Mohave County miner., 1883-04-22
PRINCE GORTsCHAKOFF.
A Retrospect of His CarOer-A Gem
 tury of Diplomacy.

A retrospect of Prince Gortscha- keff's career reveals striking changes
 of character in the diplomacy of the
 century. Born during the interval
 between Napoleon's Italian cam
 paigns and the conquest of Egypt,
 he witnessed in his youth the final
 triumph of the coalitions against
 France and attended the closing ses
 slons of the Congress of Vienna. His
 diplomatic apprenticeship was served
 during the forty years of peace in
 tervening between Waterloo and Sc
 bastopol. The greatest individual
 force during that period was Metter
 nich's will. As the master designer
 of the European State system, which
 was reconstructed after the Napoleon
 ic wars, the Austrian statesman held
 a unique position on the Continent.
 Having presided over the historic
 council which had revised the public
 law of Europe, he made 1t the su
 preme business of his career to inter
 pret and enforce that law. The
 order of pubic life having been es-
 tablished, he regarded every depart
 ure from 1t, in respect to dynasty,
 frontier, constitution, institutions
 and modes of administration, as a
 breach of European faith. What he
 aimed to do was to keep not only
 Austria but the whole Continent pre-
 ciseIy as it had been left in 1915. The
 State papers recently published in
 his Memoirs show how sternly he
 set his face against innovations and
 disturbing tendencies in every guar
 ter, The germinating idea of his
 policy was expressed in hls Emper-
 or's political testament to the pres ent sovereign: "Goyern and change nothing" In order to govern with out change, he would do as little as possible, and neEer anything that was new. Activity must be renessed at home and abroad by an orderly and mechanical system. There must be stagnatlon, compression ano uni formity everywhere. His god was system. Reverence for that goi i'm piled nd tape. routine, inactioi and absolutism in domestic admiIistra- tion, and in continental diplomacy rigid adh erence to the policy of mastery inactivity.
 For forty years there was paral | ysis of the real functions of govern ment, deadening of the natural i'm pulses of nations. Diplomacy had two set phrases: 'The maintenance of the balance of power" and ''the of the dynastlc folces." It was dynasty of trivial chatter and sterile inaction, and statesman of original genius, as Gortschkof undoubtedly was, must often have rebelled against it. When the Cri mea had brought the long peaceto close, and he was appointed Nessel rode's successor after the Treaty of Paris had been signed, he lost no time in separating himself from the Metternich school of diplomacy. In 8 single contemptuous sentence Austria is not a Nation, but Gov arnment''-he gave expression to Russian resentment toward an ally that was accounted treacherous, cow ardly and ungratefuE, and his own ,corn of a policy of systematic inac- ion in foreign complications and in he enigmatic phrase, Russia does not sulk-she collects herself," he the impression throughout Europe that a man of action had arisen. That this impression was we'll founded is proved by his diplo- natic memorandum submitted to the Jzar in 1864, and published a year sgo in Germany. In that secret memoir he outlined policy by which Russian prestige was to be restored n Europe and Austrian duplicify punished. Use was to be made of italian unity, of the French alliance md German disunion, in .humiliatiIg Austria, and by a PanslaViG lengte lnder Russian primacy Turkish au- hority was to be gradually under mined in the Balkan peninsula, 1t Vas 8 programme of action and az .ression, involving startling changes md ceaselesg disturbance in the Eu. opean system. The Russian Chan ellor adhered to 1t rigidly through ut his career at the Foreign Office.
 Meanwhile a new circle of diplo nats had arisen who would not sacri ice to MetIernich's idols. There was crowned intriguer who had entered ,,,,,, +Io Tto1;ao ooY1,Tai0n un6or o ,