A third person, a landlord, said to me yesterday that the step was inevitable, because no Ministry, even were it composed of geniuses, and no Duma, even were it composed of angels, would be of the slightest avail until it was settled whether or no there is to be a new _régime_ in Russia. You cannot, he argued, have the new wine in the old skins. It was no use having a Duma supposed to be working together with a power directly opposed to it and working in a diametrically opposite direction. As matters were, a law, if it passed through the Duma and the Council of Empire, had to be sanctioned by the x quantity who had the power in his hands at Court. And if it is said that it is not constitutional to inquire into the advisers of the Crown, it must be remembered that whenever in other countries advisers have been all-powerful, and have acted against the will of the people, the advisers have been forced to go, failing which the Monarch has been deposed. Now the question will be settled. Either the Government will prove it can govern the country and quiet it down—that is to say, it will prove itself to be strong—or it will prove its weakness and ultimately come to grief. All these are opinions I have heard expressed by Russians during the last two days. I have also heard it said that the dissolution of the Duma is an excellent step, that the Duma did no good and some harm. I have also heard all the disaster attributed to the Cadets, some people saying they were too constitutional, and that it is impossible to be constitutional during a revolution, others that they did not succeed in dominating the Left parties, but allowed themselves to be overridden by them. In the meantime the new Prime Minister has announced his intention of carrying out a great Liberal programme of far-reaching reforms on a large scale, and of maintaining the strictest order throughout the country, so that the reforms may be realised. This sounds charming. “At first, of course, you think it’s charming, but very soon it gets alarming.” The first step taken in the new direction has been to suppress all the Moderate Liberal newspapers and to introduce a system of censorship more severe than that which prevailed during the worst times of Plehve, and to arrest a man who took off his hat to the members of the Duma at the railway station. To-day, however, the Cadet newspaper, the _Retch_, has once more made its appearance. The Government are looking forward to the new elections, which they hope will return a Conservative majority truly representative of the people.