In the bivouac at the Rotunda, as the morning wore on, the Republican
officers declared that the game was up, and that there was nothing for
it but to disperse and await the consequences. They themselves actually
made off; and it was then that Machado dos Santos came to the front,
taking command of the insurgent force and reviving their drooping
spirits. The position was not really a strong one. For one thing, it is
commanded by the heights of the Misericordia; and there was, in fact,
some long-range firing between the insurgents and the Guardia Municipal
stationed on that eminence. Again, the gentle slope of the Avenida, a
hundred yards wide, is clothed by no fewer than ten rows of low trees,
acacias, and the like, five rows on each side of the comparatively
narrow roadway, which is blocked at the lower end by a massive monument
to the liberators of 1640. Thus the insurgents could not see their
adversaries even when they ventured out of their sheltered position in
the Rocio; and the artillery fire from the Rotunda did much more damage
to the hotels that flanked the narrow neck of the Avenida than to the
Royalist forces. On the other hand, it would have been comparatively
easy for the Royalists, with a little resolution, to have crept up the
Avenida under cover of the trees, and driven the insurgents from their
position. Fortunately for the revolt, there was a total lack of
leadership on the Royalist side, excusable only on the ground that the
officers could not rely on their men.

While things were at a deadlock on the Avenida, critical events were
happening on the Tagus. On all three ships, the officers knew that the
men were only awaiting a signal to mutiny; but the signal did not come.
At this juncture, and while it seemed that the Republican cause was
lost, a piece of heroic bluff on the part of a single officer saved the
situation. Lieutenant Tito de Moraes put off in a small boat from the
naval barracks at Alcantara, rowed to the _San Raphael_, boarded it,
and calmly took possession of it in the name of the Republic! He gave
the officers a written guaranty that they had yielded to superior
force, and then sent them off under arrest to the naval barracks. He
now asked for orders from the Revolutionary Committee; and early in the
afternoon the _San Raphael_ weighed anchor and moved down the river in
the direction of the Necessidades Palace. In doing so she had to pass
the most powerful ship of the squadron, the _Dom Carlos_: would she get
past in safety? Yes; the _Dom Carlos_ made no sign. The officers were
almost all Royalists, but they knew they could do nothing with the
crew. As a matter of fact when the crew ultimately mutinied, the
captain and a lieutenant were severely wounded; but I can find no
evidence for the picturesque legend of a group of officers making a
last heroic stand on the quarter-deck, and ruthlessly mowed down by the
insurgents' fire. It is certain, at any rate, that no lives were lost.

In the Palace, on its bluff above the river, King Manuel was
practically alone. No minister, no general, was at his side. It is
said, on what seems to be good authority, that when he saw the _San
Raphael_ moving down-stream under the Republican colors, he telephoned
to the Prime Minister, Teixeira de Sousa, to ask whether there was not
a British destroyer in the river that could be got to sink the mutinous
vessel. Even if this scheme had been otherwise feasible, it would have
demanded an effort of which the minister was no longer capable. At
about two in the afternoon the _San Raphael_, cruising slowly up and
down, opened fire upon the Palace, and her second shot brought down the
royal standard from its roof. What could the poor boy do? To sit still
and be blown to pieces would have been heroic, but useless. Had he had
the stuff of a soldier in him, he might have made his way to the Rocio
and tried to put some energy into the officers, some spirit into the
troops. But he had no one to encourage and support him. Such counselors
as he had were all for flight. He stepped into his motor-car, set off
for Cintra and Mafra, and is henceforth out of the saga.

The flight of Dom Manuel meant the collapse of his cause. It is true
that the Royalists were reenforced by certain detachments of troops who
came in from the country, and, beaten off by the insurgents at the
Rotunda, made their way to the Rocio by a circuitous route. The Guardia
Municipal, too, were stanch, and showed fight at several points. It was
the total lack of spirited leadership that left the insurgents masters
of the field. Having done its work at the Necessidades, the _San
Raphael_ moved up stream again, and began dropping shells over the
intervening parallelogram of the "Low City" into the crowded Rocio.
They caused little loss of life, for they were skilfully timed to
explode in air; the object being, not to massacre, but to dismay. There
is nothing so trying to soldiers as to remain inactive under fire; and
as there had never been much fight in the garrison of the Rocio, the
little that was left speedily evaporated. At eleven in the morning of
Wednesday, October 5th, the Republic was proclaimed from the balcony of
the Town Hall, and before night fell all was once more quiet in Lisbon.

The first accounts of the fighting which appeared in the European Press
were, as was only natural, greatly exaggerated. A careful enumeration
places the number of the killed at sixty-one and of the wounded at 417.
Some of the latter, indeed, died of their wounds, but the whole
death-roll certainly did not exceed a hundred.

The Portuguese Monarchy was dead; and the causes of death, as disclosed
by the autopsy, were moral bankruptcy and intellectual inanition. It
could not point to a single service that it rendered to the country in
return for the burdens it imposed. Some of its defenders professed to
see in it a safeguard for the colonies, which would somehow fly off
into space in the event of a revolution. As yet there are no signs of
this prophecy coming true; but the prophets may cling, if they please,
to the hope of its fulfilment. For the rest, it was perfectly clear
that the monarchy had done nothing for the material or spiritual
advancement of the country, which remained as poverty-stricken and as
illiterate as it well could be. Dom Carlos had not even the common
prudence to affect, if he did not feel, a sympathy with the nation's
pride in its "heroes." The Monarchy could boast neither of good deeds
nor of good intentions. Its cynicism was not tempered by intelligence.
It drifted toward the abyss without making any reasonable effort to
save itself; for the dictatorship was scarcely an effort of reason.
"The dictatorship," said Bernardino Machado, the present Foreign
Minister, "left us only one liberty--that of hatred." And again, "The
monarchy had not even a party--it had only a _clientèle_." That one
word explains the disappearance of Royalism.

For it has simply disappeared. Even the Royalist Press is almost
extinct. Some papers have ceased to appear, some have become
Republican, the few who stick to their colors do so rather from
clerical than from specifically Royalist conviction. All the leading
papers of the country had long been Republican; and excellent papers
they are. Both in appearance and in matter, _O Mundo_ and _A Lucta_
("The Struggle") would do credit to the journalism of any country. In
size, in excellence of production, and in the well-considered weight of
their articles, they contrast strangely with the flimsy, ill-printed
sheets that content the Spanish public.

The Provisional Government has been sneered at as a clique of
"intellectuals"; but it is scarcely a reproach to the Republic that it
should command the adhesion of the whole intelligence of the country.
Nor is there any sign of lack of practical sense in the admirable
organization which not only insured the success of the revolution (in
spite of certain cross accidents) but secured its absolutely peaceful
acceptance throughout the country. There are no doubt visionary and
fantastic spirits in the Republican ranks, and ridiculous proposals
have already been mooted. For instance, it has been gravely suggested
that all streets bearing the names of saints--and there are hundreds
of them--should be renamed in commemoration of Republican heroes,
dates, exploits, etc. But the common sense of the people and Press is
already on the alert, and such whimsies are being laughed out of court.

Of the Provisional Government I saw only the President and the Foreign
Secretary. The President, an illustrious scholar, historian, and poet,
is a delightful old man of the simplest, most unassuming manners, and
eagerly communicative on the subjects which have been the study of his
life. When I asked him to explain to me the difference of national
character which made the Portuguese attitude toward the Church so
different from the Spanish, he took me right back to the Ligurians--far
out of my ethnological depth--and gave me a most interesting sketch of
the development of the two nations. But when we came to topics of more
immediate importance, he showed, if I may venture to say so, a clear
practical sense, quite remote from visionary idealism. The Foreign
Minister, Dr. Machado, is of more immediately impressive personality.
Younger than the President by at least ten years, yet little short, I
should guess, of sixty, he is extremely neat and dapper in person,
while his very handsome face has a birdlike keenness and alertness of
expression betokening not only great intelligence but high-strung
vitality. He is a copious, eloquent, and witty talker, and his
remarkable charm of manner accounts, in part at any rate, for his
immense popularity. Assuredly no monarchy could have more distinguished
representatives than this Republic.

The desire of the Republic to "play fair" was manifested in another
little trait that interested me a good deal. In the window of every
book-shop in Spain a translation from the Portuguese, entitled _Los
Escandalos de la Corte de Portugal_, is prominently displayed. It is a
ferocious lampoon upon the royal family and upon Franco; but in Lisbon
I looked for it in vain. On inquiry I learned that it had been
prohibited under the Monarchy, as it could not fail to be; but, had
there been any demand for it, no doubt it might have been reprinted
since the revolution. There was apparently no demand. The people to
whom I spoke of it evidently regarded it as "hitting below the belt."
"We do not fight with such weapons," said a leading journalist. In no
one, in fact, did I discover the slightest desire or willingness to
retail personal gossip with respect to the hated Braganzas.




THE CRUSHING OF FINLAND

A.D. 1910

JOHN JACKOL           BARON VON PLEHVE
BARON SERGIUS WITTE   J.N. REUTER

In the midst of progress comes reaction. The far northern European
country of Finland had for a century been progressing in advance of its
neighbors. It was a true democracy. It had even established, first of
European lands, the full suffrage for women; and numerous women sat in
its parliament. But Finland was tributary to Russia; and Russia, as far
back as 1898, began a deliberate policy of crushing Finland,
"nationalizing" it, was the Russian phrase, by which was meant
compelling it to abandon its independence, adopt the Russian language,
and become an integral part of the empire under Russian officials and
Russian autocracy.

Under pressure of this repressive policy, the Finns began leaving their
country as early as 1903, emigrating to America in despair of
successful resistance to Russia's tyranny. Many of them were exiled or
imprisoned by the Czar's Government. Then came the days of the Russian
Revolution; and the Czar and his advisers hurried to grant Finland
everything she had desired, under fear that her people would swell the
tide of revolution. But that danger once passed, the old policy of
oppression was soon renewed, and was carried onward until in November
of 1909 the Finnish Parliament was dismissed by imperial command. All
through 1910 repressive laws were passed, reducing Finland step by step
to a mere Russian province, so that before the close of that year the
Finlanders themselves surrendered the struggle. One of their leaders
wrote, "So ends Finland."

We give here first the despairing cry written in 1903 by a well-known
Finn who fled to America. Then follows the official Russian statement
by the "Minister of the Interior," Von Plehve, who held control of
Finland in the early stages of the struggle, and was later slain by
Russian revolutionists. Then we give the very different Russian view
expressed by the great liberal Prime Minister, Baron Sergius Witte, who
rescued Russia from her domestic disaster after the Japanese War. The
story is then carried to its close by a well-known Finnish sympathizer.


JOHN JACKOL

"Russia is the rock against which the sigh for freedom breaks," said
Kossuth, the great statesman and patriot of Hungary. Although fifty
years have passed, and sigh after sigh has broken against it, the rock
still stands like a colossal monument of bygone ages. It is pointing
toward the northern star, as if to remind one of the all-enduring
fixity. Other stars may go round as they will; there is one fixed in
its place, and under that star the shadow of despotism hopes to endure
forever.

While yet in Finland I used to fancy Russia as a giant devil-fish,
whose arms extended from the Baltic to the Pacific, from the Black Sea
to the Arctic Ocean. Then I would think of my native land as a
beautiful mermaid, about whom the giant's cold, chilly arms were slowly
creeping, and I feared that some day those arms would crush her. That
day has come. The helpless mermaid lies prostrate in the clutch of the
octopus. Not that the constitution of Finland has been annulled, as has
been so often erroneously stated, and quite generally believed. The
Russian Government has made only a few inroads upon it. The great
grievance of the Finns is not with what has been absolutely done in
opposition to their ancient rights and privileges, nor in the number of
their rights which have in reality been curtailed, but with the fact
that they have henceforth no security. The real grievance of the Finns
is that the welfare of their country no longer rests upon an inviolable
constitution, but upon the caprice of the ministers.

In 1898 the reactionists succeeded in getting one of their tools
appointed as Governor-General. No sooner had General Bobrikoff taken
his high office than he declared that the Finnish right to separate
political existence was an illusion; that there was no substantial
foundation for it in any of the acts or words of Alexander I. The
people were amazed, appalled. But this was not all. Pobiedonostseff,
the Procurator of the Holy Synod, and other men as reactionary as he,
discovered the fact, or gave birth to the idea, that the fundamental
rights of Finland could be interfered with if these fundamental rights
interfered with the welfare of the Russian Empire. In other words, they
discovered a loophole which they termed legal, on the principle that
the parts should suffer for the whole, and that this principle was an
integral part of the plan of Russian government.

The abrogation of maintenance of Finland's ancient rights would seem by
this decision to rest on the arbitrary interpretation on the part of
Russia as to whether or not they interfered with the welfare of the
empire. It is possible that, according to the individual opinions of
Russian autocrats, they might all interfere with the standard of
welfare which certain individuals have arbitrarily established to fit
the occasion.

In justice to the Russian Government it should be stated, however, that
the joy of persecution was not the motive which led to the arbitrary
acts. During the time that Finland was under Swedish control, the Finns
had learned to dislike everything Russian. These anti-Russian
tendencies were accentuated, after Finland became an appanage of the
Russian crown, by the restrictive and often reactionary policy of the
Imperial Government. Such a form of government was repugnant to the
Finns, who had learned to be governed by good laws well administered,
and by an enlightened public opinion. At the same time, owing to their
larger liberties, their higher culture, and their susceptibility to
western ideals, the Finns exerted an attractive influence over the
peoples of the Baltic provinces, and even of Russia proper. A Finn
would very seldom become Russianized, while many Russians became
Finnicized. Unlike his Russian brother, the Finn enjoyed the privileges
of free conscience, free speech, and free press.

To the average Russian such a life was enchanting, and many were so
fascinated that they became citizens of Finland. In order to do so,
however, they were obliged to go through the formality of changing
their nationality and becoming subjects of the Grand Duchy. Doubtless
this was distasteful to the Russians, but so many and so great were the
advantages accruing from such a change that not a few renounced their
nationality.

Such a state of affairs seemed unnatural and antagonistic to the
propaganda of the Panslavistic party. Instead of Russian ideals
pervading the province, provincial ideals, manners, and customs were
gradually spreading into the empire. But there seemed to be no
honorable way of checking the progress of the rapidly growing Finnish
nationality. The Finns maintained that their rights and privileges and
their laws rested upon an inviolable constitution, which could be
changed only by a vote of the four estates of the Landtag. That body
would never yield.

It was at this juncture that the Procurator of the Holy Synod conceived
the idea that the fundamental rights of the Finns can be curtailed in
so far as they interfere with those of the empire. Acting according to
this new idea the Imperial Government in 1899 took for its pretext the
army service of the Finns. Heretofore, according to a hereditary
privilege, the Finns had not been called upon to serve in the Russian
Army, and their army service had been only three years to the Russian's
five. The officers of the Finnish Army were to be Finns, and this army
could not be called upon to serve outside of the Grand Duchy. This was
the first fundamental right of the Finns to be attacked by the Russian
Government. In some mysterious way the very insignificant army of
Finland "interfered with the general welfare of the Russian Empire."

Immediately following the Czar's startling proposal for a disarmament
conference in 1899 came his call for a special session of the Finnish
Landtag to extend the laws of conscription and the time of regular
service from three to five years. Furthermore, the new law provided
that instead of serving in their own country, the Finnish soldiers were
to be scattered among the various troops of the empire. By this means
it was hoped to Russianize them.

The representatives of the people had no time to consider the measure
before the Czar's decree was issued, February 17, 1899, declaring that
thenceforth the laws governing the Grand Duchy be made in the same
manner as those of the empire.

It is not necessary to dwell upon the deep feeling of indignation and
grief that pervaded the country. It has found a freer expression
outside of the Grand Duchy than within its boundaries. Wherever the
human heart is beating in sympathetic harmony with universal progress,
the oppressed Finnish people have found moral support. In spite of
this, one by one the Finns have been deprived of their hereditary
rights and privileges. To the Finns this new order of things seems
appalling. It is like the drawing of the veil of the dark ages over
their beloved country. They have lost everything that is dear to the
human heart: their language, their religion, and their independence.
They can do nothing but mourn in silence and mortification, for a
strict Russian censorship prevents the expression of their just
indignation and grief.

The present condition of Finland is apathetic. Last fall the loss of
crops was almost complete, and pestilence and famine are devastating
the country, which has been drained of its vitality by an excessive
migration and military conscription. The young men of Finland are
forced to serve five years in the Russian Army, and the country is
suffering from a lack of men to till the soil. The credit of the
country has been mined, and panic is spreading rapidly. Wholesale
migration of the more thrifty has made the already difficult problem of
readjustment more complicated. Those who remain behind are literally
suffering from physical, intellectual, and moral starvation. There is
left nothing to refresh, fertilize, and energize the nation's vitality.
The Finns are utterly helpless. In this sad extremity of their people
the best men of Finland are exerting their utmost in the endeavor to
alleviate suffering and infuse hope and inspiration among the masses.
The young Finnish party has become exasperated by the humiliation that
has been heaped upon the long-suffering people of their native land,
and its leaders have advised active resistance. The old Finnish party
has adopted the policy of passive resistance and protest. But the
inroads upon the constitution of Finland, in the form of imperial
decrees, rules, and regulations by the Governor-General and his
subordinates, have been so many and so sweeping in their character that
even the most conservative are beginning to lose patience. As long as
the unconstitutional acts affected only the political life of the
people, many were able to bear it, but when the new rules attacked the
time-honored social institutions and customs, indignation could no
longer be suppressed. For instance, the order to open private mail
caused a general protest. The postal director and his secretary refused
to sign the order and resigned. No less obnoxious was the order
forbidding public meetings and directing the governors of the different
provinces of Finland to appoint only such men to fill municipal rural
offices as will be subservient to the Governor-General. The governor of
the province of Ulrasborg resigned, while several other provinces were
already governed by pliant tools of General Bobrikoff.

The long-suppressed anxiety of the people has changed into a
heartrending sigh of anguish. These words of a national poet express
the general sentiment, "Better far than servitude a death upon the
gallows." A vicious circle has been established. The high-handed
measures cause indignation, and the Governor-General is determined to
suppress its expression. There is no safety in Finland for honest and
patriotic men. The judiciary has been made subservient to General
Bobrikoff. Latest advices are ominous. April 24, 1903, was a black day
in the history of Finland. It witnessed the inauguration of a reign of
terror which, by the ordinance of April 2d and the rescript of April
9th, General Bobrikoff had been authorized to establish.

Bobrikoff returned to Finland with authority, if necessary, to close
hotels, stores, and factories, to forbid general meetings, to dissolve
clubs and societies, and to banish without legal process any one whose
presence in the country he considered objectionable.

For 700 years Finns have been free men; now they have become Russian
serfs, and it is well to make closer connections between the Finnish
railway system and the trans-Siberian road. Finns are long-suffering
and patient, but who could endure all this?

While the expression of indignation is suppressed in Finland, outside
of the Grand Duchy, especially in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Russia's
relentless tyranny has made the highest officers of state as resentful
as the man in the street. Indeed entire Scandinavia is aflame with
indignation and apprehension. The leading journals are warning
Scandinavians "that the fate of Finland implies other tragedies of
similar character, unless Pan-Scandinavia becomes something more than a
political dream."


VON PLEHVE[1]

[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission from the _American Review of
Reviews_.]

In criticizing Russian policy in Finland a distinction should be made
between its fundamental principles--_i.e.,_ the ends which it is meant
to attain, and its outward expression, which depends upon
circumstances.

The former,--_i.e.,_ the aims and principles, remain _unalterable_; the
latter,--_i.e.,_ the way in which this policy finds expression--is of
an incidental and temporary character, and does not always depend on
the Russian authority alone. This is what should be taken into
consideration by Russia's western friends when estimating the value of
the information which reaches them from Finland.

As to the program of the Russian Government in the Finland question, it
is substantially as follows:

The fundamental problem of every supreme authority--the happiness and
prosperity of the governed--can be solved only by the mutual
cooperation of the government and the people. The requirements
presented to the partners in this common task are, on the one hand,
that the people should recognize the unity of state principle and
policy and the binding character of its aims; and, on the other, that
the Government should acknowledge the benefit accruing to the state
from the public activity, along the lines of individual development, of
its component elements.

Such are the grounds on which the government and the people should
unite in the performance of their common task. The combination of
imperial unity with local autonomy, of autocracy with self-government,
forms the principle which must be taken into consideration in judging
the action of the Russian Government in the Grand Duchy of Finland. The
manifesto of February 3-15, 1899, is not a negation of such a peaceful
cooperation, but a confirmation of the aforesaid leading principle of
our Government in its full development. It decides that the issue of
imperial laws, common both to Russia and Finland, must not depend
altogether on the consent of the members of the Finland Diet, but is
the prerogative of the Imperial Council of State, with the
participation on such occasions of members of the Finland Senate. There
is nothing in this manifesto to shake the belief of Russia's friends in
the compatibility of the principles of autocracy with a large measure
of local self-government and civic liberty. The development of the
spiritual and material powers of the population by its gradual
introduction to participation in the conscious public life of
the state, as a healthy, conservative principle of government,
has always entered into the plans of the sovereign leaders of the life
of Russia as a state. These intentions were announced afresh from the
throne by the manifesto of February 26, 1903. In our country this
process takes place in accordance with the historical basis of the
empire, with the national peculiarities of its population.

The result is that in Russia we have the organization of local
institutions which give self-government in the narrow sense of the
word--_i.e.,_ the right of the people to see to the satisfaction of
their local economic needs. In Finland the idea of local autonomy was
developed far earlier and in a far wider manner. Its present scope,
which has grown and developed under Russian rule, embraces all sides,
not only of the economic, but of the civil, life of the land. Russian
autocracy has thus given irrefragable proof of its constructive powers
in the sphere of civic development. The historian of the future will
have to note its ethical importance in a far wider sphere as well: the
greatest of social problems have found a peaceable solution in Russia,
thanks to the conditions of its political organization.

For a full comprehension, however, of the manifesto of 1899, it must be
regarded as one of the phases in the development of Finland's relations
to Russia. It will then become evident that as a legacy of the past it
is the outcome of the natural course of events which sooner or later
must have led up to it. The initiation of Finland into the historical
destinies of the Russian Empire was bound to lead to the rise of
questions calling for a general solution common both to the empire and
to Finland. Naturally, in view of the subordinate status of the latter,
such questions could be solved only in the order appointed for imperial
legislation. At the same time, neither the fundamental laws of the
Swedish period of rule in Finland, which were completely incompatible
with its new status, nor the Statutes of the Diet, introduced by
Alexander II., and determining the order of issue of local laws,
touched, or could touch, the question of the issue of general imperial
laws. This question arose in the course of the legislative work
on the systematization of the fundamental laws of Finland. This task,
undertaken by order of the Emperor Alexander II. for the more precise
determination of the status of Finland as an indivisible part of our
state, was continued during the reign of his august successor, the
Emperor Alexander III., and led to the question of determining the
order of issue of general imperial laws. The rules drafted for this
purpose in 1893 formed the contents of the manifesto of 1899. Thus we
see that during six years they remained without application, there
being no practical necessity for their publication. When, however, this
necessity arose, owing to the lapse of the former military law, the
manifesto was issued. It was, therefore, the finishing touch to the
labor of many years at the determination of the manner in which the
principle of a united empire was to find expression within the limits
of Finland, and remained substantially true to the traditions which for
a century had reigned in the relations between Russia and Finland. It
presented a combination of the principle of autocracy with that of
local self-government without any serious limitations of the rights of
the latter. Moreover, while preserving the historical principle of
Russian empire-building, this law determined the form of the expression
of the autocratic power within the limits of the Grand Duchy in a
manner so much in accord with the conditions of life in Finland that it
did not touch the organization of a single one of the national local
institutions of the duchy.

This law, in its application to the new conscription regulations, has
alleviated the condition of the population of Finland. The military
burden laid on the population of the land has been decreased from 2,000
men to 500 per annum, and latterly to 280. As you will see, there is in
reality no opposition between the will of the Emperor of Russia as
announced to Finland in 1899 and his generous initiative at The Hague
Conference. But, you ask me, has not this confirmation of the ancient
principles of Russian state policy in Finland been bought at too dear a
price? I shall try to answer you. The hostility of public opinion
toward us in the West in connection with Finnish matters is much to be
regretted, but hopes may be entertained that under the influence of
better information on Finnish affairs this hostility may lose its
present bitterness. We are accustomed, moreover, to see that the West,
while welcoming the progressive development of Russia along the old
lines it, Europe, has followed itself, is not always as amicably
disposed toward the growth of the political and social
self-consciousness of Russia and toward the independent historical
process taking place in her in the shape of the concentration of her
forces for the fulfilment of her peaceful vocation in the history of
the human race.

The attitude of the population of Finland toward Russia is not at all
so inimical as would appear on reading the articles in the foreign
press proceeding from the pen of hostile journalists. To the honor of
the best elements of the Finnish population, it must be said that the
degree of prosperity attained by Finland during the past century under
the egis of the Russian throne is perfectly evident to them; they know
that it is the Russian Government which has resuscitated the Finnish
race, systematically crushed down as it had been in the days of Swedish
power. The more prudent among the Finlanders realize that now, as
before, the characteristic local organization of Finland remains
unaltered, that the laws which guarantee the provincial autonomy of
Finland are still preserved, and that now, as before, the institutions
are active which satisfy its social and economic needs on independent
lines.

They understand, likewise, the real causes of the increasing emigration
from Finland. If, along with them, political agitation has also played
a certain part, alarming the credulous peasantry with the specter of
military service on the distant borders of Russia, yet their emigration
was and remains an economic phenomenon. Having originated long before
the issue of the manifesto of 1899, it kept increasing under the
influence of bad harvests, industrial crises, and the demand for labor
in foreign lands. Such is also the case in Norway, where the percentage
of emigration is even greater than in Finland.

Having elucidated the substantially unalterable aims of Russian policy
in Finland, let us proceed to the causes which have led to its present
incidental and temporary form of expression. This, undoubtedly, is
distinguished by its severity, but such are the requirements of an
utilitarian policy. By the bye, the total of these severe measures
amounts to twenty-six Finlanders expelled from the country and a few
officials dismissed the service without the right to a pension. It was
scarcely possible, however, to retain officials in the service of the
state once they refused to obey their superiors. Nor was it possible to
bear with the existence of a conspiracy which attempted to draw the
peaceful and law-abiding population into a conflict with the
Government, and that, too, at a moment when the prudent members of the
population of the duchy took the side of lawful authority, thereby
calling forth against themselves persecution on the part of the secret
leaders of the agitation party. The upholders of the necessity for a
pacific policy toward Russia were subjected to moral and sometimes
physical outrage, and their opponents were not ashamed to institute
scandalous legal processes against them for the purpose of damaging
their reputations.

Very different is the attitude of the great mass of the population, as
the following incident shows: The president of the Abo Hofgericht,
declining to follow the instructions of the party hostile to Russia,
was, on his arrival in Helsingfors, subjected to a variety of insults
from the mob gathered at the railway station. On his return to Abo he
was, on the contrary, presented with an address from the peasantry and
local landowners, in which the following words occur: "We understand
very well that you have been led to your patriotic resolve to continue
your labors in obedience to the government by deep conviction, and do
not require gratitude either from us or from any others; but at the
important crisis our people is now experiencing it may be of some
relief to you to learn that the preponderating majority of the people,
and especially in broader classes, gratefully approve of the course you
have taken."

It will scarcely be known to any one in the West that when signatures
were being gathered for the great mass-address of protest dispatched to
St. Petersburg in 1899, those who refused their signatures numbered
martyrs among them. There are some who for their courage in refusing
their signatures suffered ruin and disgrace and were imprisoned on
trumped-up charges. Moreover, the agitators aimed at infecting the
lower classes of the population with their intolerance and their hatred
of Russians, but, it must be said, with scant success.

With regard to the essence of the question, I repeat that in matters of
government temporary phenomena should be distinguished from permanent
ones. The incidental expression of Russian policy, necessitated by an
open mutiny against the Government in Finland, will, undoubtedly, be
replaced by the former favor of the sovereign toward his Finnish
subjects as soon as peace is finally restored and the current of social
life in that country assumes its normal course. Then, certainly, all
repressive measures will be repealed. But the realization of the
fundamental aim which the Russian Government has set itself in
Finland--_i.e._, the confirming in that land of the principle of
imperial unity--must continue, and it would be best of all if this end
were attained with the trustful cooperation of local workers under the
guidance of the sovereign to whom Divine Providence has committed the
destinies of Russia and Finland.


SERGIUS WITTE

When we talk of the means requisite for assimilating Finland we can not
help reckoning, first and foremost, with this fact, that by the will of
Russian emperors that country has lived its own particular life for
nearly a century and governed itself in quite a special manner. Another
consideration that should be taken to heart is this: the administration
of the conquered country on lines which differed from the organization
of other territories forming part of the empire, and which gave to
Finland the semblance of a separate state, was shaped by serious
causes, and did good service in the political history of the Russian
Empire. One is hardly justified, therefore, in blaming this work of
Alexander I., as is now so often done.... The annexation of Finland,
poor by nature and at that time utterly ruined by protracted wars, was
of moment to Russia, not so much from an economic or financial as from
a strategical point of view. And what in those days was important was
not its Russification, but solely the military position which it
afforded. Besides, the incorporation of Finland took place at a
calamitous juncture--for Russia. On the political horizon of Europe the
clouds were growing denser and blacker, and there was a general
foreboding of the coming events of the year 1812. If, at that time,
Czar Alexander I. had applied to Finland the methods of administration
which are wont to be employed in conquered countries, Finland would
have become a millstone round Russia's neck during the critical period
of her struggle with Napoleon, which demanded the utmost tension of our
national forces. Fear of insurrections and risings would have compelled
Russia to maintain a large army there and to spend considerable sums in
administering the country. But Alexander I. struck out a different
course. His Majesty recognized the necessity of "bestowing upon the
people, by means of internal organization, incomparably more advantages
than it had had under the sway of Sweden." And the Emperor held that an
effective means of achieving this would be to give the nation such a
status "that it should be accounted not enthralled by Russia, but
attached to her in virtue of its own manifest interests." "This valiant
and trusty people," said Czar Alexander I., when winding up the Diet of
Borgo, "will bless Providence for establishing the present order of
things. And I shall garner in the best fruits of my solicitude when I
shall see this people tranquil from without, free within, devoting
itself to agriculture and industry under the protection of the laws and
their own good conduct, and by its very prosperity rendering justice in
my intentions and blessing its destiny."

Subsequent history justified the rosiest hopes of the Emperor. The
immediate consequence of the policy he adopted toward Finland was that
the country quickly became calmed and settled after the fierce war that
had been waged there, and that in this way Russia was enabled to
concentrate all her forces upon the contest with Napoleon. According to
the words of Alexander I. himself, the annexation of Finland "was of
the greatest advantage to Russia; without it, in 1812, we might not,
perhaps, have won success, because Napoleon had in Bernadotte his
steward, who, being within five days' march of our capital, would have
been inevitably compelled to join his forces with those of Napoleon.
Bernadotte himself told me so several times, and added that he had
Napoleon's order to declare war against Russia." And afterward, during
almost a century, Finland never occasioned any worries, political or
economic, to the Russian Government, and did not require special
sacrifices or special solicitude on its part.

If we may judge, not by the speeches and articles of particular
Separatists, but by overt acts, during that long period of time the
Finnish people never failed in their duty as loyal subjects of their
monarch or citizens of the common fatherland, Russia. The successors of
the conqueror of Finland spoke many times from the height of the throne
"of the numerous proofs of unalterable attachment and gratitude which
the citizens of this country have given their monarchs." And in effect,
neither general insurrections against Russia's dominions, nor political
plots, nor the tumults of an ignorant rabble--such as our cholera
riots, workmen's outbreaks, Jewish pogroms, and other like
disturbances--have ever occurred in Finland; and when disorders of that
kind broke out in other parts of the empire or alarming tidings from
abroad came in they never evoked the slightest dangerous echo there. It
is a most remarkable fact that during the trying time the Russian
Government had when the Polish insurrection was going on, and later, in
the equally difficult period through which we passed at the close of
the seventies, Finland remained perfectly calm; and in the long list of
political criminals sprung from the various nationalities of Russia, we
do not find a single Finlander.

In like manner fear of Finland's aspirations toward independence, of
her inordinate demands in the matter of military legislation, of her
turning her population into an armed nation; in a word, all the
apprehensions felt that Finland may break loose from Russia are, down
to the present moment, devoid of foundation in fact.

"Finland under the egis of the Russian realm," our present Emperor has
said, "and strong in virtue of Russia's protection through the lapse of
almost a whole century, has advanced along the way of peaceful progress
unswervingly, and in the hearts of the Finnish people lived the
consciousness of their attachment to the Russian monarchs and to
Russia." In moments of stress and of Russia's danger, the Finnish
troops have always come forward as the fellow soldiers of our armies,
and Finland has shared with us unhesitatingly our military triumphs and
also the irksome consequences and tribulations of war-time. Thus, in
the year 1812 and in the Crimean campaign, her armies grew in number
considerably; in that eastern war almost her entire mercantile marine
was destroyed--a possession which was one of the principal sources of
the revenue of the country. During the Polish insurrection and the war
for the emancipation of Bulgaria Finnish troops took part in the
expeditions, and when in 1885 the Diet was opened, the Emperor
Alexander III., in his speech from the throne, bore witness to "the
unimpeachable way in which the population of the country had discharged
its military obligations," and he gave utterance to his conviction that
the Finnish troops would attain the object for which they existed.

By way of proving Finland's striving to cut herself apart from Russia,
people point to the doctrine disseminated about the Finnish State, to
its unwillingness to establish military conscription on the same lines
as the empire, and to the speeches of the Deputies of the Diets of
1877-1878 and 1879. But none of these arguments carries conviction.

The theory about the independence of Finland, as a separate realm,
which was worked out for the purpose of devising "the means of
safeguarding its idiosyncrasies," is far from proving that "Finland
aims at separation from Russia." Down to the present moment separation
has not been in her interests. She was never an independent State; her
historical traditions do not move her to play a political part in
Europe. Besides, her population is mixed. The Swedish element
constitutes only the topmost layer, and is not powerful enough to move
toward an independent existence or toward union with the Power which
belongs to the same race as that layer, while the mass of Finns,
dreading the oppression of the Swedish party, is drawn more to Russia
by the simple instinct of self-preservation. That is why the Finnish
patriot may well be a true and devoted citizen of the Russian Empire,
and being, as Alexander III. termed it, "a good Finlander," can also
"bear in mind that he is a member of the Russian family, at the head of