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    auaasinatiou ., Tife epigmmi of . Talleyrand znagrr no */ be tb © hwtorj ^ ofc Ntohola * ; , the poison wJaSdhft ran in , Biarae ' s veins may . have £ » enE ; -traMunittedia disease , to hia ; successor ? butarenira Russia * , afeotaifrm is not pureautor crac ^ . Tj&e ? ruler must conform to the-charac * - tenof' hss-realm . - Aicalculation of . thecbances of thej fdtore ? is reduced , therefore , to a comparison ! between ! the elements which reader peace ' possible , or : war-inevitable . All that concerns -the fortunes of- this earth , is not y et confined to- the plans of Emperors , or ^ to the ark of their covenant , the secret cabinet of

    diplomacy ^ The elements of this uncertainty are too varied * too powerful , and too mysterious-to be balanced by any calculation . But there is one obvious probability in favour of war . A tre * znendous- weigfit of material power has * been stored' up by successive 1 Czars- within 1 the southern provincesof Russia * and the confines of'Aeiau Firom those-wildernesses , unvisited by human t culture ,, the devastators of Europe have sprung ; Their - swarming Tartar tribes

    have been the scourges * of the " West . Their pastoral ' life is the . influence which nurses a legion of centaurs ready to-pour , at any invitation , over every frontier within reach .- The Cossacks , trained in Stc Petersburg , hardened in loyalty , welded into masses , and dead to per sonal- feeling , return to their waste fatherland s and decoy their former compatriots into the service Inuring the huge ^ levies that have lately been frequent in Russia , hundreds of Siberian tribes have been allured to the martial

    yoke , chained to it by discipline , and accustomed to obey , the sternest articles of war in the military code of ; Europe . Of such forces the desert breeds an inexhaustible supply . They have already magnified the imperialarmy list , and are ^ . mong those new corps tramping eter _ = _ nally towards ; the citadel of Warsaw , or the passes of the Caucasus , or the avenues of the Crimea . ¦ : These multitudes , astonishing in numbers , are not insignificant in efficiency . Thousands of drill-sergeants have been despatched from

    Mbscow and -from the posts on the Don , and even within a day ' s march of the Chinese frontier large Jlussian-Lattalions ^ have rehearsed sorties for the defence of Sebastopol . To such preparations did the policy of Nicholas exr tend . He and his ancestors conquered deserts that these , might supply troops for the conquest of ? fertile provinces ; , they , seized territories not worth the cost of governing , that the rapacious

    and destructive races inhabiting them , with their energies concentrated and their fury curbed ,. might shed their cheap blood in the assault of Silisiria , or in the bayonet charges o £ Inkerman . The process of forming such armies has . been urged on for upwards of ten years ; German travellers have witnessed their exercises , and heard boast * of their mission to roll like a . flood over the earth . More than one

    Slavonian writer warns the nations of the West that they forget too early the last wave of the Asiatic inundation . The hordes which Genghis and Tiwotra led have transferred their allegiance to Russian Czars , and millions of them—thirsty devotees of the sword—are incorporated with- the , mass of the Russian Empire . Among their leaders exist the hope , strmed with prophecy , that their great race will swell' its limits , and succeed the Turks , as possessors of the Levant .

    Here is one augury against a speedy pcaee , ind it is wejl to note it . Already has a small >* oice exhorted Englishmen not to be misguided iy irrational hostility against Russia . One eye tuffioee , however , to watch the morris-dance of liploniAoy ; there are forces which diplomacy Minnbfrcontrol ; Could a Viennatreaty dispense to- harmless' oooupations the fanatic levies of 4 * ede « 4 l < i ! xanr > -ar > -lay a * new * foundation for

    the House of . Austria ? <* r appeas * e the exasperated , spkit ofi Hungary ?; or console thei Lombard people ? or- fix the basis of totteringthrones , whether in central or eastern . Europe ? Humanity is too great for its . governors . Even Alexander the Second has factions to influence him , and the vast party to which hia serfs

    are linked , by bigotry and vanity , is that which cries for war ; The Russians , in general , are like the Chinese . They know little of other nations , and despise them . We are anxious about them—they are totally indifferent about us ; for they learned . from Nicholas to believe that , their strength would overwhelm , the enemies of : the orthodox faith , including a

    large proportion of mankind' ! It was- that sovereign ' s pretence that he would ! mediate between Europe and Asia ; that he'would open an- intercourse between- them across his borders ; that he would quicken Asia / wdth the activity of Europe , and invigorate Europe with the youthful life of Asia . Was not'the style of his manifestoes a direct appeal to the Asiatic passions , and to the ignorance- of his people- —people who in their village schools learned that Napoleon BonAt

    WBTE'WftS a general who fought under their Majesties the Bourbon kings of France ? The Czar ' s correspondence with the Western Governments was in one language ; his official journal was habitually written in another ; but for his proclamations was reserved that flatulent rhetoric , that reverberating bombast , which excited the fury of the serfs . These credulous slaves were told that " surrounding nations contemplated with awe his colossal power , and knew that his vast armies only awaited the

    signal for pouring like a . deluge over the states and kingdoms of the world . " Diction such as this animated to frenzy the very tribes of Russian "subjects , which once constituted the finest soldiers of the Ottoman army . An Eastern spirit pervades the institutions of Russia . Its monarchs have usually secured their power by Asiatic methods , and atoned for failure by Asiatic penalties . Nothing is more precarious , at present , than the authority of Alexander . He depends on the grasp with

    which he is able to wield the moral forces of theState . For the nobles of Russia , although , like the chiefs """ . of anI Asiatickingdom , TiKey have little corporate influence , possess considerable weight ,. circle within circle , and the " emancipation of the serfs" is intended to neutralise this authority . Yet it exists , and'inclines to war . Only the war-faction delighted in the late Czar ' s spread of policy in Asia . The waste-lands of Southern Russia are prized as depositories of a vast material organisation

    alone . They are valuable for military purposes or for none .. From them , and from . Poland , Nicholas raised the levies which threatened Germany , and invaded the Ottoman Empire . Blood-alliances would not have made Fjoejweiuck-Wixliam a viceroy of the Czar , had he not , leaned on him for protection in the contingent discord . of Europe . The ^ immortal" Cossack battalions effected the deliver * ance , and half-effected the subjugation of Austria ; and . the same breeding-ground of human flesh and blood . enabled one army to be lost on the Danube , another to be decimated

    in Asia , and one after another to march along that short but bloody way which leads from the batteries to the . charnel-pit of Sebastopol . The East of Europe lias been invested and besieged by forces from the neighbouring wastes of Asia . A eleepleaa . vitality has been aroused ; and the Russian people look to their Czar for the triumph long-promised , prophesied , and postponed . A man ' s enemies may be they of his own house . Consequently , without calculating the warlike elements out of Russia , there are some within , which are potent * and perhaps irresistible .,

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    , STATE . OF POBUJ-AR FEELING .: Tec . oaeurDemces . of . the last ; twelve : months have aroused a spirit ! in ; the country whieh it will be : dangerous to > 8 % h 4 , and , difficult , to allay- It i »~ more than ; the was spirit , and . will not bet terminated by peace ..- It would ; be a great mistake to suppose thati cessation of

    hostilities , and therefore ofi extra , taxation , would satisfy the want called forth ; by the pressure or taxes . During the last twelve months the people of this country have become aware that they have been embroiled with . foreign , enemies , and what is worse , embroiled with l treacherous allies like Russia , embroiled in military failures , and therefore in . an excessive and useless taxa < -

    tion ,. not by any unavoidable calamities , not by the crimes-unaided of foreign kings or statesmen , but by the incapacity of their own rulers The ' governing classes have proved- themselves to be incompetent aa well as exclusive , mischievous as- well as- passive . We have not King Stork with- his formidable but respectable rapacity , nor have we King Log , with hia perfectly senseless tranquillity , but ' we have a cross-graiaed malignant King Log who will does the

    neither-govern nor be quiet . Nor detriment ' to the governing classes cease with the war , for the incapacity existed before the war began ; ifr will continue after the war closes r and it is the exposure only that will cease , not the thing exposed . The public have become thoroughly impressed with this conviction ; the flame of war has cast a light upon objects which will not be forgotten ; the aristocracy is understood , and something-else has also come to be understood besides ± he

    aristocracy . ^ — - We have a report upon which we can perfectly rely as to the state of feeling in the cotton manufacturing districts . We are not unacquainted ^ with the = 4 ron district , and we have some reason to believe that the other great manufacturing regions do not differ from the condition of that of which Lancashire , is the centre . We speak , however , chiefly of North Cheshire , Lancashire , and the part of Yorkshire adjacent . In that tract of country the state of the people is anything but contented ,

    or even resigned . . We have heard the feeling likened to that which prevailed in 1838 . It is st iirmorelike that of 1842 : probably it may not take the directly insurgent form which it assumed in that year of starvation . For the working classes have had many lessons besides those of 1848 . They have learned to emigrate , and have been departing from the country at the rate of a million in three years . They have also learned ; to despise the aristocracy . They have learned a yet more ominous lesson ; they have found that the magnates of the middle class , the great factory lords , the millocracy , who raised them to help in dragging

    down the exclusiveness of our aristocracy , turn round , and maintain against the working classes the same exclusion in power and ia trade which they charged upon the old Tories and landed gentry . Dislike is a feeble expression for the feeling that , these lessons have engendered . The glutting of the markets m America , India , and Australia , brought about by the reckless over-trading of the manufacturers , has entailed . upon the manufacturing district a stoppage of < trade ,. We have some right to charjre these , consequences upon the factory

    lords , since not only have they noglectea proper steps for acting in concert to p revont any such suicidal over-trading , but many ot them we know introduced the innovation ok directly over-tradipg in Australia in order to anticipate the market , where however they had been already anticipated by locoliraerchants , Ana where , therefore ,. they only heaped up the glut . They : suffer fromisuspended profits ; ' the wording classes from short . time , whioh means suspended bread . Which is the . worefc ? When

    Untitled Article

    ~ g 0 T ; Br : ifr & 3 ft A Pdfolfo [ 8 i ^ ai * Aig ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 10, 1855, page 230, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2081/page/14/