SOME MEMBERS OF RUSSIAN DUMA.
One of the demands made by the duma is for the abolition of the death penalty. This might seem a very radical measure to us, but the conditions are quite different in Russia. Here there is no assurance of an impartial trial, and torture is resorted to to force an admission of guilt. Only recently three persons were found to be innocent after they had been tortured and put to death. The members of the duma feel that the only security to the people is in the entire abolition of the death penalty, for while those who are falsely accused still live, there is a chance to rescue them. In this respect exile, hateful as it is, has its advantages; I met a member of the duma who was returned from exile by the government upon the demand of the duma. In the torturing of prisoners for the purpose of extorting a confession Russia is even behind China, bad as China is, for in the latter nation it has been abolished, except where one is charged with murder, and is only permitted then after the guilt of the accused has been established by other evidence.
MEMBERS OF THE RUSSIAN DUMA.
There are a number of important measures which are very little discussed in the duma because they are certain to receive the approval of the government; one of these provides for universal education. The program of the duma also includes legislation guaranteeing freedom of speech, freedom of the press, protection for the Jews and local self-government for the Polish portion of Russia. As the women have taken an active part in the agitation for constitutional reform, all of the parties are committed to woman's suffrage.
Just now the land question is paramount. About one-third of the entire acreage of land in the empire is in the hands of the czar, the government and the nobility, and the peasants demand that it shall be turned over to them. At this time they are willing to have compensation made to the owners, but the more they think about it and the more vehement their demand becomes, the less they are likely to consider compensation. There is no doubt that there are enough cases of injustice and contemptuous indifference to their needs to arouse resentment among the peasants, if we take human nature as we find it. They tell of instances where whole villages have been compelled to pay toll, generation after generation, for the privilege of crossing some nobleman's land to reach the land farmed in common by the people of the village. Powerless to condemn land for roads, as it can be done in other countries, they have grown more embittered year by year until some of them feel that patience has ceased to be a virtue. It is now intimated that the government will offer a partial distribution of land as a compromise.