her sister nations in the family of the Great Powers.