The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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DAILY NEWS..—The tone of Prince Gortschakofrs
Memorandum, as addressed to France, becomes as
offensive and irritating as if it were deliberately
worded to wound the keenest susceptibilities of the
Second Empire and the French people. In this
carefully studied document the Vice Chancellor of
Russia calls to the remembrance of the Three
Powers the political situation in Europe at the time
of the Congress of Vienna. Once and again he
pauses in his close and pressing argument to ask
whether it was likely that Russia at the close of a
war for the deliverance of Europe, in which she had
taken so great a part, had been the first to arrest
the career of an invader, should have consented
alone of all the Powers to renounce all advantage
or compensation at the Peace. In 1812, he urges,
the Duchy of VV arsaw, which had furnished a
military contingent, and served as a basis of opera-
tion to the great enemy of Russia, was wrested from
Saxony and occupied by right of conquest. The
Emperor Alexander would have been fully justified
in repressing by force so menacing a neighbour, as
Catherine 11., moved by " inexorable necessity,"
had done in 1772; but the Emperor resolved, if
possible, as a conqueror, to reconcile the people of
Poland to his Government by a kind and merciful
policy, In 1813, although the Duchy of Warsaw
had been reconquered by Russia alone from an
enemy in whose ranks Austrian and Prussian troops
still fought, Alexander I. consented to submit its
future lot to a Congress at Vienna. The Vice-
Chancellor emphatically denies that Poland held
the first place in the deliberations of the Congress :
it had its place, but not the foremost. Europe had
just emerged from a 25 years' war, and it was the lot
of all Europe that had to be settled by a Congress.
All that Alexander demanded was to be allowed to
fulfil a great work of reconciliation and reparation
by restoring to Poland her national existence under
the Russian sceptre. This intention was baulked
and resisted not because the Powers were solicitous

for Polish independence, but because they were
jealous of the extension of the Russian empire.
The Powers might perhaps have preferred in theory
the absolute independence of Poland, but to this
the three partitioning Powers must have consented,
was it likely that Russia would have acquiesced in
her owia dismemberment. Austria and Prussia
both opposed the restitution even of the name of
Poland ; Prince Metternich protesting that Galicia
would be lost to Austria. Prussia shored the foars
of Austria. Russia alone desired to give the Polish
subjects of the three partitioning Powers institu-
tions in harmony with the feelings of the people;
but Austria presented a counter project, declaring
the Duchy of Warsaw to be annexed to the domi-
nions of the Emperor of Russia in perpetuity, with-
out a word about constitutional rights or Polish
nationality. So that, according to Russian doctrine,
as dogmatically stated by Prince Gortschakoff, all
the sympathy for Poland at the Congress of Vienna
proceeded from Alexander I.; the other Powers
only acquiesced in his generous esigns from jealousy
of his initiative, and beeause at the close of a pros
longed war they knew and respected the resources
of the Power to which they owed their deliverance.
Russia then had taken the sole initiative in pro-
posing liberal institutions for her Polish subjects es
one of the partitioning Powers; all the other
Powers save England were at that time opposed to
liberal ideas; Russia actually interceded with her
co-partitioners in behalf of Polish nationality. But
Poland was obstinately ungrateful, and Alexander
I. became disabused of his own magnanimity when
he found that his Polish subjects used the constitu-
tional weapons he had given them to conspire for
the dismemberment of the Empire. And in 1830,
under his successor, roused by the revolution in
France, they burst out in insurrection. Then, as
now, the insurgents appealed to the sympathies of
liberal Europe; the Western Powers offered diplo-
matic intervention; Russia declined it. The Western
Powers appealed to the engagements of 1815. Russia
insisted that the Poles had by the very act of insur-
rection cancelled those engagements. The W estern
Powers rejected this theory. Russia maintained it.
They protested against the means taken to suppress
the rebellion, yet Russia suppressed it. Then, as now,
it was Europe that disturbed Poland, not Poland
Europe. Once more, the Emperor Alexander 11.
gave his Polish subjects liberal institutions, and
they used them as instruments of revolt. Yet Russia
still desires the pacification of Poland, and to carry
out her benevolent intentions. But, as an in-
dispensable preliminary, the insurrection must be
put down, and order re-established. No Power on
earth can afford to submit to a revolt, or to foreign
interference. Disorder would wear itself out in
Poland, if the diplomatic intervention of the Powers
would be content to impress upon the Polish people
that they have nothing to hope but from submission
to their Sovereign and from an indissoluble union
with Russia according to treaty. In short, the duties
and rights of all parties concerned in the question
are clearly defined by the terms of the treaty to
whioh they appeal. It is the duty of the Poles to
respect the stipulations which unite them indis-
solubly with Russia. It is the duty of Europe
to do nothing to weaken this union. It is the
duty of the three partitioning Powers to grant
representative and national institutions to their
Polish subjects, according to the discretion of each.
Such is the sum and substance of this Russian me-
morandum, which, however sophistical or arrogant,
or even mendacious, it may appear to English
readers, cannot, we think, in fairness be deemed
offensive to England. But we cannot expect our
gallant neighbours over the water to take the Rus-
sian Vice-Chancellor's elaborate exposition of the
Treaties of Vienna and the circumstances under
which they were framed with English equanimity.
Unless, indeed, the mission of the Second Empire be
to avenge the First—by meekness,
TIMES.—The Polish National Committee cer-
tainly exercises the functions of government as
much as the authorities of the Confederate States.
It appears to have perfect control over the Poles,
whether at home or abroad. It has its regular tri-
bunals, and it seems to carry their decisions into
effect. It orders its subjects at its pleasure to pay or
not to pay taxes; it summons them at its will to
join the national army, or dismisses them on leave
of absence; it directs the course of the insurrection
almost in the same way as the Cabinet of an esta-
blished State directs the movements of its armies;
and now it seems almost admitted to have its autho-
rised diplomatic agents,_ and its despatches are
introduced to the ear of Europe in the same way
as those of regularly constituted Powers. The
pnblication, at least, in the Moniteur of the de-
spatch of the Polish National Government to Prince
Czarteryski gives something of this aspect to the
matter. The letter takes its place among the diplo-
matic documents on the Polish question. The
despatches which have passed between the other
Powers have already been published, but we have
suddenly another Power introduced to our notice,
and we are invited to consider the views of the
Polish Government as well as those of Russia and
the three other Powers. Whatever motive led to
the insertion of this document in the French official
paper, it certainly was not that it throws any light
on the obscurities of the question, or that the Na-
tional Committee afford us any means of solving its
difficulties. "It was easy to determine," they say,
" the point of view from which the Polish nation
should regard the propositions enunciated by the
intervening Powers ;" and, accordingly, the state of
feeling and the arguments which this long and ill-
digested document details are only those with which
the public has been made wearily familiar by the
regular diplomatic despatches and by our corres-
pondence from the seat of the insurrection. We
knew before that the Poles had no confidence in
the Russians, and were not likely under any circum-
stances to feel any. We were perfectly aware
the respect for authority which Prince Gortschakoff
proposes to re-establish in Poland would be nothing
better than mere submission to brute force. Our
diplomatists have exposed more forcibly than the
National Government the misinterpretation which
the Russian Cabinet put upon the Treaties of Vienna,
and we have not been misled as to the character of
the insurrection by the representations of Prince
Gortschakoff. We know, and our Ministers have
asserted, not only in Parliament but in their repre-
sentations to the Russian Government, that the
Polish nation is roused to insurrection by very dif-
ferent motives from the mere passion for revolt.
The Russian Cabinet has been told very plainly
that the Poles, instead of aiming at the subversion
of order, are protesting against the anarchy of
despotism ; that they have been governed without
law ; and that they have a right, if they can, to
compel the observance of law. We are satisfied
that on the whole the intelligent majority of the
Polish nation support the insurrection, and we are
sure that the savage barbarities of the Russian
Governors exceed, or rather are not in the same
category with, the somewhat startling severities to
which the cruel necessities of their position have
driven the Poles. All the declamation, therefore,
on these points, which swells the Polish despatch
to such an inordinate length, was entirely unneces-
sary. There was a point, however, to which we
might have expected that the National Government
would have addressed itself. We were anxious to
know whether they were inclined, in degree, to
accept such gond offices as the Western Powers
might offer them, short of forcible intervention in
their behalf. We knew perfectly well that they
would think the proposals we made unsatisfactory,
and that they wished to obtain far more than we
had any reasonable ground for asking from Russia.
But, as we were asking Russia to give way in one
direction, it was not unreasonable to hope that the
Poles might have been found willing to make some
advances in the other. We are sorry to say, how-
ever, that there is no sign of any such disposition in
this deapeteh. " Confidence," we are told, " has