The news of the Duma this week is rather better.
The Socialist proposal to reject the Budget was defeated, most of the peasants voting for the Government, and the Budget has been referred to a Committee. The right of the Duma, which is almost without technical knowledge of finance, to bring in experts from outside is being insisted upon; and the Finance Minister has explained that though the Government withhold certain Estimates from discussion, the Duma is free to control the greater part of the national expenditure. Thus the immediate danger is past. The St. Petersburg correspondent of the Times points out on Thursday that the reform of local government and rural justice must come before all other measures, as the only proper foundation for the new edifice of the State. The difficult agrarian question, on which the first Dams was wrecked, may therefore be postponed for some time, and this is not a bad sign in itself. The Dnma does not sit on Friday mornings, in order that the Mussulman Members may attend their religious ceremonies, and this curious circumstance is a good illustration of the fact (which really summarises the interesting letter from Mr. Williams printed elsewhere in our issue) that the Duma is not a Parliament so much as an example of Imperial Federation.
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