The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-21 00:00:00

THE RUSSIAN DESPATCH.

The following is the text of the Russian Reply
to the English Despatch on the Government of
Poland :

PRINCE GOUTSCHAEOIT TO BARON BRUNNOW.

ST. PETERSBURG, July 1.
M. le Baron—Lord Napier has been instructed to
give ire the annexed despatch from her Britannic
Majesty's principal Secretary of State to read, and
a copy of it. We have pleasure in learning that
Lord Russell admits with us the barren nature of a
prolonged controversy relative to the Ist article of
the Treaty of Vienna ; and that with us, likewise,
he desires to place the question upon ground
which should offer more opportunities for
arriving at a practical solution. Before taking
our stand upon this ground we deem it use-
ful to put in a clear light our positions
respectively. The Imperial Cabinet admits the
principle that every Power signing a treaty has the
rig ht to interpret the sense thereof from its own point
of view, provided always that that interpretation re-
mains within the limits of the meaning that is pos-
sible to be put upon it according to the text itself.
In virtue of this principle the Imperial Cabinet does
not dispute this right in any one of the eight Powers
which have concurred in the general proceedings of
Vienna of 1815. Experience has, it is true, demons-
trated that the exercise of such righi issues in no
practical result. The experiments made already in
1831 have had no issue but to place on record the
divergence of opinion. Nevertheless this right exists.
It extends as far as the limits which I have indi-
cated above, and is incapable of obtaining a wider
range but with the express consent of the contracting
party most directly interested. Accordingly it de-
pended upon the Imperial Cabinet to maintain the
strict application of this principle, observing the lineof
action taken towards them in thecourse of the month
of April last, with respect to events which occurred
in the kingdom of Poland. If, in reply to that ap-
peal, they went further into the subject, it was en-
tirely owing to their perfect readiness to seek to
conciliate, and in order to reply with courtesy to an
appeal which bore a similar character. I will add
that another cause was, that in the intentions which
his Majesty the Emperor cherishes towards his
Polish subjects there was no purpose which could
dispose us to remove them from the light. This
consideration was perfectly brought out by your
Excellency when you informed the principal Secre-
tary of her Britannic Majesty that the Imperial
Cabinet was ready to enter upon an exchange
of views upon the basis and within the limits
of the treaties of 1815. That declaration
we adhere to, and my despatch of this day will
furnish the best proof of our perseverance in
the same disposition. Having thus confirmed the
genuine and sole character of the invitation which
we have addressed to the English Cabinet, we will
permit ourselves, after Lord Russell's example, to
precede the observations which we have to com-
municate to his Excellency by some reflections in
reply to the questions which he has entered upon
and proposed at the outset.

The principal Secretary of State of her Britannic
Majesty says that the basis of Government is in
every case the confidence which it inspires in the
governed, and that the ascendancy of the law over
the arbitrary element must be the foundation for
order and stability. A priori we subscribe to these
principles. We will only call to mind that their
indispensable corollary is respect for authority.
The confidence with which a government inspires
the governed depends not only on the good.
ness of its intentions, but also on the convic-
tion imparted that it has the power of carry-
ing them into effect. If Lord Russell affirms that
partial tumults, secret conspiracies, and the influence
of cosmopolite strangers will not shake a Govern-
ment based upon confidence and respect for tne
laws, he will also admit that neither confidence nor
legal conduct would be possible were that Govern-
ment to allow that a fraction of the people were
vested with the right of seeking elsewhere than
under the legitimately constituted authority, by
armed rebellion supported by hostile or foreign
parties, the well-being and the prosperity which
they might declare that they could not realise
without the aid of inspirations from abroad.
Lord Russell places before us six articles which
he considers to be of a nature to provide for
the pacification of the kingdom of Poland. In
communicating them to us her Britannic Ma-
jesty's Principal Secretary of State adopts in
part the point of view put forward by my de-
spatch of the 14th of April. This is an exchange of
sentiments, and to that form of expression we have
no objection to raise. I have clearly indicated in
the despatch to which I refer the germs of practical
conuuct laid down by oar august master, and the
developments reserved in his Majesty's purpose to
be given them when he should deem the proper time
to be come. In comparing them with his own views
Lord Russell will convince himself that the greater
part of the measures which he points to have al-
ready been decreed or prepared on the initiative of
our august master. The Principal Secretary of
State of her Britannic Majesty expresses the hope
that the adoption of these measures would lead to
the complete and permanent pacification of the king-
dom of Poland. We are unable to share this hope
without certain reserves. Viewing the subject as we
do, reorganisation of the kingdom must in all cases
be preceded by the re-establishment of order in the
country. That result is dependent on a condition to
which we had called the attention of the Govern-
ment of her Britannic Majesty, and which is not
July unfulfilled, but is not even alluded to in the
despatch of Lord Russell. We refer to the material
assistance and moral encouragement obtained from
abroad by the insurrectionists. We are not aware
from what sources of information the Government
of her Britannic Majesty have formed their judg-
ment of the state of affairs in Poland ; we must
presume that they are not of impartial origin. In-
deed, we find Lord Russell himself establishing a
kind of similarity between the news published by
the St. Petersburg journal from statements fur-
nished under the control and upon the responsibi-
lity of the recognised agent of the Government, and
tee information of every kind which the London
journals borrow, without discernment or any gua-
rantee, from the most suspected publications of the
Polish revolutionary press. The confidence in-
spired by these publications has more than once
given cause for declarations which, in spite of the
formal denials given to them by daily events, have
contributed to mislead opinion in England. Iu this
manner have been propagated, in relation to the
brave Russian soldiers who fulfil in Poland a pain-
ful duty with devotion and self-denial, calumnies
and outrages which all Russia has felt with pro-
found indignation. If Lord Russell were exactly
informed of what passes in the Kingdom of Poland
he would know, as we do, that wherever the armed
rebellion has striven to acquire substance, to give
itself a visible head, it has been crushed. The masses
have kept aloof from it, the rural population evinces
even hostility to it, because the disorders by which
agitators live ruin the industrial classes. The insur-
rection sustains itself alone by a terrorism unprece-
dented in history. The bands are recruited princi-
pally from elements foreign to the country. They
gather together in the woods, disperse at the first
attack to reunite in other places. When they are
too closely pressed they cross the frontier to re-enter
the country at anoi her point. Politically, it is a stage
display intended to act upon Europe. Tne principle
of action of the directing committees from without
is to keep up agitation at all cost, in order to give
food for the declarations of the press, to abuse public
opinion, and to harass the Government by furnish-
ing an occasion and a pretext for a diplomatic in-
tervention which should lead to military action. All
the hope of the armed insurrection is in this, it is
the object at which it has laboured from its rise_
Lord Russell will admit that in this situation the
measures which he recommends to us would with
difficulty find application practically. The greater
part, I repeat it, have already been decreed ; the
state of the country has, up to the present time,
paralysed their execution. As long as that
condition of things shall subsist the same causes
will produce the same effects. The presence of
armed bands, the terrorism of the central committee,
and the appearance of an immediate pressure from
without, would moreover take from these measures
the fitness of time, the dignity, and the effective-
ness, which we could promise ourselves in their