VIII. 1815. designs of the diplomatic body. The first army, 112,000 CHAP. strong, is composed of three corps, and stationed in Poland and the adjacent frontiers of Russia: it is intended to overawe the discontented in the former country, and hang like a thunder-cloud on the rear of Austria and Prussia. The second army, also 112,000 strong, is cantoned in the southern provinces of the empire, between Odessa and the Danube it is destined to intimidate the Turks, and give weight to the ceaseless diplomatic encroachments of Russia at Constantinople. The third, which musters 120,000 combatants, is stationed as a reserve at Moscow, Smolensko, and in the central provinces of the empire: it is intended to reinforce either of the great armies on the frontier which may require to be supported, and is advanced nearer to the scene of active operations the moment that hostilities commence. In addition to this, 1 there are never less than 60,000 men, including the guards, at St Petersburg, and 40,000 on the Caucasus, or in the province of Georgia to the south of it. These immense forces may all be rendered disposable without weakening any garrison or military station in the interior. They Hist. of are, however, so far separated from each other that it Europe, c. requires a long time to concentrate them on any one point, Schnitzler, or produce the imposing array of 160,000 warriors, whom Iut. de la Alexander, in 1815, reviewed on the plains of Vertus in 3, 4. Champagne.1 xcv. § 26; Histoire Russie, ii. corruption Montesquieu long ago said that honour is the principle 49. of a monarchy, and virtue of a republic. Both are true, General in a certain sense, of society generally, though not of in Russia. every individual of which it is composed; for though few are willing to practise these virtues themselves, yet all are ready to exact them of their neighbours. Public opinion inclines to the right side, because it is founded on our judgment of others; private acts often to the wrong, because they are prompted by our own inclinations. If we are to form our opinion from the example of Russia, we should be forced to conclude that the prin VOL. II. L VIII. 1815. CHAP. ciple of despotism is CORRUPTION. This arises from the selfish desire of gain in individuals being unchecked by the opinion of those who, as they do not participate in, are not biassed by it; and from the immensity of the empire, and the innumerable number of functionaries employed, rendering all the vigilance of the emperor and of the higher officers of state inadequate to check the general abuses which prevail. Doubtless there are many men in the highest situations, both civil and military, in Russia, who are as pure and honourable as any in the world; but they are the exceptions, not the rule. Generally speaking, and as a national characteristic, the functionaries in Russia are corrupt. The taking of bribes is general; justice is too often venal; the chiefs of the police, on the most moderate salaries, soon accumulate large fortunes; and even elevated functionaries are often not proof against the seductions of a handsome woman, or a magnificent Cashmere shawl for their wives or daughters.* The Emperor Alexander, in a moment of irritation at some great dilapidations which he had discovered in the naval stores, 1Schnitzler, said, "If they knew where to hide them, they would Int. de la steal my ships of the line; if they could draw my teeth 415, ii. 182. without wakening me, they would extract them during the night."1 Histoire Russie, i. 50. Enormous abuses No words can convey an idea of the extent to which this system of pillage, both on the public and on individuals, prevails on the part of those intrusted with power which pre- in Russia; those practically acquainted with the administration of affairs in Great Britain may approach to a vail. * On the accession of the Emperor Nicholas in 1826, it was discovered that in sixteen governments of Russia out of no less than 2749 ukases, or decrees of the Senate, passed, 1821 had remained unexecuted; in the single government of Kourok 600 lay buried and unknown in the public archives. In the same year there were 2,850,000 causes in dependence in the different tribunals of the empire, and 127,000 persons under arrest. The Senate decides annually 40,000 causes on an average; in 1825 the number was 60,000; which sufficiently proves that the vast majority must have been decided in absence, or without any consideration.-SCHNITZLER, Histoire Int. de la Russie, ii. 171, 175, 176. VIII. 1815. conception of its magnitude, from the strenuous efforts CHAP. constantly making to introduce the same system into the British dominions, when the vigilant eye of Parliament and Government is for any considerable time averted. It is the great cause of the unexpected reverses or trifling successes which have so often attended the Russian arms on the first breaking out of fresh hostilities. So universal and systematic had been the fraud of the whole functionaries connected with the armies, that they are often found, when they take the field, to be little more than half the strength which was represented on paper, and on which the cabinet relied in commencing the campaign. When Nicholas declared war against Turkey in 1827, he relied on Wittgenstein's army in the south being, as the returns showed, 120,000 strong; but it was never able to bring 60,000 sabres and bayonets into the field and when the army approached the Danube, he found, to his utter dismay, that the wood for the bridges, which were represented as already thrown over the Danube, was not even cut in the 184, 185. forests of Bessarabia. 1 1 Schnitzler, Hist. Int. de la Russie, ii. instances ruption. Sometimes, indeed, the enormous abuses that are going 51. on are revealed to the emperor, and then the stroke of Striking justice falls like a thunderbolt from heaven on the head of this corof the culprit; but these examples are so rare in comparison with the enormous number of dilapidations which are going on in every direction, that they produce no lasting impression. Like the terrible railway accidents which frequently occur in England, or steamboat explosions in America, they produce general consternation for a few days, but are soon forgotten. Occasionally, too, the malversation is found to involve such elevated functionaries, that the tracing of guilt or its punishment are alike impossible. At a review in April 1826, soon after his accession to the throne, four men, dressed as peasants, with great difficulty succeeded in penetrating to the Emperor Nicholas, near his magnificent palace of TsarckoSelo, and revealed to him an enormous system of dilapi VIII. 1815. CHAP. dation of the public naval stores which was going on at Cronstadt, where cordage, anchors, and sails belonging to the Crown were publicly exposed at the bazaar, and purchased at a low price by foreigners. Nicholas instantly ordered an officer with three hundred men to surround the bazaar; and upon doing so, ample proofs of the truth of the charges were discovered. Orders were given to prosecute the delinquents with the utmost rigour, and the imperial seal was put on the dilapidated stores; but the culprits were persons of great consideration; in the night of the 21st June following, a bright light was seen from St Petersburg to illuminate the western sky, and in the morning it was cautiously whispered that the bazaar had been totally consumed by fire, and with it the whole evidence of the guilt of the accused. The Gazette of St Petersburg made no mention of the fraud, ii. 180, 182, or of the conflagration by which its punishment had been prevented.1 1 Schnitzler, 52. in Russia nal. As a set off to this inherent vice and consequent weakEmigration ness in the Russian empire, there is one most important is all inter- source of strength which is every day contrasting more strongly with the opposite cause of decline operating in western Europe. Emigration among them is very general in no country in the world is a larger proportion of the population more able and prepared, on the slightest motive, to locate themselves in fresh habitations. Armed with his hatchet on his shoulder-his invariable auxiliary-the Muscovite peasant is often inclined to leave his log-house and his fields, and carve out for himself fresh ones in some distant or more fertile forest. Followed by his flocks, his mares, and his herds, the Cossack or the dweller on the steppes is ever ready to exchange the pasture of his fathers for that of other lands. But there is this vital difference between these migrations and the emigration of western Europe-they are internal only; they do not diminish, they augment the strength of the state. VIII. 1815. From the British islands, at this time, an annual CHAP. stream of 350,000 emigrants, nearly all in the prime of life, issues, of whom two-thirds settle in the wilds of America; and from Germany the fever of moving has, since the revolution of 1848, become so violent that 100,000 annually leave the Fatherland. It is needless to say that such prodigious drains, springing out of the passions and necessities of civilisation, cannot go on for any length of time without seriously weakening the strength and lessening the population of western Europe. But the very reverse of all this obtains in Russia, for there the movement is all within; what is lost to one part of the empire is gained to another, and a rate of increase approaching the Transatlantic appears, not in a distant hemisphere, but on the plains of the Ukraine and the banks of the Volga. Nor will it for long be otherwise, for the remote situation of the Russian peasants renders them ignorant of other countries, and averse to the sea; while their poverty precludes them from moving, except with their hatchets to a neighbouring forest, or their herds to an adjoining steppe. To this it must be added that the introduction of the free-trade system into Great Britain has already given a very great impulse to agricultural industry in Russia, where it is advancing as rapidly as it is declining in the British. 730,000 Total Annual Decrease. 40,484 95,966 118;764 255,214 Total in three years, 985,214 -Emigration Report, March 1853. The annual increase of the births over the deaths is about 230,000; so that, when the emigration is taken into view, there is an annual decline of 120,000 or 130,000 in the entire population. This appeared in the census of 1851. Though the great emigration had only recently begun, it showed a decline in Great Britain and Ireland, taken together, of 600,000 souls since 1845; in Ireland, taken singly, of 2,000,000.-See Census 1851, and ante, c. 1, § 58. |