RUSSIA’S PRIME MINISTER.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1382, 20 July 1878, Page 3

RUSSIA’S PRIME MINISTER.

Prince Gortschakoff is one of the most agreeable men in Russia. Those who like him least acknowledge that but few who have been brought much into contact with him have failed to like him as a man ; and those who appreciate him best are the men who have served constantly under his orders. Ho was born in 1798, and has been Prime Minister of Russia since 1856. He is the richest man in Russia, the subject of highest rank in it, and ruler of the Empire ; nor could anything shake him from his post except a great national disaster ; leading to a unanimous public outcry against the Government. Ho is not a blunderer ; ho has not had to fritter a way his prestige in public speeches, as the statesmen of constitutional countries are obliged to do ; and he has kept so steadily to the policy of aggrandising his country that, if he failed, he would bo pitied for having been ill-served by his instruments rather than condemned for his patriotic ambition. Prince Gortschakoff would not have prospered as the Minister of a Parliamentary State, for the gifts which make him supreme at the council tables, in the drawing-rooms, and in the private colloquies with ambassadors, would have been thrown away on popular assemblies. He has none of the bluff petulency of Bismarck, nor of the smirking readiness of retort which enables Count Andrassy to manage the Austro-Hungarian Parliaments. He talks slowly, writes grandiloquently, and gives high-minded reasons for everything be advises or does. Persons who might have expected him to explain some tortuous pieces of policy on cynical grounds are staggered by his semblance of perfect good faith, and by the reassuring promises which he makes in a tone of stat ely gentleness, to which his venerable appearance gives the stamp of wisdom and truth. His strength is patience ; his talent lies in seizing opportunities the moment they arrive ; and these opportunities come through the simplicity of the foreigners who trust him,—“ Pall Mall Gazette.”