The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-12-10 00:00:00

THE EAST

Accounts state that Russia had demanded from
the Shah of Persia a right of entry into the Pro-
vince of Makon, the name of Mogan will have to
be substituted, for it reproduces more correctly the
Persian expression. Mogan is the Persian district,
south of the river Aras, which partly forms the
frontier between Persia and the Transcaucasian
provinces of Russia. The eastern desert, part of
Mogan, has belonged to Russia since 1812. Kerman
is situated about 200 miles east of Shiraz, on the
borders of the desert of Beloocheestan.

RUSSIA.

ST. PETERSBURG, Nov. 29

A first number of a review devoted to political
economy will be published here in January ; the
prospectus is issued. The name of the chief editor
is Vernadskii. Tegoberski, the well known Russian
statistician, who lately made himself conspicuous
by taking up the gauntlet thrown down to the
financiers of Russia by Leon Faucher. Baron
Pleyendorff, Hayst, Senowskii, and others, are
among the contributors. Russia, in fact, begins
to follow the example of Prussia and Austria, where
political economy has become the main object of dis-
cussion to an extraordinary extent since the English
tariff reform of 1846. In Russia the struggle for
free trade will be as severe as it is in Austria,
but whoever has attentively watched the march of
internal reform in the East of Europe knows that
the example given by Prussia always prevails in
the long run with Russian as well as with Austrian
statesmen; and as, from the state of public opinion
in Prussia, hardly any doubt can exist that that
monarchy, at the next renewal of the Zollverein
treaty in 1863, will throw all her weight into the
balance in favour of thorough free-trade, and will
most probably carry the whole of Germany with
her. Russia and Austria, too, need not be
despaired of. It is difficult to form an adequate
idea of the consequences, if the whole East
of Europe be thrown open to the trade of the
world. Hitherto, the financial resources of the
three European Powers, which it includes, have
been kept down, so far as return from customs
duties is concerned, to a ridiculously small extent,
by the protective system, the object of which is, not
to impose a tax, but to destroy trade. Here is to be
sought the true reason of their comparative military
weakness, in spite of the large population which
they possess. The West of Europe has never
suffered so much from the protective system as the
East, which, more backwards from the beginning
in industry and agriculture, has stifled by protec-
tion the germ of commerce in an undeveloped
state, as an injury inflicted on a child will cripple
it more than a similar injury would cripple a grown-
up man. But far more important than the influ-
ence of an increased military strength of the Eastern
powers will be that of an increased prosperity
of their subjects, and it will act in the very
opposite direction. Neither of the two nations
which rule the East of Europe, the Russian and the
German, have any natural predilection for war ;
on the contrary, they constitute the most peaceful
elements in the East, and have become its con-
querors—because their greater industry, as com-
pared to that of the Poles and Magyars, for
instance, furnished their Governments with com-
paratively greater material resources, and likewise
made them increase more rapidly in numbers. In
• the long run it is always the more peaceful who
conquers. And in the long run these nations,
increasing in wealth and the desire of independ-
ence consequent up it, will conquer the military
element in their own Governments more easily than
any body else can do.