The trial of a hundred and sixty - seven Members of the
first Duma for issuing the Viborg Manifesto has ended in the acquittal of two and the sentence of the remainder to three months' imprisonment. The Manifesto, in which the Russian
people were urged to withhold taxes and refuse military service, though provoked by the arbitrary dissolution of the first Duma, was undoubtedly an incitement to illegality, but the belated prosecution savoured of vindictiveness, the conduct of the trial enlisted popular feeling irresistibly on the side of the accused, and the sentences, judged by the Russian standard, are little better than a farthing damages with us. As one of the Russian papers puts it, "the mountain has given birth to a mouse. The accusation of setting the country ablaze has resulted in the punishment meted out to a careless cabman." The best that can be said of this episode is that it does, in a halting fashion, indicate the abandonment of the bad old methods. Five years ago such an offence would have been punished by administrative deportation to Siberia. The resort to a judicial tribunal at least marks a step in the right direction.
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