Having elucidated the substantially unalterable aims of Russian policy in Finland, let us proceed to the causes which have led to its present incidental and temporary form of expression. This, undoubtedly, is distinguished by its severity, but such are the requirements of an utilitarian policy. By the bye, the total of these severe measures amounts to twenty-six Finlanders expelled from the country and a few officials dismissed the service without the right to a pension. It was scarcely possible, however, to retain officials in the service of the state once they refused to obey their superiors. Nor was it possible to bear with the existence of a conspiracy which attempted to draw the peaceful and law-abiding population into a conflict with the Government, and that, too, at a moment when the prudent members of the population of the duchy took the side of lawful authority, thereby calling forth against themselves persecution on the part of the secret leaders of the agitation party. The upholders of the necessity for a pacific policy toward Russia were subjected to moral and sometimes physical outrage, and their opponents were not ashamed to institute scandalous legal processes against them for the purpose of damaging their reputations. Very different is the attitude of the great mass of the population, as the following incident shows: The president of the Abo Hofgericht, declining to follow the instructions of the party hostile to Russia, was, on his arrival in Helsingfors, subjected to a variety of insults from the mob gathered at the railway station. On his return to Abo he was, on the contrary, presented with an address from the peasantry and local landowners, in which the following words occur: "We understand very well that you have been led to your patriotic resolve to continue your labors in obedience to the government by deep conviction, and do not require gratitude either from us or from any others; but at the important crisis our people is now experiencing it may be of some relief to you to learn that the preponderating majority of the people, and especially in broader classes, gratefully approve of the course you have taken." It will scarcely be known to any one in the West that when signatures were being gathered for the great mass-address of protest dispatched to St. Petersburg in 1899, those who refused their signatures numbered martyrs among them. There are some who for their courage in refusing their signatures suffered ruin and disgrace and were imprisoned on trumped-up charges. Moreover, the agitators aimed at infecting the lower classes of the population with their intolerance and their hatred of Russians, but, it must be said, with scant success.