The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

DAILY Nxws.—A man need neither be a red de-
taoerat nor a socialist, nor have any political opi-
nions at all, to do what thousands of unhappy Poles
are doing now in the frenzy of despair. Anybody
can work out the computation whether it is better
to die at once, in youth, among compatriots, on the
soil of the mother country, than submit to be seized,
deprived of liberty, and forced into a service in-
volving separation from all that is prizcd in life,
and banishment to some strange land. In free
countries it is not difficult to find men in abund-
ance ready to undertake services full of privations
and trials. Freedom developes the love of ad-
venture and the pride and self confidence which
will carry men through any hardships and perils.
The seamen who have so often volunteered for our
arctic voyages have cheerfully braved dangers and
sufferings such as no Government would think
of sentencing its convicts to. But it is only free
blood that is equal to these trials. Conscription is
the moat hateful form of recruiting; but it exists in
other countries besides Poland without causing in-
surrection. The Russian military set vice is in
itself severe ; but for the Pole it is terrible, because
it does not supply him with a single motive to
willing obedience. We found the press-gang in-
tolerable; but every Englishman impressed for the
Royal Navy had the satisfaction of knowing that
he was serving his country and contributing to
heighten a lustre which would be reflected on him.
The French conscript, as he turns with a sigh from
his native cottage, may remember that hundreds of
youths no better than he have found the military
service of France a road to distinction. Evan the
Russian serf, whose condition comes nearest to that
of the Polish peasant, is conscious of a glow of
nationality when he puts on the military uniform,
and is proud to think that he is the soldier of a
country with a destiny, and a defender of the ortho-
dox faith. To sustaining and invigorating senti-
ments of this order the Polish conscript is a
stranger. In serving Russia he does not serve his
country or his religion, but instead contributes to
increase the force of a Government which history
and experience compel him to regard as the enemy
of both. Every Polish regiment sent to the Cau-
casus, or to Orenburg releases a Russian regiment,
and makes it available for duty at Warsaw. The
Polish conscript, forced by violence into a system
with which he has nothing in common, is neither
more nor less than a slave. The Russian Govern-
ment seems to accept this view of his case by the
means it takes to get possession of him. The Russian
army is recruited in Poland by a series of razzias.
A military cordon is drawn around a place, or, if it
be a walled city, the gates are closed, and the persons
wham it has been resolved to take are seized in the
night, and carried off to the citadel, town-hall, or
other place of enrolment. The process does not differ
in its essential features from that by which the
King of Dahomey obtains slaves for his royal pur-
poses. It is hard to believe that the Emperor Alex-
ander, who has done so much to place the Russian
serf in a state of liberty, does not feel the shame of
proceedings like these, taken under his authority
and covered with his name. Reason and experience
suggest, what charity also bids us hope, that his
Imperial Majesty is grieved by such scenes, and
only reluctantly acquiesces in their repetition be-
cause they are a part of a system which he has in-
herited, and from which he has hitherto not seen
a way of escape. It is, however, we should think
becoming plain even to the Emperor that the pre-
sent practice is involving him deeper and deeper in
responsibilities fatal to his good name. This is not
the time for recommending the question of Polish
nationality to the consideration of the Russian Go-
vernment, but surely it will profit by the instruc-
tion of facts. Has the Emperor Alexander no one
to tell him that men who have had experience in
raising troops for the service of an alien Govern-
ment regard these razzias as a disgraceful piece of
military bungling, a conspicuous proof of the want
of that superior governing faculty which under
some circumstances may excuse the temporary go-
vernment of one people by another? If he finds it
difficult to enlarge his v:ews so as to take in the
advantages of political arrangements, which, by
tranquillizing Poland, would increase the strength
of his Empire and remove a danger menacing to
Europe ; at least he might emancipate himself from
the trammels of the red-typists of his War-office, and
take counsel of those who could show him the art of
raising a volunteer army from a nation divided by
language, religion, and blood from the Government
which maintains it. Unless the Emperor is pre-
pared to bear a load of obloquy constantly increas-
ing, he will soon be driven to abandon the gross
practice of kidnapping hitherto pursued. Russia
is too great a country to remain indifferent to the
opinion of the civilized world. If we rightly in-
terpret the indications of the last few days, this
feeling is spreading on the sacred soil itself, and is
❑ot unknown to the Emperor. The anonymous
letter from certain officers of the Russian army
to the Grand Duke Constantine, published in
the journals a few weeks ago, entreating him to
save them and their comrades the infamy of
being the executioners of the Polish people,
was read immediately afterwards to the
the officers of the Russian regiments serving in
Poland, by order of the Grand Duke, and a hope was
expressed that none of the auditors had signed the
document. The Grand Duke himself also convoked
the officers of the garrison of Warsaw and harangued
them on their duty. The Emperor probably referred
to the same sentiment last Sunday, when addressing
the officers of the garrison of St. Petersburg, he
spoke of the insurgents as building hopes on " trai-
tors" in the ranks of the Imperial army, and under
the form of a profession of confidence appealed to
the faith and devotedness of the officers who sur-
rounded him. We cannot profess to see in what
manner the kind and right feeling of Russian offi-
cers for the unhappy Poles can be turned to account
just now, but the existence of the feeling is a sen-
tence passed on the " atrocities".---to borrow a word
from the Emperor—which have provoked pity even
in the conquerors. Whatever else the Emperor
does, or leaves undone, he must for his credit's sake
reform this barbarous mode of enforcing the con-
scription.

TIMES.—When a disease assumes a chronic form,
less fortitude may be required, but prudence and
discretion are even more necessary than before.
Now, the Executive Committee at Manchester, and
Mr. Farnall himself, do not conceal their opinion
that two more years must elapse before the cotton
manufacture can recover from its present depression.
They reckon the probable loss of wages for 1863 at
£6,000,000 at least, for they warn us that a reduced
rate of wages, as well as short time, will probably
follow upon an enforced resort to Surat cotton.
They do not speak hopefully as to the general adap-
tation of machinery to the new material, and they
suggest no other method by which Lancashire can
hope to emancipate herself from her present state of
dependence. Meanwhile they report one or two
facts which are a little disheartening, though
they ought not to take us by surprise. One
of these is the apparent increase of imposition.
We say apparent, because it seems that
the growing vigilance of the Guardians and
Relief Committees has lately detected many such
cases which had long escaped notice. So far there
is a clear gain in economy—but we also hear of a
" new-born spirit of pauperism," of parish relief
becoming more popular, and of sewing schools and
adult classes weakening the desire for employment.
Moreover, the class immediately above the opera-
tives is far from sharing the benefits of the present
revival, such as it is, and for some time to come we
shall hear of ruin spreading among small trades-
men and cottage owners, among those who have
been working on borrowed capital, and among the
poorer members of joint-stock companies and co-
operative societies. There is another evil wising
from the prolonged suspension of employment, re-
specting which the Executive Committee are silent,
and to which we allude with some reluctance, so
little credit does it reflect on some firms of high
standing in Lancashire. It appears that a habit
1148 for some time been springing up of counting the

allowances granted by Guardians and Relief Com-
mittees as so much to be deducted from wages
actually earned. The plan is simple enough. A
certain number of women and children have been
draughted back into the mills which have resumed
work. Formerly their weekly wages would have
been Bs. or 95., and even now their labour must be
well worth the bare cost of their subsistence. In-
stead, however, of paying them 4s. or 35., or even
2s. the minimum-rate of charity fixed by the Cen-
tral Committee—some employers are not ashamed
to give as little as 2d. or 3d. for a woman's daily
work, and to send her to the Board or the Commit-
tee for the residue of the pittance necessary to keep
body and soul together. We have before us vouchers
granted by foreman to female factory hands, show-
ing that these bodies P‘re called upon to supplement
such miserable doles as ls. 51d. in one case, and
91d. in another, for five days' work in the week,
so that the ss. 4d. for three weeks mentioned by
our Manchester correspondent seems generous
by comparison. This is a great scandal, and we
have reason to fear that the practice is becoming
the rule in certain districts. It is idle to argue that
the poor creatures who are induced to accept these
terms could not be employed at all on auy others.
It would be better that they should not be employed
at all, till the mills can be opened at a fair profit,
rather than their masters should appear to have
helped themselves to the protection which was de-
manded for them by managing to get their hands
paid in part out of the pocket of the nation. Had
the landed interest been parties to such an abuse,
the country would have rung with invectives from
Manchester, and we cannot but regard the appear-
ance of it in its present form as a very bad conse-
quence of the relief system. Let us now delibe-
rately contemplate the prospect before us, and ask
ourselves whether we are prepared to meet it. We
will assume that we shall have to provide for an-
other winter, and that the Boards of Guardians will
be again empowered to enlarge the area of rating
and borrow money on the security of future rates.
Suppose that by these means, notwitristanding the
gradual impoverishment of the smaller ratepayers,
Lancashire can continue to bear a burden which,
after all, is less than the average of many country
parishes ; will the rest of England and the colonies
retpond to a second appeal as they have responded
to the first ? It is painful to raise this question
when we have so much reason to admire the atti-
tude of all classes during this trying period, but it
must be put, and answered too before long, unless
the American war comes to a sudden end. We are
plainly told that all the cotton that can possibly
come from other sources would only keep the mills
working half time ; that the loss on working half
time is such that manufacturers will compete for the
raw material, and raise its price by competition
till demand is checked again, or wages have to be
lowered; and that, in short, there is no reasonable
chance of the manufacture being self-supporting,
unless greatly reduced in extent. Our neighbours
in France are in the same strait, but they can have
recourse to a palliative which is not within our
reach. Government being there the great employer
of labour can always find work for a large number
of extra hands, without much disturbing the labour
market, or permanently withdrawing from the
manufacturing districts the population which mill-
owners would rather keep together in a state of
temporary pauperism than see dispersed abroad.
The Revue des Deux Mondes boldly calls upon the
Executive to adopt this system, and our contempo-
rary La Patrie advocates it in preference to a grant,
on the farther ground that it would serve as the
best of labour tests. It is in vain, however, to dwell
on such schemes, not only because the means of ap-
plying them on an adequate scale do not exist in
Lancashire, but because the nature of the emergency
is not such, in our judgment, as to justify a resort
to them. It is not right to retain for an indefinite
time in any district, by artificial expedients, a
greater number of inhabitants than can find em-
ployment there; and if the stagnation of the
cotton trade be likely to last so long as Messrs.
Bright and Cobden believe, it is time to consider
whether the great seats of it be not overpeopled.

HERALD.—The British exhibitors were at home,
and had not to put themselves very much out of the
way. But for the French it was an enterprise
carrying with it the uncertainty and excitement
that must attend on such a journey to a foreign
clime with the laudable purpose of winning laurels
from its natives. The French were very successful.
Their pictures took us by storm ; their porcelain,
their bronzes, their tapestry, their silk, are as ad-
mirable as ever, and in their own way unrivalled.
It the English excel in the more solid essentials of
life, the French cultivate as their own those arts
that delight the eye and are grateful to the educated
taste. Medals and certificates of approbation were
showered upon them; nearly everything they
brought was purchased, and they returned to Paris
with their pockets full of orders for more. They
returned to France, but the rewards which they had
so honourably earned had not yet been distributed
to them. The distribution was made the occasion
of a fete at the Louvre on the 25th instant. The
Emperor presided, amid all the pomp and circum-
stance of a Court ceremonial, at the ovation which
was given to the men wbo had so worthily main-
tained the credit of their country abroad. The
Exhibition in London, foreign as it was in its de-
sign, would have seemed incomplete to Frenchmen
without a national celebration of the part which
they had borne in it. Their labours have new been
recognised by the highest authority in the empire
and stamped with the approval of their country.
The speech made by the Emperor on this occasion
is very characteristic of the man, who knows how
to seize upon every opportunity and to turn it to the
best account. He could hardly have expressed him-
self in words more likely to prove gratifying to his
immediate hearers, and to those friends across the
water among whom they resided for so many
months, of an evergrowing mutual regard which
their absence from us does not quench. " I thank
you," he said, " for your energy and for your per-
severance in rivalling a country which had taken the
lead of us in certain branches of labour." This is
the invasion of England that the Emperor finds
most to his taste :—" You have crossed the Chan-
nel ; you have boldly established yourselves in the
capital of England ; you have courageously wrestled
with the veterans of industry. This campaign has
not been without its glory, and to-day I come to
award recompense to the brave." In this field of
warfare we are anxious at all times to encounter our
neighbours. As for the other invasion, so often
alluded to by foolish persons on both sides of the
water, we are under no apprehension whatever on
the matter, as we believe it as little to their taste as
ours. The luurels are not planted that would bind
the brows of the victors in such a struggle. The
Emperor is himself well acquainted with Eng-
land, and aware of the beneficent working of
our moderate constitutional system. Some may
think that this would be a subject which he would
wish to avoid. In a country where an inordinate
degree of power is still arrogated by the Executive
Government; where the people is informed by its
rulers that it is not yet ripe for liberty such as
others enjoy, it were wiser, they would say, to
abstain from all open commendation of a system
under which that full measure of freedom is granted
to a neighbour-people without danger to its Sove-
reign. The Emperor is not so foolish as to shrink
from this dilemma. These Frenchmen have wit-
nessed for themselves the working of our laws, and
he tells them plainly what he thinks of them. His
commentary is flattering to us. To the people of
France it is at once an augury of good omen and a
warning against that licence and want of self-con-
trol which stand between that people and the
achievement of its full liberties. His are memora-
ble words. They have the appearance of having
been well pondered and deliberately. We believe
them to have been sincere; if it be not so, the Em-
peror has made a mistake in giving utterance to
sentiments which will certainly be remembered and
quoted against him if he should prove forgetful of
his promise. Let us hope, then, that on the next
occasion when we meet together under the same
roof, in the same friendly competition, the French-
man and the Englishman may have no cause what-
ever the one to envy the other, but meet on equal
terms, each a free and responsible agent, each claim-
ing the same interest and the same share in the
orderly government of his country and the main-
tonance of its laws•