The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-13 00:00:00

AFFAIRS OF POLAND.

The latest accounts from Warsaw tell of disaf-
fection in the Russian army, of the spread of the
Polish Sec-let Society—which one might have been
sure would not be diminished by the exile of Count

Andrew Z amoyski, the recognised spokesman of
the moderate and therefore distinctly anti-revolu-
tionary party—and of profound irritation among
all classes, caused by a new mode of conscription—
or, rather, preseription—which leaves the selection
of recruits entirely to the police, and by which any
young man between the ages of 20 and 30 may, on
suspicion of patriotism, not likely to be ill-founded,
and on the report of a spy, be sent off to the army.
Significantly enough, the peasants are exempted
from the action of this decree. It is to be applied
almost exclusively in the towns, which are natu-
rally the great centres of political and national
feeling. Numbers of young men were trying to
escape frorn 'Warsaw, and it was to be expected
that seilie terrible act of vengeance would be pro-
vokea by the tyranny and injustice of a measure
which it would be difficult to match, even in the
history of the Russian rule in Poland.
On the other hand, and notwithstanding those
first attempts at assassination, which the arrival of
the Grand Duke in Warsaw in some inexplicable
manner provoked, his Imperial Highness has really
conferred some important benefits on the inhabi-
tants of the kingdom. There are now thirteen
gymnasiums open where formerly there were
only five, and Warsaw has once more its Univer-
sity, which is not the less a University because it
happens to be called a High School. This is
not much, perhaps, but we must remember that pre-
viously there was no superior educational esta-
blishment in all Poland at which the Polish lan-
guage was even tolerated. Prussia, so earnest in
requiring that- the Germans—and even the Danes
—of Schleswig shall be taught everything in Ger-
man, will not allow the three upper classes of the
so-called Polish gynanaiums in Poson to receive
instruction in Polish. Austria, after 1846, did not
hesitate to G',:rmanize the ancient University of
Cracow, t 11.40 continued existence of which as a
nations'; institution was specially guaranteed by
the Treaty of Vienna. Russia swept the Univer-
stties of Wilna and Warsaw away altogether after
the insurrection of 1830. This concerted plan to
destroy the culture of a whole nation was, perhaps,
more barbarous even than the partitions of the
List century, It was an attempt, after the blood of
tens of thousands of Poles had been shed, to touch
the remainder on the brain so as to paralyse them
for ever. it has had just the opposite effect, how-
ever, tq What was intended. It has stimulated the
national feeling, and often to so painful an extent
as to cause insurrections, which, however hopeless
in a political point of view, were, from moral causes,
quite inevitable.

By issuing a proclamation last month, calling
upon the Poles to assist him in carrying out his
reforms, the Grand Duke showed that he felt the
impossibility of governing in any rational and
humane manner without the concurrence, to some
extent, of the governed. It was not likely that the
members of the Secret Society would aid him.
They have a programme of their own which they
mean to put in action after the Polish Revolution
and the Russian Revolution have taken place. But
in the meanwhile upwards of 300 of the principal
landed proprietors, on seeing the proclamation,
came to Warsaw from various parts of the provinces
and decided that they " in the absence of any legal
organ," would reply to it by an address. This ad-
dress they confided to Count Andrew Zamoyski,
requiring him as their representative to make known
to his Imperial Highness demands which may be
summed up as follows :—That all the provinces of
ancient Poland now in the possession of Russia
should be re-united, endowed with free institutions,
and governed under a Polish administration. On
the other hand, the authors of the address promised
their, faithful support to the Government.
No such offer and engagement had ever before
been made on the part of the Poles to an Emperor
of Russia, and Alexander 11. has for the first time
an opportunity of rallying round his throne a nation
Which, after having for a whole century stood firm
against violence, now spontaneously promises him
loyalty and fidelity on the sole condition of having
its rights, as recognised by a treaty signed by the
five great Powers, restored to it. The Poles have
no separate army, and ask for none. How, then,
could Poland happy and contented be a greater
danger to Russia than Poland, as she now is, in a
state of despair, and perpetually on the verge of in-
surrection ?
The Russian Government, by declaring all the
Polish provinces under its dominion in a state of
siege, has if possible increased the unity of feeling
already existing,and which has never ceased to exist,
between the kingdom ceded to Russia, under very
precise conditions, in 1815, and the provinces vio-
lently torn from Poland by Catherine at the first,
second, and third partitions. Russia's title to this
last section, or sections, of territory was also recog-
nised by Europe for the first time in 1815, and then
only on her fcrmally engaging to govern all her
Polish subjects as Poles, and to grant them "repre-
sentative and national institutions." It was not
specified that they should all enjoy the benefit of
the constitution which Alexander promised to grant,
and did grant to the kingdom; but curiouslyenough,
es it must seem to the Russians of the present day,

the Emperor made a point of getting a clause in
carted to the effect that he reserved the right o
giving to his constitutional kingdom "the interior
extension which ha might think proper." It was at
that time thought an immense advantage for Russia
to have the opportunity of joining to her Empire a
Polish kingdom but little inferior in extent to the
Poland of 1772, and Lord Castlereagh, in giving a
reluctant consent to that arrangement—so different
from the one he had really at heart—expressed a
hope " that the independence of Europe would in-
cur none of the dangers which might so justly
be apprehended from the union of the powerful
monarchy of Poland to the empire of Russia."
Now it is Russia who insists on keeping herself
weak, and who regards the proposition of a number
of Polish noblemen that all the Polish provinces
under her shall be united under one administra-
tion as a treasonable offence. Yet within the nar-
row limits traced for it in 1815 the kingdom of
Poland has become for Russia an ever-increasing
source of perplexity, to such a degree that the idea
of giving it up altogether is at this time, if not
Agreeable, at least familiar to most Russian states-
Inol. Such a policy has even been advocated in
Russian journals published under the Imperial cen-
ser'llip, more especially in the Day, which has
' openly recommended the withdrawal of the Russian
:fly. from the kingdom and the entire abandon-
went Of that portion of Polish territory to the Poles.
The address pieced in the hands of Count Zamoyski
suggests
4 very different solution. It promises to
fortify instead of
and the Rotottiofsfevering the tie between Poland
and the condition is
simply that the dynasty ;
secured toEmperorhi of Russia, using the pri-
vilege St. p
erat by the Treaty of Vienna,shall
transfer from
of administration of the Polish to Warsaw the centre
corporated with the Rasei°llBh provinces, now in-
all his Polish subjects a.n Empire, and grant to
wh thoseich4representative and
national institutions"
them to demand.
that th
the same treaty entitles
It is more than probable
Tanie adminis-
trative union of the Polish provinces
dom would have sufficed to conciliates with the king-
to " heal the wound" which, according to es
and
opinent Russian publicists of all parties, has most
such
Ltn enfeebling effect on all Russia's movements.
This idea of reunion is by no means new. was
encouraged by the Emperor Alexander I. to the last
day of his reign. He spoke of it as his " favourite
project," and even took steps towards realizing it
by creating with the recruits of the Polish pro.
vinces not included in the kingdom a distinct corps
darmee, called "there ithuanian Corps." The
very like those of the re-
Lithuanian colours w
d both armies were com-
gular Polish army, an
Duke Constantine,
• mended in chief by the
ke Grand
f the same name.
uncle of the:present Grand Du o
The Emperor Nicholas himself advanced this
combination a step further. He transferred to
Warsaw the supreme direction of the Administra-
tion of those provinces, and confided it to his eldest
brother, who had just ceded to him his right to the