Sergius Witte

ant policies. He took sides with the Finns, the students, and the dissenters, and was consistently and openly hostile to foreign adventures. For instance, it is well known that he wrought to the utmost of his power to secure the evacuation of Manchuria, and so to avert the war with Japan, which he afterwards did so much to repair. But the taint of the reactionary never left him. Even when he was doing most to keep the regard of the people, when he was actually compromising himself at Court by his open advocacy of methods less drastic than those which, in Russia, are conventional when the suppression of disorder or the elimination of a disturbing element are concerned, he could seek the aid of Constantin Pobiedonostzeff to shut down a newspaper which criticized him too freely. He was never bound by principle--never the bondman of a single creed. One would think he were a sceptic where faith in human kind is concerned, so cynical is the instability which he manifests when he has only men and women to deal with.