Spurred on by the reactionary Duma, the Government went to even greater lengths in its policy of Jewish discrimination. Premier Stolypin, who was getting constantly nearer to the Right, was entirely oblivious of the promise, made by him in 1905, to remove immediately all restrictions which are "the source of irritation and are manifestly obsolete." On the contrary, the Ministry presided over by him was systematically engaged in inventing new grievous disabilities. The Jewish deputy Friedman was fully justified in declaring, in a speech delivered in February, 1910, that even "during the most terrible time which the Jews had to live through under Plehve no such cruelties and barbarities were practised as at the present moment." Wholesale expulsions of Jews from the cities situated outside the Pale of Settlement and from the villages within the Pale assumed the character of an epidemic. In the spring of 1910 the Government decided on sacrificing to the Moloch of Jew-hatred a whole hecatomb by expelling twelve hundred Jewish families from Kiev--a measure which aroused a cry of indignation beyond the confines of Russia. The acts of the Government were marked by a refinement of cruelty, for even little children, invalids, and aged people were pitilessly evicted. Particular enmity was shown in the ejection of Jews who had committed the "crime" of visiting summer resorts outside the city lines. The Senate handed down a decision to the effect that the Jewish soldiers who had participated in the defence of the besieged fortress of Port Arthur during the Japanese War were not entitled to the right of residence which had been granted by a former decree[57] to the Jewish soldiers who had taken part in the war.