POLAND AND THE LAW OF EUROPE.
LORD RUSSELL'S willingness to discard the Polish part of the Treaty of Vienna as mere waste-paper has been wel- comed and outstripped by the zeal of the Russian Government. The provinces of Augustowo and Plock have been, it is now almost certain, incorporated with Russia. An official rescript from St. Petersburg directs that the Russian language be intro- duced instead of the Polish into all the public offices in the " Czardom" of Poland, and that " in official matters the Russian language is to be spoken as well as written." Further, Polish officials are to be replaced by Russian on the frontiers, and in Warsaw within the next few months. There is something more than a cynical breach of faith and a challenge to the rest of Europe in these changes. They mean all the worst bitterness of war to tire conquered people. Hitherto, the Code Napoleon has been the recognized system of law in Poland. It is now formally suppressed in the two incorporated provinces, and will be entrusted in the others to foreigners who know nothing about it, and who will be bound to explain the laws they have never mastered in a language which the people do not understand. The foreign taskmaster will be the one permanent institution of every village in Poland, to preside over every public act of the Polish gentleman's life. Meanwhile, the Czar is preparing to consign another treaty to the flames. By the 14th Article of the Treaty of Paris, recognizing a convention between Russia and the Porte, it was stipulated that neither of the two Powers should maintain more than six ships of war of 800 tons at most, and four lighter ships, in the Black Sea, and this Article cannot be annulled or modified without the consent of all the seven-Powers who signed the treaty. The last accounts state that Russia is constructing twelve gunboats in the Black Sea, in addition to the flotilla permanently there and to the great passenger steamers constructed years ago to evade the treaty. Of course, all these statements will be denied. Prince Gortschakoff denied the outrages on M. Finkenstein, for which he afterwards paid compensation. The Govern- ment at Warsaw denied the defeats at Chelm and Pollan% which are as much matter of history as Waterloo. It has recently given the lie direct to a statement taken from the official journal at Wilna, that four Polish gentlemen had been executed. Its organs have steadily declared for months past that the insurrection was virtually suppressed, and we are almost startled at their moderation in allowing that there have ever been disturbances. Why not say at once that the whole revolt was a fiction of the emigres, and of a press anxious for sensation telegrams ?
Fortunately for English statesmen who have a policy to decide upon, the information concerning the changes in Poland is too precise and well authenticated to admit of any serious doubt being cast upon it. We may, therefore, consider in all calmness what is the best policy to adopt when one of the great Powers deliberately tramples under foot the public law of Europe. The circumstance that the Czar's present measures are in flagrant violation of the six points which he indicated some months ago as the basis of his policy, may serve to point a diplomatic remonstrance, but can scarcely be said to aggravate his position. The case is simply this, that Russia was put in possession of Poland on the faith of promises which it has never kept ; that it has used its power to disarm the people, has goaded them into rebellion, and now claims to govern by the right of conquest. Now, we do not profess to regard the Treaty of Vienna as possessed of any claims to be immortal or immutable. It was a compromise some- what clumsily made under very difficult circumstances, and the kingdoms of Belgium and Italy are substantial proofs that it might be altered for the better. In both cases the Belgians and the Italians, like the Poles at present, inasmuch as they had been no parties to the original compact, were clearly not bound to abide by it, because under force majeure they accepted it for a time. But it is difficult on any theory of good faith to understand how the great Powers, who made the arrangements on the principle of the greatest possible profit to each and all, can recede from their engagements, and treat them as mere matters of home policy. It is pleaded that Russia contracted to give institu- tions which could not work. If so, let her give up the country which was the price of that impossible contract, replace the Poles on a fair footing as belligerents, give notice of war to the Powers who signed the Treaty of Vienna, and proceed to wage a war in which the enemy will at least be treated as belligerents, not as rebels. Such a war will not be moral or Christian, but it will be diplomatically unimpeachable.
The last news from Vienna appears to show that the Aus- trian Government is honourably anxious to discharge its responsibilities. The atrocities daily perpetrated in Poland are naturally more present to the minds of the neighbouring people than to Englishmen, and Russian officials on the Polish frontier are the very actual menace of an advance from Moscow westwards. That Austria could make war with a fair chance of success can hardly be doubted. Her troops are as nu- merous as the Russians, and better organized ; she has not been exhausted by a civil war; she has renewed her strength with liberal institutions, and the whole population would rise like a man to support her. But Austria cannot move without guarantees agaiist Italy or Prussia, and with- out a fair prospect of a loan. France, where Liberal and Catholic are fortunately united on the Polish question, would probably do its best to maintain order in Italy; but France cannot guarantee Austria or Europe against the doomed in- fatuation of the Prussian monarch and his Minister. Tho solution of the whole difficulty, therefore, lies with England and the English Cabinet. Hitherto our diplomacy has had the one good effect of stating the Polish question frankly and clearly—a result which we have no wish to undervalue. But it has irritated without alarming the Russians, and the Czar is, in fact, replying to Lord Russell, when he sends the Order of St. Andrew to Mouravieff, or breaks a fresh article of the dishonoured treaties. Practically, therefore, we must either recede or take some active measures. If we elect to do nothing, the whole infamy of failure, of liberal institutions effaced, and the upper and middle classes in Poland exter- minated, will and must be assigned to us by European public opinion. We are trusted and France m not,—we arc powerful and Austria is weak,—the most important member of the future league, we are also the. only one that hesitates. It is not in the least necessary that we should declare war. What is really wanted is that we should give such guarantees to France and Austria that they may feel themselves secured against any English in- terposition if Prussia should prove intractable. English- men cannot realize the importance of this point. They say, and they say truly, that our sympathies will always be with the Poles, even if our arms are not. Let them assume M. von Bismark!Schiinhausen, the limits of whose actions no man can predict, allying his country to Russia, and marching troops towards the Rhino and Galicia. Is it certain, in such a case, that our old jealousy of France would not revive, and that a fermentation would not prevail through the length and breadth of England, such as, without issuing in war, might yet paralyze the whole power of France ? We all knew that we should not assist Austria against Italy, but Austria believed in Lord Derby's friendship, when she struck the first blow, and the dread of an English descent on the coast prevailed for some weeks in Normandy. The recall of our Ambassador from St. Petersburg, the recognition of the Poles as belligerents, and, perhaps, the guarantee of a loan to Austria, would commit us definitely to the Polish cause, and would leave other Powers free for action. If something of this kind be not done, we had better prepare to abdicate our position as a first-class Power in Europe. A Cabinet that expects to influence Mouravieff and the Cossacks by appeals to their moral sympathies runs the risk of being thought not only ridiculous, but dishonest. The last rumours from Vienna, however, encourage us to believe that Lord Russell has at last made up his mind to face the full difficulties of the position worthily.
We add a few words on the subject of intervention. It is the fashion to denounce it as useless to the recipients, who are unworthy of freedom if they cannot fight it out. Leaving alone the question raised by Mr. Mill, whether intervention be not the fair antidote to coalitions, we only ask the reader to glance at history. The civil war against Charles I. was pro- moted by Richelieu, and could hardly have succeeded in the outset without French assistance ; the Revolution was carried out by Dutch troops ; the Americans would, probably, have been wearied out, if not beaten, but for French aid. These are instances of the stubborn Anglo-Saxon people. But Hidland, and Portugal afterwards, were freed by French and English aid ; North Germany owes its liberties to Sweden ; and, within the last forty years, Greece, Belgium, and Italy, have been saved by foreign soldiers. It would hardly be too much to say that in four out of five instances, where an oppressed people has shaken off the yoke, it has owed its deliverance to intervention, and the two nations who have failed most disastrously by themselves, the Poles and Hun- garians, are among the most gallant and indomitable. Are we to look on quietly at the destruction of a free people for the sake of a false historical theory ?
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