Harsh, drastic expedients may easily loosen the threads that have begun
to get tied, foster national hate, arouse mutual distrust and
suspicion, and lead to results the reverse of those aimed at.
Assimilative measures adopted by the Government, therefore, should be
thought out carefully and applied gradually.

J.N. REUTER

"Might can not dominate right in Russia," said M. Stolypin, Russian
Minister of the Interior and President of the Council of Ministers, in
the speech which he delivered in the Duma on May 18, 1908, when pressed
by the various parties to declare his policy with regard to Finland.
This noble sentiment has the familiar ring of Russian officialdom. It
may, perhaps, be worth while to consider it in the light of recent
history and present-day issues.

Alexander I., the first Russian sovereign of Finland, addressed a
Rescript to Count Steinheil on his appointment to the post of
Governor-General. Therein he wrote: "My object in Finland has been to
give the people a political existence so that they shall not regard
themselves as subject to Russia, but as attached to her by their own
obvious interests." It is not the place here to give an historical
account of subsequent events. It may, however, be briefly stated that
the political ideal expressed in the words quoted here was at times
forgotten, but was again revived, and, in such times, even resulted in
the extension of Finland's constitutional rights. Then, again, this
ideal was abandoned, and gave way to a totally different one, which
found its most acute expression in February, 1899, when the Czar, a
year after the issue of his invitations to the first Peace Conference