What strikes a stranger on first entering the Duma is the variety of costumes, showing plainly that all classes of the population are represented. There are landed proprietors not unlike English country squires; long-haired priests in ecclesiastical robes; workingmen from the factories and peasants from the villages in their Sunday clothes; one or two Cossacks in uniform; Mussulmans from the Eastern provinces in semi-Oriental attire. The various nationalities seem to live happily together--Great Russians, Little Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, Russo-Germans, Circassians, Tartars, &c. Almost as numerous as the nationalities are the recognized political parties--Conservatives, Nationalists, Liberals, Radicals, Labor Members, Social Democrats, and Socialists. Great liberty of speech is allowed, but the President has generally no difficulty in keeping order. Thus, to all appearance, the Duma seems exactly what was required to complete the edifice of self-government founded fifty years ago; but we must not suppose that a Constitution not yet ten years old can be as strong and efficient as a Constitution which has gradually emerged from centuries of political struggle. In other words, the Russian Duma differs in many respects from the British House of Commons. One fundamental difference may be cited by way of example. In England, as all the world knows, the Cabinet is practically chosen by the party which happens to be predominant for the moment, and as soon as it fails to command a majority it must resign; whereas in Russia, as in Germany, the Cabinet is nominated by the Emperor. This is, of course, a very important difference, and all to our advantage, but it is not so great in practice as in theory. The Czar, though free theoretically to choose his Ministers as he pleases, must choose such men as can obtain a working majority in the Assembly; otherwise, the whole parliamentary machinery comes to a standstill. Such a deadlock actually occurred in the First Duma. Smarting under the humiliation of the Japanese war, attributing the defeats to the incurable incapacity of the Supreme Government, and believing that the old system had become too weak to withstand a vigorous assault, the majority of the Deputies resolved to abolish at once the autocratic power and replace it by ultra-democratic institutions. They accordingly adopted, from the very first day of the session, an attitude of irreconcilable hostility to the Cabinet, refused to listen to Ministerial explanations, abstained from all useful legislative work, and carried their strategy of obstruction so far that the Government had to take refuge in a dissolution.