8 10 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
for their customs, adaptation would naturally follow. It had begun before the coercive measures went into force. But now assimilation is at a standstill. 1
The present policy of Russia in Finland in similar to that of Germany in Schleswig. Systematic oppression was begun about twelve years ago by Katkoff, the apostle of the doctrine of Rus- sia for the Russians, and the champion of the suppression of the Poles and the Germans of the Baltic provinces. But it has become acute only within the last two years. Finland did not come into the Russian empire as a prize of conquest, but voluntarily, at the invitation of the Czar Alexander I., who, on becoming grand duke of Finland, took an oath to respect the rights of the Finns to self-government and to acknowledge the Finnish constitution. His successors have done likewise, and in spite of the fact that the present Czar, Nicholas II., took the oath to maintain the privileges of Finland as late as 1896, decided encroachments have been made on the Finnish consti- tution, beginning under Alexander III., in 1890. Then the post- office and telegraph systems were reorganized and placed under Russian officials, and the Russian system of coinage was intro- duced. In 1898 Nicholas II. abolished the national militia of Finland, in which, according to the constitution, the military power of the country was vested, and introduced in its stead universal conscription. This was done about the time he issued his famous peace manifesto to the world. On February 15, 1899, he issued a proclamation declaring it his sole right to interpret the consti- tutional laws of Finland. Thus he again violated the constitu- tion by ignoring the share of the Finnish diet in this right. These acts caused great grief "throughout Finland. Ladies put on black as a sign of public mourning, and a monster mass- meeting was held at Helsingfors, the capital, where resolutions were adopted to draw up a petition of the entire nation asking for a reconsideration of the measures. But the Czar refused even to receive the petition. He also refused another one drawn up the following summer by the leading states of Europe and signed by 1,050 scholars and artists, and which amounted really
'GEORG BRANDES, "Denmark and Germany," Contemporary Review, July, 1899.
