The Sun.
London, England, 1849-08-01 00:00:00

#1( Ulna= ritiL

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1849.

Considerable argument has arisen out of the asser-
tions made by Mr. COBDEN in reference to Russia, on
the occasion of the first demonstration, at the London
Tavern, in favour of the Hungarians. It will be
remembered that in endeavouring to dissipate
the extravagant fears entertained by many as to
Russian domination, the Honourable Gentleman
the representative of the West Riding of Yorkshire
asserted that the wealth of that great despotism—
presumed to be so immense as to be almost inex-
haustible—is wholly imaginary ; and that so far from
being the possessors of a scarcely calculable amount
of specie, the Government of St. Petersburgh
find it impossible to carry on two campaigns without
coming for a loan to the mercantile establishments
of Western Europe. " Russia, possessed of inex-
haustible riches I" exclaimed Mr. COBDEN, in a tone
of scorn and derision, " I'll tell you what it has—it
has an army on paper without a soldier ; it has a
navy without a sailor ; it has a military chest with-
out a farthing." Were we to declare bluntly that
the honourable Gentleman, in speaking thus, only
rushed from one extreme into another, we should not
be very far from stating the truth. Yet while we
avow that it is not less erroneous, and not less judi-
cious to sneer at the force of the AUTOCRAT as insig-
nificant, than it is to dread it as irresistible, we cannot
but confess that there is much truth contained in the
exaggerations of the Member for the West Riding.
His argument is, to our thinking, altogether un-
answerable when he pronounces the terror of Russian
supremacy preposterous ; but we conceive that he is
correct in so saying—not because Russia is a country
of attenuated powers and of inherent impoverishment,
but because the influence of the grinding tyranny of
the CZAR is so far malign as to negative the wealth of
the country in regard to its vegetative strength and
its mineral productiveness. To say that Russia is
poor from the poverty of her soil, or from the
absence of precious metals in the entrails of her
mountains, is a fallacy; but it is equally a fal-
lacy to assert that the neglect of mining and of agri-
culture in a vast portion of her colossal dominions is
attributable to any other cause than that of the exe-
crable despotism of her Government.
Upon this subject we obtain: considerable infor-
mation from a remarkable work published not long
since from the pen of Count HENRY KRASINSKI. In
that singular volume, in reference to the Cossacks
of the Ukraine,* it is remarked by its author that
the province of Polish Ukraine, known as
Ukraina Polska, although abounding in everything
calculated to render a country important for its com-
mercial transactions, is, nevertheless, nothing less
than a waste of uncultured profusion. Count KRA..
SINSKI tells us of the countless herds of cattle popu-
lating the gigantic and fertile pasturages ; he tells us of
the innumerable fish spawned season by season in the
rivers ; he tells us that the land so abounds in tim-
ber, and grain, and vegetables, and blossoms, and
fruit, that it was considered from time immemorial
as " the garden and granary of the neighbouring pro-
vinces;" and he declares that the other products of the
country are so abundant—the oil, the wax, the honey,
the salpetre, the leather, the tobacco, and the salt
that the Ukraine may be justly entitled to the figura-
tive character of a land flowing with milk and honey.
Yet this land of milk and honey, this garden of
blossoms, this orchard of fruitage, this granary
and treasury of Eastern Europe, is so grievously
weighed down by the incubus of despotism that its
strength is enervated, its pomp degraded into penury,
its army a dream, its navy a fiction, its military chest
a vacuum ! Why, only yesterday a resident from
the interior of Russia in the columns of a
Contemporary that such is commercialtahre"
of the country,that the old currency depreciated
in a l
oi dhasbeen. prostration
in the proportion of 1 to 34, or
instead of 3s. 4d. ; beyond which it is indubitable
that the different provinces of the empire are ripe fore
a revolt against the AUTOCRAT. No one can have the
hardihood to deny that NICHOLAS will find it impos-
sible, without a loan from the banking houses of
London or Amsterdam, to commence a second cam-
paign against the Hungarians ; and scarcely any man
in his senses will gainsay the truth of the assertion,
that in the event of his imperial army being defeated
beyond the boundaries of his dominions, that defeat
will lead inevitably to a tremendous revolution
throughout his own territories.
In testimony of the fact that notwithstanding the

•
* The Cossacks of the Ukraine, ex., Lc., Bcc." By
Count Henry Krasinski. Bvo., pp. 312. Loudon: Par-
tridge and Oakey. 1848.

natural productiveness of the country obedient to the
sway of NICHOLAS—say, for example, the province
of Polish Ukraine—that empire is still incapable of
independent action, in consequence of its pervading
poverty;we will take the pictures drawn of the aspect
of the country by one familiarly acquainted with its
characteristics, Count HENRY Kitasuista. According
to that intelligent writer, the steppes, though of vast
dimensions, and clothed with prolific vegetation, are
marked with the savage appearances of a primeval
solitude. Over the enormous expanse the traveller
occasionally sees flights of wild ducks or geese, or
" cranes in triangular bodies, sending forth shrieks
that re-echo in the deep silence around." Sometimes
a solitary eagle floats on its expanded wings down
the welkin ; sometimes a cloud of ravens darkens
the air, or a pack of famished wolves " pursues with
savage howling the flying steeds yoked to the car of
the stranger." To impart an additional singularity
to the spectacle, there are at intervals encountered
troops of

"A thousand horse, and none to ride!"

such as those depicted by the vivid pencil of Lord
BYRON, in his " Mazeppa"—rushing past with as-
tounding velocity—
" With flowing tail and flying mane,
Wide nostrils—never stretched by pain;
Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein,
And feet that iron never shod,
And flanks unscarred by spur or rod.
A thousand horse—the wild, the free,
Like waves that follow on the sea."
Such is the scene revealed in these monotonous wil-
dernesses. " Not a house, not a tree for miles—not a
spot of elevated ground meets the eye—except, indeed,
large barrows containing the bones or dust of the
myriads of victims of war or pestilence." Here it is
that in the inns or caravansaries, scattered at im-
mense intervals over the Steppes (" oases in those
great deserts"), travellers are robbed by the landlords,
and cruelly murdered in cold blood by their ac-
complices. Of these ghastly assassinations, Count
KRASINSKI gives one or two romantic and
striking instances. His volume, indeed, is through-
out filled with entertaining and authentic anescidtoateds
sd;
so that to the sobriety of political arguments
the charm of literary fascination.
the peculiar influences
countries of
howeverh,
etrhatabßsoulsustioa, fromcio
Satisfied as we are,
.
nm
incapacitated
o f
viireste
fromrn subjugating
theer wealthierentlEurope, with-
out first of all borrowing " the sinews of
Go-
vernment,
war" from the merchant princes of those very
dominions—we are, nevertheless, equally convinced
that the tendency of the policy of the Russian Em-
perors is towards the conquest of the European
continent. In proof of this we may refer the
observation of our readers to the celebrated
" Will" of PETER the GREAT to his SUC-
cessors, a copy of which is published in another
part of our impression. The descendants of Ro-
MANOFF are there called upon to direct the energies
of the Russian Government to the conquest of
Europe ; and that appeal to their ambition has
already led to; the annihilation of Poland and to the
present invasion of Hungary. England must pre-
vent the progress of this insidious movement, as much
for the safety of the continental powers as from a
feeling of allegiance to the cause of justice as per-
sonified in the cause of the heroic Hungarians.

Although for the present Might has overcome
Right in Sicily, although the King of NAPLES has
by brute force again obtained possession of that
Sicilian crown which he had previously forfeited by
his violation of the solemn compact to observe
the Sicilian constitution, entered into by his
predecessor, CHARLES 111, and which constitutes
the only right of the Bourbon Princes to the throne
of Sicily, yet the Sicilians have not therefore for-
feited one jot or tittle of their rights ; he reigns there
by no compact, by no agreement, he reigns merely
by the right of the strongest, and whensoever the
Sicilians may be in a condition to throw off his yoke,
they will be perfectly justified in so doing. They
have throughout the whole of the late transactions
been in their Right, and they will still continue to be
in their Right, should they to-morrow expel from
their island the Neapolitan usurper. It is, therefore,
of importance that the gross misrepresentations of the
obscurantist Tory aristocracy in this country, with
regard to Sicilian affairs, should be corrected, in
order that hereafter it may not be in the power of
any advocate of the absolutist reign of terror to ap-
peal to them as authorities ; more especially is such
correction necessary when the misrepresenter is
one whose assertions may be supposed to carry weight
from his previous connexion with Sicilian
affairs. It is for this reason, and this
reason only, that we are induced to notice
that remarkable specimen of " antiquated im-
becility," the loose, rambling, inconsequential speech
of Lord HEYTESBURY, delivered in the House of
Lords during the recent debate on foreign affairs.
To suppose that age has produced its effect, to con-
sider the speech as the mere imbecile twaddle of a
superannuated old man, is certainly the most chari-
table conclusion at which to arrive. Nevertheless it
will not be amiss to analyse the speech and to show
the incorrectness of the assertions which my Lord
HEYTESBURY has thought proper to make, and the
falsehood of the conclusions which he has in-
uendoed rather than distinctly drawn. And,
in the first place, we must draw atten-
tion to one most remarkable omission of his
Lordship. Throughout his speech he never once
alludes to the old Sicilian constitution, which had
subsisted for 700 years, and of which the constitution
of 1812 was merely an alteration, and that this omis-
sion of all mention of the old constition was advisedly
made, was made for the purpose of taking advantage
of the ignorance of his audience, is evident, because if
he had once alluded to the existence of this old
constitution he would have destroyed his own argu-
ment. The main point of his argument was this, that
from the moment the British troops were withdrawn
from the island the responsibility of this country with
regard to Sicily ceased—not so, however, thought my
Lord CASTLEREAGH, not so thought in 1816 my Lord
HAYTESBURY himself; for we find in a letter dated
Foreign-office, 6th September, 1816, and addressed
by Lord CASTLEREAGH to W. A'COURT, Esq., the
following passage :—" His Royal Highness (the
PRINCE REGENT) would feel himself equally com-
pelled, however reluctantly, to interfere if he had the
mortification to observe any attempt made to reduce
the privileges of the Sicilian nation in such a degree
as might expose the British Government to the re-
proach of having contributed to a change of system in
Sicily, which had in the end impaired the freedom and
happiness of its inhabitants as compared with what
they formerly enjoyed." And in a letter dated
Naples, sth Nov., 1816, written by W. A'Counr,
Esq., to Viscount CASTLEREAGH, we find that gentle-
man reporting that he had represented to the
Minister of his :Sicilian MAJESTY, as ono of
the cases which would render necessary an
interference on the part of Great Britain
in Sicilian affairs, " an attempt to reduce the privi-
leges of the Sicilian nation in such a degree as to
expose Great Britain to the reproach of having con-
tributed to a change of system in Sicily which had
impaired the freedom and happiness of its inhabitants,
as compared with what they formerly enjoyed."
Here we have the reason for the omission of all men-
tion of the old Sicilian constitution, an omission
which cannot be accounted for on the loss of memory
consequent on a state of " antiquated imbecility"
merely ; nothing short of drivelling idiotcy can
account for such a loss of memory as this. In
speaking of the constitution of 1812, the
Noble Lord says that " that constitution
was merely a constitution on paper," and then he pro-
ceeds to assert that Lord W. BENTINCK was of opinion
that it could not be maintained, unless the island were
handed over to the British Government. If such were
the case, it certainly is somewhat extraordinary that
Lord W. BENTINCK should, in the House of Com-
mons, on the 21st June, 1821, have moved "an
address to the Crown, praying his MAJESTY to inter-
fere to prevent the attempts which had been made
byrducethteh e Governmentprivileges of
t hoef
Sicilianthe Two we
nation
Sn i ci
ei 1 ies
such toa
e
degree as may expose the British Government to the
reproach of having contributed tot a
freedom
of systemiy
formerly
enjoyed Sicily, which has impaired h
enjoyed by its inhabitants," and thate
in
the e
,
course of
his speech, on bringing forward this motion,
have said that " the liberty required for the
h peoplelegally pledged should
t o
Sicily had been, he would contend, as
and upon authority as legitimately sacred as that
which bound the Governments of those Sovereigns,

THE SUN,

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