He is a second autocrat, he concluded with a victorious smile.
In Russia, too, certain reforms were carried out; but they could not survive the suspicious interference of the autocrat and his officials.
Edward IV., as has been already remarked, had many of the opportunities of the autocrat, if only he had cared to use them; Personal but his sloth and self-indulgence stood in the way.
Stolypin defended the ukaz of the 2nd of June 1907, which in flat contradiction of the provisions of the fundamental laws altered the electoral law without the consent of the legislature, on the ground that what the autocrat had granted the autocrat could take away.
Not that the regime in Russia had become in any true sense constitutional, far less parliamentary; but the " unlimited autocracy " had given place to a " self-limited autocracy," whether permanently so limited, or only at the discretion of the autocrat, remaining a subject of heated controversy between conflicting parties in the state.
