The chief event in Russia during the past week has
been the publication of the Government's agrarian programme. For the moment there is a reaction against revolution among many classes formerly affected by it, a feeling that Anarchy is the greater enemy, and a consequent disposal to judge
Government measures leniently. M. Stolypin's land policy seems an honest attempt to face a difficult question., He relaxes the communistic system in the villages, which bad become a burden, and offers the peasant twenty-three million acres of land in Russia and fifty-five million acres in Siberia. The scheme will not satisfy the extremists, since it does not provide for expropriation ; but it may stave off agitation for a time, till the way opens up for an ampler remedy. There are many signs that the various revolutionary bodies lack cohesion and organisation, and if the Government were to seize the occasion to repress reaction, and at the same time grant reasonable liberties to the well-disposed, it is possible that it might carry the day. One encouraging sign of a better temper is the permission which bra been accorded to the Constitutional Democrats to hold their Congress to-morrow at Helsingfors.
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