The Sun.
London, England, 1854-02-27 00:00:00

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AFFAIRS OF i 4
The Emperor of Russia seems resolved to put a
bold face upon the difficult and perilous game he
is about to play against the united forces of the
most powerful States in Europe, against the cause
of peace and order which he once professed to de-
fend, and against the interests of his neighbours,
his allies, and his own subjects. According to the
last information we have received, the Imperial
Guards, which form a corps d'armee of upwards of
30,000 men, have been ordered to the frontier of
the Baltic Provinces ; and the Prussian Guards are
likewise ordered to advance to the northern ex-
tremity of the kingdom, and to occupy Konigsberg
and Memel. Upon the arrival at St. Petersburg of
the answer from the English and French Govern-
ments to the last Russian communication, notice
was at once given to our Minister at the Imperial
Court that diplomatic relations would be suspended,
and on the following day Sir Hamilton Seymour
received from home orders to withdraw from Rus-
sia with the least possible delay. But it may be
worthy of observation that the rupture came from the
side of the Imperial Government. The St. Peters-
burg Gazette—an organ not usually very commu-
nicative on matters of foreign policy—has pub-
lished a complaint of the form in which the
intended operations of the combined fleets in the
Black Sea were made known to the Russian Cabi-
net, and great surprise is expressed that such a
communication should have been made verbally,
and not in writing. We do not know why the
verbal form was preferred, though probably the
French and English Ministers had their reasons
for adopting that mode of communication ; but, at
any rate, it is not alleged by the Russian Govern-
ment that the tenour of this verbal declaration was
such as to admit of the smallest doubt or miscon-
ception. The terms of it were clear, and the object
of it so undisguised that Count Nesselrode at once
asked Sir Hamilton Seymour whether he was cer-
tain that his instructions went to the full extent
of his words.
It is not easy to form any certain estimate of the
effect produced on the Russian nation by such pas-
sages in these transactions as are made known to
them, although this is unquestionably one of the
most important parts of the whole subject ; but,
whatever may be the irritation or infatuation
of the Czar, these passions will ultimately be
curbed, not so much perhaps by the direct opposi-
tion of foreign armies, as by the reaction produced
among his own subjects by the extraordinary
measures to which he has already had re-
course. His financial difficulties began almost
as soon as the operations of war ; funds were
drawn in from abroad, as appeal was made to
the Holy Synod for a loan, voluntary contributions
were required from all classes of the population in
atone which left very little option to the contri-
butors, and a large issue of paper money was de-
creed, which must before long have the effect of
reducing the present standard value of the entire
paper currency. Of course these pecuniary embar-
rassments are greatly increased by the de facto
stoppage of the British trade; for as no remittances
have been made from this country to Russia this
winter for the purchase of raw produce in that
country, the ordinary course of trade is as effectually
stopped as if the blockade of the Russian ports had
already commenced. The landowners who are the
growers of this produce find their market cut off ;
the agents who conduct the business are without
their usual remittances, and all the innumerable
transactions of private life which depend on this
periodical arrival of foreign capital are suspended.
The Russian Government, however, not taking
into account the enormous inconvenience and dis-
satisfaction caused to the class of landed proprietors
by this state of affairs, has proceeded to inflict on
them two measures of a still more serious character.
By a ukase of the 10th of February, the Emperor
has ordered a levy of no less than 9 men on every
1,000 souls throughout the western governments
of the empire, to commence on the Ist of March
and to finish on the 15th of April, and by a
special provision the Jews subject to the con-
scription are to furnish 10 per 1,000, instead of
9. This is one of the most oppressive and un-
usual measures which, even in Russia, has ever
been resorted to by the Imperial Government.
For the ordinary purposes of the military con-
scription the governments, or provinces of the
empire, are separated into two eastern and
western divisions, which are alternately called upon
to furnish every other year the number of recruits
required for the army. The proportion ordered
has seldom exceeded 5 or 6 men per 1,000, except
in 1849, when it was raised to 8 in the western, and
4in the eastern division. It must be observed
that this draught of men is not made, as in France
and other countries, subject to military conscrip-
tion, on the male population of a certain age, but
on the whole population of the district, or, as it is
expressed in the ukase, " 9 men on 1,000 souls."
The manner in which it is carried into effect is,
that the whole number of serfs or peasants on a
given estate or township (Volosti) are taken into
account, and recruits must be furnished by the
landowner in the proportion fixed by the
Emperor. As about two-thirds of every 1,000
" souls" are women or children, or men past the
age of labour, the levy does in reality fall on the
adult male population, and must therefore amount
to the proportion of at least 3 per cent. The popula-
tion of Russia in the western governments on which
this levy falls, omitting the parts of the empire ex-
cepted from it, cannot be less than 30 millions, and
the number of men to be raised by this extraordinary
call must therefore be from 270,000 to 300,000.
It is impossiUe to conceive greater individual
misery or greater public loss than must be occa-
sioned by this wholesale seizure of such a propor-
tion of the adult male population of the empire.
The unhappy serfs, indeed, have no voice in the
matter, and will be dragged from their homes by
the inexorable will of the Czar, to lose their
very names and their existence in the ranks of his
army, like so many brute beasts marked out for in-
discriminate slaughter. But the labour of these
men is the chief source of wealth in the country ;
the property of the landowner consists in the num-
ber of his peasants ; his income depends upon
their industry; the ukases of conscription are at all
times obeyed with reluctance and difficulty by the
embarrassed nobles of Russia ; and this extraordi-
nary levy triples the burden thrown upon them at
the time when they are least able to bear it, and
must inflict incalculable hardships on every class of
society. The Government has, however, gone still
further. To render this levy less intolerable to the
peasantry, the Emperor has caused it to be accom-
panied by a second ukase, reducing the days of
forced labour from three days in the week to two,
which is, in other words, to reduce the rent and
value of land by one-third wherever this law is
applied. The tenure of land in Russia is by
forced labour, and that is the only rent the lord of
the soil obtains. However desirable it may be to
alter such a tenure, it is clear that the mere
abolition, without indemnity, of one-third of that
labour by which rent is alone paid, is as direct
and violent an act of spoliation and robbery
on the part of the Government as ever was devised
by the wildest revolutionists of Western Europe.
It is unnecessary for us to dilate on these facts.
They prove more forcibly than anything we can say
to what extraordinary and desperate measures the
Russian Government has already been driven, and,
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