“The Irish of the Continent”—as the Prince Consort called the Poles—seem to be giving Prince Bismarck some trouble just now. No one knows why he should so suddenly have launched his arbitrary edicts against the foreign Poles in Posen; nobody, of course, except the “Iron Chancellor” himself, who always knows why and what he wants. Some men, even statesmen, are downright “femmes incomprises,” but not he! Very often he does not care to enlighten the blind, but his own eyes are wide open; he sees the light when the world is complaining of darkness. His last speech is addressed to the blind, but it is as frank as interesting. The great statesman of the age admits, at all events, his determination to extirpate a whole nationality, as far as that nationality rests beneath the shadow of the Prussian eagle. Perhaps, after reading this last utterance, the English may be able to understand how it is that while the Poles do not love the Russians they regard the Prussians with detestation and dread.

The Russian Government sometimes endeavours to rule its share of Poland with a strong hand. The Prussian Government has quite different ideas. Not to repress, but to annihilate; to make Prussian Poland German, instead of Polish, to efface the Pole from the map of Europe—that is evidently one of the objects which Prince Bismarck has in view. The German has ever sought to eat the Pole out of his fatherland. The Germanization of Poland, begun by the great Frederick, has been silently pushed forward generation after generation, but for some reason, which Bismarck keeps to himself, he seems to think that the process is far too slow.

While the German settler has been pressing on the Prussian Pole and establishing great colonies within the Russian frontier, there has been considerable mixture of the natives of the partitioned kingdom. Prussian Poles have gone to live with their neighbours in Galicia. Russian and Austrian Poles have settled in Posen. Suddenly, without ostensible motive or pretext, all foreign Poles are ordered across the German frontier. Only a few days’ notice, it is said, and 40,000 foreign Poles who had been enjoying the scanty hospitality of Germany were driven out of the Empire. Germany is a constitutional State, and though constitutionalism is every day losing its fascinating charm on the Continent, the representatives of the German nation tried to raise a meek and plaintive voice in humble protest. Their serenade is hardly listened to. No explanation is given; the banishment is enforced, and all Europe is allowed to feel indignant as long as she buries her indignation in the very depth of her sympathizing heart. But even this is not enough; the foreign Poles having disappeared, the native-born Poles must be got rid of. There are the landlords who are Poles, they must be bought out. The expropriation of landlords is common enough on the Continent, and Prince Bismarck proposes to uproot the whole oligarchy. Not at one stroke, however—is it not generous?—there is a respite. In the meantime, he will buy up all Polish estates that come into the market and farm them out, not to the Polish tenants, but to Germans. And these Germans are to be guarded on every side against the atmosphere of Poland. As the condition of their tenancy they must pledge themselves to remain German, and, above all, marry German wives. I wonder whether that last condition is thought a very easy one? If it is an easy one, why should it be made compulsory by law? It really is amusing to see the great Chancellor fulminating against the new mixed marriages, to secure a monopoly of the marriage market for the daughters of the fatherland, and to guard the inflammable German against the fascination of Polish sirens! It is a great compliment to the Slavonic woman, this new agrarian law, in which the tenure of Polish land is made to depend upon the refusal to marry a Polish woman. So it seems, after all, it is not in England alone that Slavonic women are believed to be invested with some mysterious diabolic powers! It is, undoubtedly, an odd illustration of the determination of Prince Bismarck to Germanize Poland. Of course he will be supported by his countrymen, for it is one of the enormous advantages which he possesses of being always supported, and the more implicitly the less they understand what he is after.

While Prussia Germanizes Posen, the Polish nationality is thriving amain in Russian Poland. In all Europe there are few more flourishing regions than the Province of the Vistula, and gradually the Polish mind is awakening to the fact which the famous Czaikovsky—the Polish emigrant, the bitter Russia-hater, better known as Sadyk Pasha—spent his latest years in proclaiming—that the true patriotism for the Pole is friendship and alliance with Russia. The Roman Catholic Church keeps alive an animosity which is full of evil to both nations, and especially to Poland. Czaikovsky’s death has deprived his country of one of the most courageous, outspoken exponents of real Polish interests. His influence was rapidly increasing, and has now manifested itself in an organ of the press of Warsaw, which, under the stimulus of aggressive Germanization, is destined to exercise still greater influence in reconciling the Poles and the Russians. In Poland we have overcome a difficulty which England has still to face in Ireland. The masses of the people are with us. It is the landlords who are to a certain extent still hostile.

It is to be hoped that other Slavs than those of Poland will take warning by what is occurring in Posen. The Germanization of Prussian Poland is but one phase of the movement for the Germanization of the Slavonic world. In Posen the weapon is wielded by the Prussian. In the Balkan peninsula it is wielded by the Austrian. But the object is identical. The methods vary, but the spirit is always the same. The experience of the Serbs—in the Kingdom as in Bosnia and the Herzegovina—is a melancholy proof of the danger of relying upon Austria. Instead of developing the SLavonic nationality, the dominant idea in Vienna is to inoculate them with Germanism, to exploit Slavdom for the Teutonic pocket. What is the result? Financially, it may be inferred from one fact. When Serbia abandoned the Russian for the Austrian alliance her National Debt was 8,000,000 francs. To-day, after eight years of Austrian protection, it is 250,000,000 francs. And what has Serbia to show for this huge vampire debt that draws her life blood? A fratricidal war, in which she was well beaten, and a blood feud with her Bulgarian neighbours. Much more courage is required to praise Russian policy when one is writing for the English public than to blame it when one is writing at home; but one gets accustomed to certain dangers and to exposing one’s views heedless  of results. Should not people who have a mind to speak out always do so? But to recall certain facts is still easier. One of the most obvious of these is that Russia has never exploited any Slavonic country in the Austro-German fashion. We have blundered often enough, but a brotherly feeling guided our deeds, and we have always striven to develop Slavonic nationalities and enable our young relations to thrive by their own resources. Even when, as last year, we seem to have opposed the wishes of the Bulgarians, it was because of our desire to avoid bloodshed, and to avert complications which in the interest of the Slavs we had good reason to deplore. If our Emperor opposed the union of Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia, he did it with the same motives—only tenfold stronger—that Mr. Gladstone has for dissuading the Greeks from going to war.

O.K.

48, Dover-street.