THE RECENT POLITICS OF RUSSIA.
IT is one of the drawbacks of the telegraph that it con- denses history into epigrams. The blank factfi, stated without the details which qualify all action, acquire of ne- cessity- a fictitious force. A bulletin, however cautiously worded, must always be more startling than the events it records, and caution is not the conspicuous virtue of re- porters for the telegraph. They do not misrepresent facts, but they have a professional and very annoying tendency towards what the Americans call "sensation paragraphs." The evil has been unusually marked in the reports of recent action of the Russian Government. The English public, for example, judging chiefly by telegraphic bulletins and short accounts based on similar despatches, believed that the Polish movement had been unexpectedly successful. The Czar was congratulated by the entire Press, from the Times downwards, on the wise liberality he was supposed to have displayed. A complete change was believed to have passed over Russian counsels, and Poland, though not free, was to be "conciliated." Subsequent and more accurate accounts modify these impressions on some essential points. The despatches misrepresented nothing, the facts stated all oc- curred, but they occurred under circumstances not reported in telegrams, and which gravely affect their meaning. Thus it is quite true that the obnoxious chief of police in Warsaw was replaced by an old officer demanded by the Poles. But it is also true that he remained in the department, invested with all real authority. It is sufficiently accurate to say that Prince Gortschakoff himself transmitted the petition to St. Petersburg, but the bare statement implies that he approved its tenor, whereas he repeatedly refused to receive it at all, and only yieldad to an order from the Czar. The Poles may be said to have the promise of a Council of Notables, but the " promise " was merely the expression of the Emperor's wish for such a council, reported by Prince Gortschakoff to Count Andrew Zamoyski in a private interview. The state- ment has since been officially repeated, but we have yet to learn whether the suggestions received are to be more than an apology for delay. The same kind of pledge has been given as to municipalities, but Prince Gortschakoff nevertheless threatens those who petition for them with the rigour of military law. The liberal education is to be granted some time or other, but of any distinct pledge to that effect no trace is visible. The general conclusion of the public seems almost as premature as the list of reforms ; the Poles have accepted the concessions, but as Count Zamoyski said, "they accept without being satisfied." The artisans indeed, to judge from a nal, petition they have presented to the Municipal Council of Warsaw, will be content only with the old constitution, guaranteed by a national army, the very last thing they are likely peaceably to obtain, and are filled with vague ideas of the requests made in their favour after the campaign in the Crimea. The facts reported are still wretchedly incomplete, but enough remains to show that Alexander II., however well disposed to reforms oetroyed by the throne, is by no means prepared to concede immediate liberty to Poland. Indeed, but for the favourable impression created by his character, the drift of his acts would suggest rather an attempt to tide over an immediate difficulty than any settled policy whatever. Stated in brief, they look liberal, but when filtered through officials and accompanied by details, they reveal the old spirit, tempered only by the difficulties of the hour, and a personal aversion to extreme oppression. To talk as the French press is doing of the freedom of Poland, is something very like a wilful exaggera- tion, and one which, if as accurate as it is unsound, would presage complications of a most dangerous order. • That the Russian Government will resign its direct and absolute con- trol over its point d'appui against Western Europe, is to the last degree improbable. It has spent millions to make Poland a frontier arsenal, and, however amiable the Czar may be, neither he nor his people are prepared to renounce the dreams of a century and a half. If they even endanger them it must be under foreign influence, and the only bribe to which the Russian Court is accessible is the prospect of tolerated aggression to the South. That is not a prospect which even the resurrection of Poland would tempt England to regard with indifference or complacency. If, however, the accounts from Warsaw were inaccurately clear, those of the emancipation are at least as inaccurately obscure. The abstract of the decree of the 3rd of March, perhaps the most important paper issued in this generation, is almost unintelligible. M. Herzen, who ought to know more of the subject than any man out of St. Petersburg, we perceive illuminates his house as for a great victory gained by his country, and the Irolokol assures the world the enfranchisement is liberal beyond anticipation. But the bulletin, if accurate, shows that the Czar at the eleventh hour receded from his original programme. The serfs are to be freed, it is true, en masse, but after two years more of slavery. They are enabled by law to purchase their dwellings, and, with the consent of the landlords, their land also, pro- visions which, if correctly stated, would destroy half the value of the gift, and possibly produce an insurrection. Indeed, the very bulletin which contains these terms contains a paragraph which refutes them, for it says the law will cede them ground, thus overriding the will of the proprietors. The fact, we imagine, is that the peasant receives his house, and the long-discussed five acres at a fixed price, and is left to make his bargain for the rest. If he can pay the price he is free, if not, he must work it out within two years. Of per- sonal serfdom, a point perhaps more important than any other, because it affects not the wealth but the character of the people, nothing whatever is transmitted. For anything the despatches tell us, "dependence on the landlords for two years" may mean slavery to the landlords for two years, which is, we suspect, the precise opposite of the meaning really implied. The misquotation of a price current will be readily forgiven by all whom the blunder does not mulct, but it is tiresome that an act without a precedent in its effects on the human race should be described to Europe in a summary so concise as to lose one-half of the features in which its in- terest consists.
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