The preliminary stage of the elections to the new Russian
Duma has been reached. On Sunday last the small land- owners in the province of St. Petersburg had to choose their delegates to the provincial Electoral College. They were divided into two classes,—those who own property over E300,
and those who own less. In four districts the voters abstained entirely. In the metropolitan districts of St. Petersburg a vast majority abstained. Those who did vote mostly sup- ported the Constitutional Democrats. The St. retersbug correspondent of the ritues gays that this remarkable apathy is due, as one easily believes, to the repeated dispersals of the Duma, and distrust of the new and narrow Electoral Law. He adds, however, that the voting-stations were so ill arranged that many persons would have had to travel scores of miles to vote. Of course, the almost wholesale abstinence of the small landowners will increase the power of the large landowners, who ipso facto are members of the provincial Electoral College. The elections of delegates from the clergy were also notable for abstentions. The workmen, on the other hand, bad not to go long distances, and voted in larger numbers. So far as one can judge, the " intelligents of Russia are till largely in favour of the Constitutional Demoorats; but real hope of getting a free Constitutional Parliament is for the moment stifled.
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