Through Finland in Carts

by Mrs. Alec-Tweedie

In 1903 General Bobrikoff procured for himself dictatorial powers in Finland, of which he availed himself freely. Among other things, more than fifty Finlanders, many of them belonging to the most prominent citizens of the Grand Duchy, were exiled or deported to Russia. Some of the deportations, however, happened after the death of General Bobrikoff.

On June 16, 1904, a young official, Eugen Schauman, who had never been known to take an active interest in politics, shot General Bobrikoff dead, and immediately afterwards killed himself. A few weeks later, on July 28, M. de Plehve fell the victim of a plot of Russian revolutionaries, aided and abetted, it appears, by agents of the Russian secret police. M. de Plehve combined with his office of Russian Minister of the Interior the post as Secretary of State for Finland, which, by the way, also was illegal, as this post should be filled by a Finlander.

Thus two of the most prominent enemies of Finland were no longer among the living. M. de Plehve's immediate successor, Prince Sviatopolsk-Mirski, was a humane and liberal-minded man. The new Governor-General in Finland, Prince Obolenski, also was a man of a far less aggressive type than General Bobrikoff. Shortly after his arrival in Finland more lenient methods in dealing with Finland were adopted. In the autumn of 1904 the Diet was convoked, and those of the exiles who were either members by right of birth of the House of Nobles, or had been elected to either of the other Houses, were allowed to return.

At this time Russia was involved in the disastrous war with Japan. The grave difficulties which the Government experienced from the repeated defeats in the Far East were further enhanced by the revolutionary movement at home. At the end of October 1905 a general strike was proclaimed in Russia, which resulted in the Tzar's manifesto of October 30, in which the establishment of a Constitutional Government in Russia was promised. The same day a general strike broke out in Finland. All government offices, schools, industrial establishments, restaurants, public-houses, and shops were closed. The railway service, and to a great extent the steamship service, stopped; so also the telephones and the supply of electric light. Only a few telegraph lines were in operation. In the towns, the tramways and cabs no longer moved in the streets. Only the water and food supply was kept going. In Helsingfors, a deputation of leading citizens went to Prince Obolenski, and urged him to resign his post. The same demand was directed to the members of the Senate, who were too much compromised on account of their submissiveness to General Bobrikoff's régime.

On December 31, 1904, the Diet had adopted a "Humble Petition" to the Tzar for the restitution of Finland's constitutional rights, but no answer had been forthcoming. This petition was now brought to the Tzar's notice, and on November 4, 1905, he signed a Manifesto, in which he granted the petition and repealed all the more important of the previous unconstitutional measures. The Manifesto of February 15, 1899, was to be "suspended until the questions therein contained shall be arranged by an act of legislation." At the same time, the Diet was convoked for December 20, 1905.

The importance of this Diet is only surpassed by that held at Borgå in 1809, almost a century before, and it is equalled only by the Diet of 1863. It was the last Diet held under the system of four Estates, sitting in separate houses, and the last remnant of this time-honoured, venerable, but certainly somewhat cumbrous Swedish system of representation disappeared. For at this Diet the new law of the Diet, of which a brief account is given above, was adopted in May 1906. During the "Bobrikoff era," or "Era of Oppression," as the preceding years were called in Finland, women had done excellent service in the organisation of the passive resistance movement, and largely for this reason men were ready and willing that the suffrage should be extended to women on the same conditions as to men themselves. No vulgar rioting was necessary. Finnish men were wide-minded enough to see that as regards brains, employment, and politics, there should be no such question as sex.

The proportional system of voting was also adopted without any opposition.

The same year the principles of the freedom of the Press, of assemblies, and of associations were guaranteed by a law, invested with the sanctity of fundamental laws, which, for their repeal or alteration, require a qualified majority.

We can now return to the question of parties in Finland. Already before the commencement of the "Bobrikoff era," the Fennoman party had split up into two groups known as the Old-Finnish and the Young-Finnish party. The latter professed more liberal views on various questions, as in regard to religion and social problems. The Svecoman party had to a considerable extent abandoned its opposition to the Finnish claims, but it still remained as representing the interests of the Swedish population in Finland. When the Russian attacks first commenced, all party divergences were sunk into oblivion, and the country provided the spectacle of a completely united nation. General Bobrikoff was too much of a tactician to be pleased with this state of affairs, and he began to play up to the Old-Finns, not without success. Among other things, he filled all public posts, vacated by their former occupants, who had either resigned on constitutional grounds or had been dismissed, exclusively with Old-Finns.

The Swedish and Young-Finnish parties now entered on a powerful party alliance, and formed the "constitutional" bloc, which was also joined by many influential members of the Old-Finnish party, and strongly supported by the great masses, who had previously exercised very little political influence, and from the ranks of which the recent Social Democratic party was later on to be recruited.