The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-09 00:00:00

STRAND.

THI4 FrwelWri, ter which will be pweluced
a Grand Burlesque, GUY FAWKEi.—Anii BOOTS AT VIE
SWAN.

fIOLBORN.

Tina Evrento, MV i 1 Its NECT. Mr. Behnore; limes
Foote and Len:oz.—And FLYING Scl:1:1.). Messrs. Netille,
wort!, Wake, Vollaire, ; li.nularues F. Josephs, C. Muckier*,
Souk YOUle, Fichte*, Lennox, itaymond, cte.

BRITANNIA

Tlll. ErExtxa, TIIR PlifF4l:ll,N;;;il' THE PEARL INLAND:
OR, 'IDE TicitEE KINi:DONIS OF PEARL, GOLD, AND
SILVER Ntr, 1.14, an I M., .lito,bs.—Fir,t-r.tte Pantomimist*.
THF: SKELRIoN CREW.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
_ . .

Tim DAT —Moroloc, lb. 2in Afternoon. 4h 20141.
TO•MOILROW—Morntug, 411. :fain Afternoon. 4b. 650.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9.

THERE is no room for dispute as to the aim and
intention of the Imperial decrees concerning Po-
land which have just been published at St. Peters-
burg. The Russian Government designs the com-
plete obliteration of all that successive aggressions
have spared of the kingdom of Poland. The
nationality of that unfortunate people, as consti-
tuted, organized, and acknowledged, in accordance
with the public Low Europe, has been destroyed.
So much it was undoubtedly in the power of the
Russian Government to accomplish. The treaties of
Vienna provided for the maintenance of the
kingdom of Poland connected with the Russian
Empire ; by its constitution enjoying a distinct
administration and national institutions ; and the
signatories of those treaties were held to have
guaranteed the permanence of these rights.
In the course of the discussions which
took place in the House of Commons
in 1863, our Government was strongly urged to
declare that it withdrew its sanction from those
treaties, on the ground of their continued viola-
tion by the Emperor of RUMSIA. But Lord
PALMERSTON firmly objected to such a proposal,
because it would deprive Poland of the
benefit of an appeal to these very rights
which are now confiscated. If the course
which our Government was urged to take had
been adopted, no important political conse-
quences might have ensued, but we should have
done all that lay in us to rectify our moral posi-
tion. Now, however, Poland ceases to exist as a
separate kingdom, and the treaties of Vienna are
not so much as mentioned. This is no loss to the
Poles, since for them those much extolled much
decried treaties have never been anything but a
mockery, and it is always wholesome to clear
away a practical untruth. What remains, then,
of Polish nationality? Those political ob-
servers for whom diplomatic stipulations,
administrative divisions, the rank and title of
governors and commanders are everything, will
say that nothing remains, and that Poland is now
assimilated to Russia. To others, perhaps,
the fact that henceforth one decree will regu-
late alike for Russia and Poland matters con-
cerning which two decrees would have been issued
a year ago ; that the financial, postal, and pro-
vincial administration of Husain and Poland will,
from this time forward, be in the same hands, will
not appear to constitute a very important revolution
in the state of the latter country ; whether the
ukases which impose or distribute the burdens
of Poland are signed at Warsaw or St. Peters-
burg, they will be the acts of an enemy at present
too powerful to he resisted. Those who thus
think hold that Polish nationality survives, irre-
spective of the new arrangements under which
the country will be governed. But survives
how and where ? Survives, these persons would
probably say, as a deeply implanted sentiment ;
at the domestic hearth, in the poignant yet pre-
cious recollections of the mother, in the oft-told
experiences of the father, in the memory of great
hopes and sacrifices that only the more endear
those who make them to the cause for which they
are made. Sentiment ! what has seemed so
empty, futile, and ridiculous in the eyes of states-
men and politicians for the last fifty years ? Was
not the treaty of Vienna a supreme protest against
sentiment, and have not Princes, Kings, and
Emperors declared in protocols and decrees with-
out number that it must and shall be repressed ?
Very true ; and nevertheless it is at this moment
the mightiest political force in Europe, and tho
most powerful statesmen of the day are those
who know how to evoke and direct it.
Sentiment has destroyed the treaties of
Vienna. Sentiment has undone the work of
RADETZKY and his legions in Italy; sentiment has
created a sixth great power in Europe ; sentiment
paralyses one mighty host, and enables another to
destroy thrones and powers ; sentiment makes a
NAPOLEON the dictator of Europe, and then, when
be is at the height of his greatness, denies him
at the Rhin:: the concession which would
have crowned his reign. The recent decrees for
" uniting and equalising the regulations existing
" in Poland with those in force in Russia" can
produce their intended effect only in so far that
they destroy the sentiment of Polish nationality or
hinder its manifestations. It is not clear that re-
gulations about taxes and p3st-offices have any
tendency to do this. The Poles did not need the