The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1870-11-01
THE PRESS.
Tuesday Morning, November l, 1870.



Since the time of Peter the Great Russia
has systematically pursued policy aiming at
territorial ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Having in her
inhospitable climate an invincible ally for de-
Tense she has been able almost without inter-
ruption to direct to this end the surplus of her
energies not required in the administration of
internal affairs. This policy has therefore
been maintained with a unity of purpose
which would otherwise have been impossible
till it has become traditional. On the Access
sion OF Peter the Great the western bounda-
~ OF the empire was in longitude 80 degrees
and its southern in latitude AZ degrees. They
had in 1856 been pushed to longitude Is de-
grees and latitude 80 degrees respectively
During $50 years from the accession of Peter
the Great in 1889, Russia advanced her from
tier 900 miles toward Constantinople, $50
miles toward Stockholm, 700 miles toward
Berlin and Vienna, and 1000 miles toward
Inc British possessions in the East. She has
recently made still further acquisitions in
ASIA, SO that now only one range of mount
ans separates the Asiatic possessions of Rus
sia from British India.
In her steady growth in empire Russia is
paralleled among modern nations only by the
United States In the former, however, the
social character is developed at the expense
OF the individual, while in the latter the two
grow in harmany. Says DeTocquevie, of
Russia and the United States: "Their start
ing point is different and their courses are not
the same; yet each of them seems to be mark
ed out by the will Of Heaven to sway the des-
TIMES of half the globe"
1t has always been afavorite object of Rus
sian ambition to extend her southern frontier
30 as to gain possession of Constantinope
with the great commercial facilities and polit-
zeal advantages which this would afford. The
Western powers of Europe, alive to the dam
gerous ascendancy which Russia would thus
acquire, have always been exceedingly sensi-
tive to any indications of an attempt to carry
out this policy. But Russia has the advant-
age of being able to wait Tor favorable OPP
portunity and now it seems to have arrived
France is PROSTATE and England hardly pre-
pared to resist such design with promptness
and effect. In view Of these facts the warlike
preparations OF Russia are Significant
Though often denied these denials will iail to
convince the public till verac;ty becomes
more uniformly a royal virtue. Should the
present war be long continued it would occa-
sion little surprise to find the eastern cues
ton" revived by a quarrel between Russia
and Turkey. Few would lament the expul.
sion Of the Turks from Europe. They are
not only barbarians, but barbarians of the
mostdegraded, brutal and inefficient kind
Their social and political institutions are at
war with all the best ideas of the age and we
have yet to hear of one redeeming feature in
their system. But it may we'll be questioned
whether civilization would gain by giving
Russia more commanding influence in Eu-
ropean affairs. Turkey is at least powerless
to harm her neighbors. The more energetic
barbarism of Russia would not be content to
play the inglorious part of the "sck man."
and while so far as concerns the internal af-
fairs OF Turkey it would be an improvement
on the present system; in foreign affairs it
would be likely to prove troublesome ele-
ment to deal with.