Year: 1878




How and when is the long pending East
eu Question" TO receive final solution
Statesmen may plan and plot for its settlement
and journalists may speculate as to the end,
but none can surely foretell either the method
or the time. Still it is question in which a
large portion Of the human family has direct
concern, and even we in these distant isles,
far removed from the scene Of turmoil, watch
the progress Of events with deep interest,
and claim the liberty to express our thoughts.
Those large-sOuled, humane individuals who
concentrate all their generous sympathies on
the benevolent head Of ''holy Russia "
seem 10 have read history-signally Russian
history-in vain. The monarchy of Russia is
the most absolute and her despotism the most
tyrannical known to modern civilization:
hence the widespread ranifcations Of the
nihilist agitation, which is no other than op-
pressed humanity, with gIimpses of light and
hope, groaning for the sweets of political and
social liberty. Russian diplomacy is on a par
with her despotism: beneath cloak of pre-
tended candor and disinteresteduess she per-
petrates the most despicable duplicity and
deceit her deeds of double-dealing and Chi
cauery have been so often recorded in the his
tory Of the last century and half that they
no longer excite surprise, and their rehearsal
has become monotonous. Her plausible pro-
fsssions to the British Government during the
Khivan expedition, and to the whole of Europe
just prior to the late campaign against Turkey,
are fresh in the memory Of every newspaper
reader: the sequel has shown the insincerity
and the utter unrelisbility of those profes-
sions: Russian faith +" is another term for
uncouscionable treachery. To rectify the
wrongs Of the Christian subjects of the Porte
is the ostensible, self-imposed mission Of
"philauthropic Russia: her real purpose
and aim are universal dominion in the East.
The religious covering with which she en-
deavors so persistently to invest her policy,
in order to enlist the sympathy of fChristendom,
is contemplate hypocrisy: her Infamous treat
ment Of the noble Poles furnishes living
example Of her notions of religious liberation.
If immaculate" Russia had the honesty
and bolduess to announce fearlessly her true
design, in place Of clumsily seeking to hide it
under the transparent guise of unsel6sh good
ness, she would gain clearer title to the
worlds admiration than any she has yet
nsrited- The mission of conquest and e1ten-
sion, bequeathed to her as sacred trust BY
Peter the Great, has been prosecuted with
wonderful teuacity and persistency: her sue
cess has been cOmnensurable with her peril
nacity, little else than an occasional check
occurring to impede her aggressive march.
Her great power, small conscience, and vast
ambition have impelled her forward until she
has more than doubled her possessions in
Europe and removed her frontier nearly two
thousand miles further into Asia: and she
designs still pushing her conquests in that
direction till the southernmost point of Hin
doostan is In her grasp. Can any enlightened
free man, in our age Of widening-liberty,
sEmPathize with this voracious project (!
Whatever the defects Of England's rule in
India, It is undOubtsdly TIE most benefcient
and n every way the best the East has ever
known, and inmeasurably ahead of anything
Russia has to bestow in its stead. Assuming
th;s-it being too universally admitted to