Gross 14. März No. 690. have satisfied me that the Prussian Government could not urge Russia to adopt britannien, measures of which the inevitable tendency would be to re-establish the nationality 1863. of Poland, and oblige Prussia to add 100,000 men to her army. He said that the concessions which Her Majesty's Government recommended the Emperor of Russia to grant to his Polish subjects would not satisfy them; and whatever they might obtain now would be used as a means of arriving at eventual independence, and of endeavouring to wrest their Polish provinces from Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Her Majesty's Government could not, therefore, expect Prussia to join them in measures which she believed would lead to such a result. &c. To Earl Russell, London. Andrew Buchanan. No. 691. Grossbritannien, 1863. No. 691. GROSSBRITANNIEN. Min. d. Ausw. an d. kön. Botschafter in Wien. - Die - Foreign Office, March 17, 1863. My Lord, I had a long and interesting conversation yesterday with the Austrian Ambassador, Count Apponyi. ¶ He brought me the answer of 17. März Count Rechberg to the proposal of Her Majesty's Government that Austria should unite with Great Britain in making representations at St. Petersburgh in favour of a complete fulfilment of the terms of the Treaty of Vienna relating to Poland. Count Rechberg declines to accede to this request, and considers that it would be inconsistent to do so, after declining the proposition of France in regard to the Russo-Prussian Convention. The policy of Austria, Count Apponyi says, is not to make any agreement with Russia, for that would indispose the Polish subjects of Austria; but neither, on the other hand, to encourage Polish resistance, for that course might extend the flames of insurrection to the Austrian province of Galicia. In speaking upon the question, Count Apponyi argued that if the Treaty of Vienna were wholly fulfilled, and if a National Diet and a National Administration were established at Warsaw, the Poles would not be satisfied. Their next object would be to restore an independent Kingdom of Poland; but an independent Kingdom of Poland would require the annexation of its ancient provinces, and, if that policy were successful, Galicia would be lost to Austria. No one could expect that Austria would embark in an enterprize which, in its ultimate result, might deprive her of a rich and tranquil province; she could not be an accomplice in the work of dismembering her own dominions. I told Count Apponyi that I would speak very plainly to him on this subject: Russia could only govern Poland in one of two ways. The one was that of the Emperor Nicholas, that of keeping her submissive and degraded; extinguishing her language; compelling her by force to change her religion. This mode was repugnant to all received notions of Gross 17. März 1863. justice and of clemency. The other was the mode of Alexander I: protecting No. 691. her from the hatred and revenge of the Russians, by giving her the guarantee of britannien, popular institutions and a local administration entirely separate from that of Russia. Nothing less would suffice. The late conscription was a proof of it. The law of recruitment of 1859 was a fair and just law; but it was wanting in some formality, and when it suited the despotism of Russia to substitute an arbitrary, unjust, and cruel measure for the equal law which had been proclaimed, there was not a moment's hesitation in doing so. I conceived there was no middle line between a system of oppression and a system of free and just government. I did not deny, I said, that if Poland were to flourish under such a system aspirations of independence would be entertained, and, perhaps, in fifteen or twenty years, might be gratified; but also I was ready to avow, that comparing the two systems, Her Majesty's Government would greatly prefer immediate peace, and a bright period of justice, happiness, and freedom, with the prospect of ultimate independence and the restoration of a Kingdom of Poland, to a condemnation of Russian Poland to a dark and sullen period of slavery and submission, to be followed, perhaps at no long interval, by a fresh outbreak of hatred and revenge. Count Apponyi said he understood my views, but Austria could not, in her position, partake in them. I am, &c. Russell. To Lord Bloomfield, Vienna. No. 692. GROSSBRITANNIEN. — Botschafter in St. Petersburg an d. kön. Min. d. Ausw. vom 2. März (No. 685). St Petersburgh, March 9 (received March 18), 1863. Gross 9. März 1863. My Lord, In conformity with your Lordship's orders I waited on No. 692. Prince Gortchakoff this forenoon, and placed in his Excellency's hands your britannien, Lordship's despatch of the 2nd instant, embodying the views of Her Majesty's Government in reference to the affairs of Poland. The Vice-Chancellor first read over your Lordship's despatch in silence. His Excellency then stated that, acting in a spirit of conciliation, he would offer no written reply to the observations of Her Majesty's Government. He would entrust the duty of conveying his sentiments on this occasion to me, and he would request me to show him the draft of my Report before forwarding it to your Lordship. The Vice-Chancellor also stated his wish to be enabled to submit my record of his expressions to His Majesty the Emperor along with your Lordship's instruction, in order that His Imperial Majesty might have at once a complete view of this exchange of opinions between the two Governments. To these proposals on the part of the Vice-Chancellor I acceded. ¶ Prince Gortchakoff then read over your Lordship's despatch aloud. ¶ The first and second paragraphs of your Lordship's despatch affirm the deep concern with which Her Majesty's Government con Gross 9. März No. 692. template the deplorable condition of Poland at this conjuncture, and the unsatisbritannien, factory results which Her Majesty's Government anticipate from the mere 1863. triumph of the Russian forces over the parties in arms against the Imperial authority. Here the Vice-Chancellor remarked that the concern expressed by Her Majesty's Government was more than shared by the Emperor and his Government. The heart of His Imperial Majesty was painfully affected by the effusion of blood contingent on this unhappy revolt, by the diminution of material welfare which is inseparable from civil commotion, and by the contemplation of resentments which might possibly survive these incidents, but for which the Imperial Government could not hold themselves responsible. The following paragraphs of your Lordship's instruction define the position of Poland in relation to the stipulations of the Treaties of 1815. On this point the Vice-Chancellor reserved his opinion for after-statement. His Excellency proceeded at once to the eighth paragraph of the despatch, in which your Lordship affirms that the immediate cause of the present insurrection was the conscription lately enforced upon the Polish population. The Vice-Chancellor contended that the recent measure of military recruitment was the pretext, not the provocation, of the revolt. The Polish insurrection, said his Excellency, was the result of a conspiracy deeply laid and widely organized in foreign capitals, from which he could not except London. The explosion had merely been accelerated by the military levy. Of the origin, development, and objects of that conspiracy, the Imperial Cabinet had been well informed. It was a democratic and anti-social" movement, conceived in the pernicious notions of which Mazzini was the author and the symbol, and in these designs the Poles had been enlisted by flattering their natural illusions, which pointed to very different objects from those which the practical policy of English statesmen regarded-to the severance of Poland from the Russian Crown, to national independence, to the restoration of the limits of 1772. Far from being the cause of the present outbreak, the military recruitment had been undertaken in order to avert it and all the calamities which had ensued upon it, to remove the inveterate promoters of disturbance, and to open a fair course for the benevolent measures projected by the Emperor. The insurrection had only included the mechanics of the towns, the indigent nobles and the rustic clergy. The landed proprietors and great nobility had collected for security under the guns of the citadel of Warsaw; the peasantry were decidedly on the side of Government, moved by a sense of the benefits which the Imperial Government had conferred on their order, and disgusted by the exactions imposed upon them by the roving bands of marauding insurgents. Some of the upper classes might, indeed, join in the patriotic delusions of national restoration in its ancient boundaries, but their eyes only remained sealed to the absurdity of such expectations in consequence of the countenance given to them by foreign Governments. Some of these persons might take part in the movement, but the Governments which afforded such countenance would hereafter regret the results of a policy which could only enlarge the circle of suffering and misfortune. Reverting to the previous paragraphs of your Lordship's despatch respecting the position of Poland under the Treaties of Here I called representation," Gross 9. März 1863. Vienna, and associating them with the subsequent passages in which your No. 692. Lordship sets forth the motives and claims of Great Britain to interfere as one britannien, of the signing Parties to these engagements, the Vice-Chancellor expressed himself as follows: Laying open the Treaty of Vienna, his Excellency pointed to that passage in Article I. by which it is stipulated that the national institutions to be accorded to the several members of the Polish nation shall be regulated by the form of political existence which their respective Governments shall judge it to be useful and convenient to grant to them. the attention of the Vice-Chancellor to the use of the term as well as that of ,,national institutions." ¶ The Vice-Chancellor resumed. His Excellency remarked that under this Article the Russian Government remained the absolute arbiter of the form in which the representation and national institutions of Poland should be framed. The Emperor Alexander I, using his indisputable prerogative in a liberal and even in an enthusiastic sense, had, some time after the conclusion of the Treaty referred to, spontaneously granted to the Kingdom of Poland a Representative Constitution which had not proved consistent with the peace and welfare either of Poland or Russia. That Constitution had never been imparted to foreign Powers as involving the execution of international engagements. We all know under what circumstances it had perished. What the Emperor Alexander did in the plenitude of his power, his successor in the exercise of the same power could revoke. The present Emperor, ever faithful to the principles of government which he applied in Russia, had applied these principles in Poland too, and perhaps in a larger measure than had been granted in any other portion of his dominions. The political Constitution proclaimed in Poland in the year 1861 embodied a complete autonomy, national institutions with a modified representation adapted to the form of political existence in force under the Imperial Government. Poland was now ruled by institutions purely Polish. There was a directing Minister, a Pole, entertaining national sentiments of the most decided character; a Council of Administration composed of Poles; a Council of State containing Poles taken from the several ecclesiastical and civil orders of the community, and embodying some representative elements, in which general laws for the welfare of the kingdom were elaborated; there were Provincial, District, and Municipal Councils in descending order, all purely elective, charged with the local and material interests of the country. This national representation was not cast in the same mould as that which was designed by the Emperor Alexander, or that which existed in England, but it formed, nevertheless, a system of national and representative institutions adapted to the condition of Poland and its relations with Russia. Her Majesty's Government, composed of practical Statesmen, the representatives of a practical nation, would not surely contend that there was only one valid and useful form of political institutions equally applicable to all countries, that, namely, which existed in England, and which was successful there. Nor would Her Majesty's Government, which professed non-intervention as the rule of their foreign policy, deviate from that principle now by interfering in the domestic concerns of another State. The Kingdom of Poland enjoyed an absolute administrative Gross 9. März 1863. No. 692. independence. Even the Department for Polish Affairs in the Russian capital britannien, had been abolished. The only institution common to the two countries now was the army. The new institutions granted to Poland, alluded to above, opened a wide field of activity and material prosperity to the country. But this was not all. The Imperial Government, in restoring the educational establishments of the kingdom, had offered to the people the resources of intellectual culture and satisfaction. If to these institutions we added the guarantee by which they were all preserved, the personal character of the Emperor, who cherished an equal solicitude for the good of all his subjects, we should have a sufficient security for the future welfare of Poland, though the scheme might exclude that peculiar form of Representative Government applied in Great Britain, and perhaps exclusively appropriate to its condition. With reference to the rights of England in relation to the affairs of Poland, under the Treaty of Vienna, the Vice-Chancellor remarked that he had little to say on this occasion; that question had been fully and ably discussed in the correspondence which had passed between Her Majesty's Government and the Imperial Cabinet after the Revolution of 1831. To that correspondence he begged to refer your Lordship. In regard to the amnesty recommended by Her Majesty's Government, the Vice-Chancellor observed that a prompt and unconditional pardon could not be granted to those who were actually in arms against the authority of the Emperor. The friendly character which Her Majesty's Government had given to their representations justified him, however, in spontaneously stating that it had always been the intention of the Emperor to grant a large measure of amnesty to his revolted subjects after the cessation of resistance, excluding only the principal authors of a movement which had caused so many calamities in the kingdom. In the course of this conversation I did not consider it to be my duty to enter at large upon any controversial matter with the Vice-Chancellor. I did, however, offer two reflections to his Excellency in the way of reservation, which I trust will be found consistent with the views of Her Majesty's Government. When the Vice-Chancellor spoke of the plenitude of power which had been exercised by the Emperor Alexander I, and which had been transmitted unimpaired to His Majesty's successor, I remarked that, in my opinion, and in that (I believed) of my Government, the power of the Russian Sovereign in regard to Poland could only be justly exerted within the limits, and in conformity with the prescriptions, of the Treaty of Vienna. When his Excellency appeared to claim the silence of England on the ground of the principle of nonintervention professed by Her Majesty's Government, I contended that this principle could not be invoked here, for Her Majesty's Government did not here raise their voice in a question regarding exclusively the internal concerns of a foreign country, but in a question of an interior nature, with reference to which that foreign country had contracted engagements towards Great Britain; engagements which, in our opinion, had never been annulled. In commenting upon these observations, Prince Gortchakoff again referred to the terms of the Treaty of Vienna, which had constituted each of the three Powers concerned in Poland, the absolute arbiter of the form of national institutions to be conferred |