Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/59

 round and prevent the free play of our young representative institutions, we are driven to something like despair of their future development, you would be very much mistaken. On the contrary, we are very hopeful, particularly when we consider how much has been done in the line of constitutional practice and the political development of large masses in the very short space of ten years, during which our representative institutions have existed. Not only have we kept them alive in spite of all attempts of autocratic conspirators to abolish them, but we have found a steadily growing support in the country for a system of Liberal policy. We have seen our political parties, even the more Conservative and those which had been artificially built up with the aid of the Government, one by one yielding to the claims of the country.

The present war did very much to reveal that hidden process and make the result clear to everybody. I have told you already that this war has united us in the general aim of victory. I must say now that the war has done more than that. It has really worked miracles. It taught the united fourth Duma the best means to obtain their general aim. It taught us that in order to be strong the nation must be thoroughly organised. In the fourth Duma, whose composition you know, there is now a strong majority, 315 members out of the whole number of 440, for a scheme of constructive policy on a Liberal basis. That is what is known under the name of the "Progressive Block." This majority, moreover, has not only talked and discussed, it has already begun to act. The session of the Duma that ended a month ago, on the 3rd of