the same opinion, the law was not signed. Even so, as soon as Parliament had cast its votes for the law, Stahlberg resigned, for he considered the vote an expression of lack of confidence, and he did not want to present the Czar a law which he considered unsatisfactory.

Many other important issues were before Parliament for discussion. In the beginning it revealed inexperience in its work, a great deal of partisanship and even intolerance toward those of differing opinions, but the session also indicated great enthusiasm and a desire to carry out reforms. And it did not take long before Parliament had to take a stand against a new attack being prepared in St. Peterburg.

Since the position of the Mechelin Senate began to be untenable, many of its members resigned, and the Czar dissolved the Parliament in April, 1908. At the same time a new bourgeois Senate was named: its vice-chairman became the Young Finn, Edward Hjelt, and two new members were J. R. Danielson-Kalmari and J. K. Paasikivi of the Old Finns. This government had to perform in even more difficult circumstances than its predecessors, for 1909 brought with it another crisis: in that year the constitutional trend begun in 1905 was forced to a stop altogether, while a new russification phase began. Some men were appointed senators who could only nominally be said to have retained their status as Finns, such as army officers and officials who had taken up residence in Russia, but even they were soon pushed aside and replaced by pure Russians. Governor-General Gerard was recalled in 1908, and his successor General Böckman was recalled the following year, when the position was given to F. A. Seyn, who had been one of Finland's most bitter enemies from as far back as the Bobrikov era. The new repressive policies were now more skillfully carried out than in earlier attempts; an open show of force was avoided, and the press was not treated as harshly as it had been during the first period of repression. Instead of that, the police organization was gradually put into Russian hands, and the influence of the gendarmerie was increased. The Finnish Parliament tried its best to defend the country's rights, but it always found itself dissolved for even the slightest show of stubbornness. In elections which followed rapidly one after the other, there were no significant changes in the relative party strengths, and the voters continued to go to the polls again and again, almost as a demonstration of their determination.

In June 1910, P. A. Stolypin, who had become Prime Minister of Russia four years earlier, made a speech in the Duma, aimed

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