RUSSIAN POLICY AND, RUSSIAN DESIGNS.

Inangahua Times, Volume IV, Issue 27, 11 June 1877, Page 2

RUSSIAN POLICY AND, RUSSIAN DESIGNS.

Colburu's New Monthly Magazine has the following about Eussian policy and Eussian designs !r- --•• Alexander wrote to Napoleon — ' I offer you the half of Europe,. I will help you to obtain it, secure you in the possession of it, and all I ask in. return is. the possession of a single strait, which is also the key of my house.' Napoleon, according to O'Meara, in his ' Voice from St. Helena,' replied thus :— • In the course of, a few years Russia will hare Constantinople, the greatest part of Turkey, and all Greece. This, I hold to be as certain as if it had already taken place. Almost I all the cajoling apd flattering which Alexander practised towards me was to gain my consent to effect this object. I would not consent, seeing that the equilibrium of Europe would be destroyed. In the natural coarse of things, in a few years Turkey must fall to Eussia. The greatest part of her population are Greeks, who, you may see, are .Russians. The Powers it would injure, and who would oppose it, are England, Prance, Prussia, and Austria. It would be Very easy for Eussia to engago Austria's assistance by giving her Servia and other provinces bordering upon the Austrian dominions which extend towards Con-

stantinople. The only hypothesis tha* France and England may ever be allied with sincerity will be in order to preven t this* Bat even this alliance will not avail, franc©, England, and Prussia united cannot prevent it. Once mistress of Constantinople, Bussia gets all the commerce of the Mediterranean, becomes a great naval power, and God knows what may happen. She quarrels with you (England), marches off to India an army of 70,000 good soldiers, which to Eussia is nothing, and 100,000 canaille, Cossacks and others, and England loses India. Above all the other powers, Russia is the most to be feared, especially by you. Her soldiers are braver than the Austrians, and she has means of raising as many as she pleases. In bravery the French and English soldiers Are the only ones to be compared to them. All this I foresaw. I see into futurity further than any other, and I wanted to establish a barrier against those barbarians by reestablishing the Kingdom of Poland, and putting- Poniatowski at the head of it as king; but your imbeciles of Ministers would not consent; A hundred years hence I shall be praised, and Europe, especially England, will lament that I did not succeed. When they see the finest countries in Europe everrun and a prey to those northern barbarians they will say, * Napoleon, was right.* I ',