The effort to " Russify " Finland still continues. The
Governor-General, General Bobrikoff, has been entrusted with absolute powers, and is using them to banish all persons accused or suspected of influencing the people to resist. Sixty have already been deported, of whom four are reckoned among the leading citizens. This punishment, which is considered mild by the Russian authorities, in- volves to many of those banished immediate and total ruin, as their professional positions are lost, and they can get nothing to do in Sweden. The orders have created great irritation, and the banished men were followed to the steamer by strong demonstrations of popular sympathy ; but the Finlanders and their friends in Sweden and Denmark are, of course, powerless to resist their execution. It is said that recruiting will become more diffi- cult ; but that is improbable, as the first object of the whole outburst of tyranny is to subject Finland to as severe a con- scription as the rest of the Empire. It seems to onlookers almost madness to alienate whole populations in this way; but the Russian statesmen' obviously believe that a steam-roller makes a smooth path, and so far their history has justified their opinion. The result will be in the end that every popular emotion will run like wildfire over Russia, though at present the spread of opinion is arrested by the nearly universal ignorance. It was by such a system of rolling everything flat that the ancien regime prepared France for the Revolution.
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