14 JUNE 1856, Page 14

HOW TO GOVERN.

CERTAIN questions, we sometimes tell ourselves, are " settled," and we speak as if we were all the world. Are we ? Lord Pal- merston hesitates, and justly, to appoint a Board of Science ; so much is he under the curb of opinion in this country against 'Government interference. But the new and "liberally-disposed " Itreperor Alexander has very opposite ideas. He not only disposes of Poland and the Poles, but he undertakes to regulate individual conduct throughout a community. Out of his mere clemency he permits all non-conspiring Poles to return to their country ; and all those who return, if they behave well for three years, will be 'enabled to make themselves useful to their country by entering the oivil service" ; if they behave ill, he will "curb and punish." Making these announcements at a ball given to him at Warsaw, the gracious Emperor added—" It is always more agreeable to me to reward than punish." While Palmerston hesitates to create a Board, Alexander talks of punishing or rewarding a whole nation ; and Russia and England are only extremes with a wide field between.