laws for their welfare!" And the first jarring note came when
not one of these men joined in the applause which followed.

The first _Duma_ was composed of 450 members. The world was watching
this experiment, curious to find out what sort of beings have been
dumbly supporting the weight of the Russian Empire. Almost the first
act was a surprise. Instead of explosive utterances and intemperate
demands, the _Duma_ formally declared Russia to be a _Constitutional
Monarchy_. No anarchistic extravagance could have been so disturbing
to autocratic Russia as was this wise moderation, which at the very
outset converted Constitutional Bureaucrats into Constitutional
Democrats, thus immensely strengthening the people's party at the
expense of the Conservatives. The leaders in the _Duma_ knew precisely
what they wanted, and how to present their demands with a clearness, a
power, and a calm determination for which Russia,--and indeed that
greater audience, the world at large,--was quite unprepared. That this
seriously alarmed the Imperial party was proved by an immediate
strengthening of the defences about the throne by means of a change in
what is called the _Fundamental Laws_. These Fundamental Laws afford a
rigid framework, an immovable foundation for the authority of the
Emperor and his Cabinet Ministers.

Repairs in the Constitution of the United States have been usually in
the direction of increased liberties for the people. The Tsar, on the
contrary, aided by his Cabinet and high Government officials, drafted a
new edition of the Fundamental Laws suited to a new danger.

The changes made were all designed to build up new defences around the
throne, and to intrench more firmly every threatened prerogative. The
Tsar was deliberately ranging himself with the bureaucratic party
instead of the party of his people; and the hot indignation which
followed found expression in bitter and powerful arraignment of the
Government, even to the extent of demanding the resignation of the
Ministry. What was at first a rift, was becoming an impassable chasm.

If Count Witte had disappointed the Liberals by his lukewarmness and by
what they considered an espousal of the conservative cause, he was even
less acceptable to the Bureaucrats, to whom he had from the first been
an object of aversion--an aversion not abated by his masterly diplomacy
at Portsmouth, for which he received only a grudging acknowledgment.
Whatever may be the