FAMINE IN FINLAND.
THE terrible scourge of famine, which formerly desolated 1 whole districts of Europe, has found its last refuge in our days in the vast realm of Russia. In many respects, and particularly in the want of inland communication, the empire of the Czar is still much in the same condition in which the western states of Europe were a century or two ago. Although Russia is one of the largest corn-producing countries in the world, yet there scarcely passes a year with- out one or the other of its provinces being afflicted by famine. Owing to the all but complete absence of high roads, while there is abundance of food in one district, there is utter scarcity in another, to the extent of causing the death of thousands by absolute starvation. The variation in the price of corn in towns compara- tively near to each other is enormous' and quite as great as it was in England, France, and Germany during the Middle Ages. Count Kisseleff, Minister of the Imperial Domains, published a remarkable pamphlet on this subject in 1847, in which some extraordinary examples of the fluctua- tion of the markets were given. While, in the year 1845, the tschetvert-0-72 of the English quarter—of wheat cost ten roubles in the government of Pskow, it was in parts of the neighbouring government of Smolensk, at a distance not further than from London to Manchester, only one rouble and a half. During the same year the price of corn at Stavropol, in Cis-Caucasia, the centre of a fertile country which had enjoyed an usually good harvest, was one rouble and 57 kopeks the tschetvert ; while at Mosdok, little more than a hundred miles further east, it cost no less than 17 roubles 28 kopeks. According to Count Kisseleff's caktila. lions Russia produced at that time 50 millions tschetvert of corn, consumed 30 millions, and exported, at an average of ten years, only two and a half millions. So that 171 millions, or half enough to feed all England, were actually lost, while entire provinces were starving. The whole of the exported corn was drawn from the two governments of Bessarabia and Kherson, near the Black Sea ; and to bring larger quantities from the rich granaries in the interior, the minister stated, would take fully a year. These statements, startling as they were, and coming from so influential a quarter, made a great sensation at the time; but did not, and perhaps could not possibly produce much effect. Up to the present moment, a few comparatively insignificant lines of rail have been no com- pensation for the total absence of all other means of communica- tion between the inhabitants of the vast empire. Now, as ever, famine stalks annually through the dominions of the Czar, strik- ing down thousands on the road, and decimating whole towns and villages. It almost seems as if the terrible scourge were increasing, instead of diminishing, from year to year. Such an awful picture of death and desolation, produced by famine, as Finland offers at this moment, has probably not been seen in Europe for the last hundred years.
The description which Swedish and Norwegian journals give of the present condition of Finland is perfectly horrible. The chief crops, potatoes, rye and barley, having failed in two successive seasons, three-fourths of the population of the duchy are in a state of starvation, and thousands are said to have already succumbed to famine. In some towns in the interior, for instance the ancient Tavastehus, with its grand old castle On the margin of a vast lake, the formerly flourishinab Kuopio, Heinola, and other places, all trade and commerce have come to a complete standstill, the shops being shut, and most of the inhabitants having left their houses to seek food as beggars at a distance. Hosts of wan and weary pilgrims flock in long files into Abo, Helsingfors, Sumo, and Wasa ; others try to creep along the shores of the Ladoga Lake to St. Petersburg ; and while some few reach the goal and find a scanty subsistence, many more perish on the road, to be devoured by dogs and wolves, who are swarm- ing all over the country. Babies die on the breasts of their mothers for want of nourishment ; children, with ghastly faces and hollow eyes, are met with everywhere attempting to stifle the cravings ° s of hunger by chewing roots and the bark of trees ; and old people, helpless to move in the general shipwreck, crouch down in holes and corners to die a linger- ing, fearful death. While all these scenes of unspeakable distress, horror, and wretchedness are beheld on the northern shores of the Gulf of Finland, on the south side of the same inlet of the sea, the brilliant court of the Czar, surrounded by the elite of the Russian nobility, are revelling in luxury, with a display of pomp and magnificence as boundless as the misery on the opposite coast. Balls, theatricals, and fetes of all kinds chase each other ; troops of Italian singers, brought from the far south "regardless of expense" delight the ears of a galaxy of princes and nobles, and the most perfect corps de ballet which even Paris could produce has arrived to turn pirouettes, at imperial price, on the borders of the Neva.
There never was such a magnificent " season" as the present at the Russian metropolis, say all the letters from St. Peters- burg.
In Sweden and Norway, and particularly in Sweden, long connected in political union with Finland, the fearful distress under which the country has been suffering has excited the deepest sympathy. For the last three or four months house-to-house collections, in aid of the starving Finlanders have been made all over Sweden ; the merchants on the Exchange of Stockholm have subscribed princely sums ; king and court have set the example of generous charity, and everybody, down to the lowest peasant, has contributed some- thing to the "Finland Relief Fund." In fact, the people of Sweden seem to have done, comparatively, quite as much for .the starving Finnish population as we for our own Lancashire poor. In striking contrast with this behaviour stands that of the Russian Government. All along, scanty and tardy relief only has been sent from St. Petersburg to the adjoining pro- vince in the north ; and the policy of the Home Administra- tion seems to have been rather to suppress facts than to incite the sympathy of the general public. However, it was clearly impossible to carry out this system for any length of time ; and seeing it fail, a month or two ago, the Imperial Government had recourse to a new method for getting rid of its responsibility in the matter. The semi-official Invalide Russo first announced to the public, and the other more or less dependent journals successively repeated the statement, that the "grand duchy of Finland" was entirely independent of the control of the central government, and that its own administration was alone to be blamed for the insufficiency of proper arrangements for stemming the current of famine. To give proof of this asser- tion, Baron de Langenskiold, the head of the department of finances at Helsingfors, was sent to London in the beginning of December to negotiate a loan for Finland ; and, being properly backed by the Russian Ambassador, succeeded in borrowing about three-quarters of a million sterling from Messrs. Rothschild and Co., at the rate of 5 9-10ths per cent. The sum thus obtained was honestly applied for the alleviation of the distress ; but it led the Government of St. Petersburg into a curious dilemma which Czar Alexander himself had to solve. Notwithstanding the immense distress prevailing in Finland, the repeated preach- ings of the official press of St. Petersburg about the complete independence of "the grand duchy," did not fail to have their effect in the latter country, demonstrated in numerous petitions to the Czar, as "the grand duke." The petitioners, mostly merchants and citizens of the larger seaport towns, humbly requested His Majesty to transfer their independence from the realm of theories into that of facts, by once more convening the ancient parliament of the country, which had never been allowed to assemble since the annexa- tion of Finland to Russia, in 1809. Reporting upon these petitions, the commission of the Imperial Senate simply pro- posed to the Czar to send the whole of the people whose signatures had been given to Siberia. Alexander II., how- ever, decided otherwise ; and, to the horror of the ultra- conservative party in the Cabinet, signed a decree by which the Diet of Finland was summoned to meet, "for the despatch of business," at Helsingfors, in the spring of 1863.
It is satisfactory to learn from the last accounts from St. Petersburg that the famine in Finland has now reached its culminating point, and is visibly abating. The price of the famine, too, seems to be really secured, for there are serious preparations made for assembling the Parliament of Finland at the beginning of April. The old constitution, which is to be recalled into life after the lapse of more than half a century, dates from 1772, and is similar to that of Sweden. It pro- vides for a Diet of four estates, comprising deputies of the nobility, clergy, burghers, and peasants, each estate deliberat- ing and voting separately, except in constitutional questions, when all four unite together. This somewhat cumbrous legislative machinery the Czar-Grand Duke intends working in a new way, by means of questions and answers. First, the Government is to ask a series of questions of each of the four Chambers, and these having been satisfactorily answered, then the Chambers in their turn are at liberty to interrogate the Government. Finally, the quintessence of all these questions and answers is to be shaped into constitutional formulas and propositions by the Governor-General of Finland, Baron Rokassowski, to be then either voted or rejected by the Diet. The new system will form a curious inauguration of parliamentary government in Russia.
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