So far, in spite of the many manifestoes, no guarantee of a Constitution has been granted. The Emperor has, it is true, declared that he will fulfil the promises made in his declaration of the 17th of October, and it is true that if these promises were fulfilled, the result would be Constitutional Government. But at the same time he declared that his absolute power remained intact. At first sight this appears to be a contradiction in terms; but, as the Power which granted the Manifesto of October 17th was autocratic and unlimited, and as it made no mention of the future limiting of itself, it is now, as a matter of fact, not proceeding contrarily to any of its promises. The liberties which were promised may only have been meant to be temporary. They could be withdrawn at any moment, since the Emperor’s autocratic power remained. The Manifesto might only have been a sign of goodwill of the Emperor towards his people. It promised certain things, but gave no guarantee as to the fulfilment of these promises. The whole of Russia, it is true, understood it otherwise. The whole of Russia understood when this Manifesto was published that a Constitution had been promised, and that autocracy was in future to be limited. What Count Witte understood by it, it is difficult to say. Whether he foresaw or not that this Manifesto by its vagueness would one day mean much less than it did then, or whether he only realised this at the same time that he realised that the Conservative element was much stronger than it was thought to be, it is impossible to determine. The fact remains that the Emperor has not withdrawn anything; he has merely not done what he never said he would do, namely, voluntarily abdicate his autocratic power. The Conservatives are opposed to any such proceeding; not in the same way as the extreme reactionaries, some of whom relegated the portrait of the Emperor to the scullery on the day of the Manifesto from sheer Conservative principle, but because they say that if the autocratic power is destroyed the peasant population will be convulsed, and the danger will be immense. To this Liberals—all liberal-minded men, not revolutionaries—reply that this supposed danger is a delusion of the Conservatives, who have unconsciously invented the fact to support their theory and have not based their theory on the fact; that many peasants clearly understand and recognise that there is to be a constitutional _régime_ in Russia; that if this danger does exist, the risk incurred by it must be taken; that in any case it is the lesser of two evils, less dangerous than the maintenance of the autocracy.