I have been staying for the last three days in the country quite close to Moscow. I thought I should get away for a time from politics, from talk of new Cabinets, new eras, liberal autocracy, strong-handed reform, and other such pleasing illusions. I was mistaken. Politics filter through everywhere now; in a third-class railway carriage, at the station buffets, in the public parks, in the villages. As regards the various opinions I heard expressed the prevailing one is this: that the new Prime Minister’s programme of strong-handed Liberal reform is a repetition of the programme of the last five Ministers of the Interior. M. Stolypin says these last five Premiers were all mistaken in their policy; in the meantime (people say) it is difficult to see in what respects his programme is to differ from theirs. And we have no evidence as yet that M. Stolypin is an infinitely more capable man than Count Witte. Some people, referring to the official denial of the article that appeared in the semi-official newspaper _Rossia_, with regard to foreign intervention, say: “If M. Stolypin cannot control the first page of his official newspaper, how can he expect to control Russia?” Others commenting on his intention to initiate social reform and put a stop to the political movement, say that this effort is the very root and kernel of the whole trouble in Russia; that the mistake of would-be reformers has always consisted in their not understanding that social reforms are impossible unless they are preceded by political reforms. (M. Leroy-Beaulieu, in his splendid book on Russia, writes in a most illuminating fashion on this very point.) As regards what is actually happening in Moscow, the town is empty and quiet; public meetings are forbidden, small political gatherings in private houses are held only under surveillance of the police; gatherings of the “Black Gang” are said to be allowed; the Press is certainly subjected to a rigid censorship; the _Morning Post_ arrived blacked out yesterday for the first time for two years; the manifesto of the ex-members is being spread, likewise the manifesto of the Social Democrats. I have not seen anybody who thinks that an era of peace and resigned content has begun.