New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, MAY 14 1877.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5035, 14 May 1877, Page 2

New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, MAY 14 1877.

Tub irony of events is a biting irony : but often the forecasters ami tire enthusiasts who sheuld most keenly feel its incisivoness have passed away before the coming of the time when they might have suffered. Recently, groat events have marched more rapidly ; and, as a consequence, supposed leaders of men will have to writhe. There are in England, and elsewhere, those who,because some portions of the Mussulmans army wore guilty of horrible barbarities in Bulgaria, assumed that Mussulmans were by nature barbarous ; and who, despite political considerations, have desired to see all of that faith ejected from Europe by the strong arm of Russia. Others there are who, because Russia was known not to be financially strong, and to bo socially weak, have supposed that she could not desire mere conquest, and have urged unlimited action with her, for objects not defined if conceived ; it being assumed that the ruler of such a nation must be sufficiently sensible not to provoke war, or to strive after it, for tlio sake of aggression. But war has come quickly, after Europe had lived awhile in a fool’s paradise, whore belief that peace would be preserved was professed ; and the Russia-laudors, not less than the more Turk-hators, will probably iiavotheirjudgmonts revised, though their wisdom may not be thereby added unto.

Instructive reading is supplied by two articles in the first number of “ The Nineteenth Century.” One is entitled “ Russia,” and was written by Mr. M. E. Grant Duff ; the other, “ Turkish Story Books,” came from the pen of Mr. W. B. S. Ralston. Mr. Duff admits that he is one of those who “have been long trying to induce their countrymen to take a more friendly view of the acts and aims of the great Northern Empire while Mr. Ralston summarises pretty and pleasant stories, and asks his readers to believe that the people amongst whom such stories have long been and are popular, cannot be simply a barbarous people. The magazine was published on the Ist March, and the articles mentioned were clearly written under the belief that there would not bo war. Mr. Grant Duff has recollections of his own as to Russia ; and he apparently has acquaintance with all works that are sufficiently modern to be accepted as evidence, or as indications, of what exists in an empire which has within the last generation changed greatly. But he depends for much of his material upon Mr. Mackenzie Wallace’s book, which was published early this year. What, then, does Mr. Duff, so biassed and so qualified, tell us ? The area of the Russian Empire, and its population, are alike unknown. Tne former is certainly double that of the United States ; the latter is estimated not to exceed 83,000,000. During 1874, the Russian Treasury received £73,907,119 of revenue. The estimated revenue of the United Kingdom during the same year was £73,762,000, but the receipts were more than £77,000,000. The precise strength of the Russian army is again an unknown quantity; but what the Tsar set himself to do, after studying the war between France and Germany, was to create an available force of 1,945,000. The Russian navy is relatively weak, and does not involve what can be called an undue cost. Even in European Russia, population averages only fourteen to the square verst, and it does not at any point exceed forty, while Great Britain has 114 to the same area. The people incline to agriculture rather than to trade ; and wide-spreading areas of land of the most glorious and abounding fertility (those are Mr. Gkant Duff’s words) justify the choice. Russia has the protective “craze;” she is constantly seeking to build up industries; and she, by protective duties, taxes her people unmercifully, for the benefit of tem-porarily-resident Scotchmen and Englishmen . Her nobles are not rich, she has no rich middle or trading class, and her peasantry are very poor, ignorant, and docile. As a rule, her Church is bigoted, and not rich : large numbers of her lower clergy are drunken and dissolute, their value to the State being that, though they are not respected, they are able to keep the peasantry orthodox and loyal. Russia’s policy, foreign and domestic, and especially commercial, should be just the opposite of what it is ; she ought to be content with an array of not more than 800,000 in all ; she ought to be a freetrading country. Taking her revenue and her liabilities, she is just capable of getting along in the quietest times ; war must throw her finances, public and private, into the greatest confusion. But she must continue to borrow largely; and if, because of war, she wore forced to repudiate, still her securities would be good property to hold, because she would, when peace came, certainly try to pay her debts. Mr. Grant Duff’s conclusions from all the facts he-possesses or can gather as to population, revenues, territorial resources, &c., are these:-—l. That Russia is as far as possible from being a hive of nations ready to swarm over the civilised West.-—2. That her policy ought to be directed rather to utilising what she has, than to making fresh annexations, unless, indeed, she has some absorbing interest in acquiring this or that particular piece of territory.—3. That the withdrawal of any larger number of the population from the pursuits of peace than is wanted to keep order within her provinces, or to prevent the aggression of her neighbors, is a measure which requires to be justified by some considerations which are far from obvious. Let it be remembered that Mr. Grant Duff is a friend of Russia, and that he wrote when it was assumed that the Tsar would not declare war against Turkey. Then, note the pregnancy of that clause of the second conclusion which is ushered by the “unless.” Mr. Grant Duff does not believe that Russia wants to give effect to the terms of Peter’s “ will ;” but do Constantinople and the neighboring shores of the Bosphorus constitute one of those pieces of territory which the Tsar believes he has “ some absorbing interest in acquiring”? The Tsar has withdrawn, and must continue to withdraw, from the pursuits of peace, enormously greater numbers of men than would be needed for any of Mr. Grant Duff’s stated contingencies. Does Mr. Grant Duff believe thatanempire situated as Russia is, would make warforanidea, or in the interests of any sect of religionists, anywhere ? Is not the consideration obvious enough, that Russia is fighting for - territory, and for the power she believes will be gained when it is gained? Those who have been sneered at as Russophobists, may well find consolation in Mr. Grant Duff’s pages; and it will be interesting to note what he has to say in the light of the blaze of war, no matter whether Russia seems likely to be vanquished or to be the victor. Mr. Ralston begins his paper with the assertion that all who know the common Turkish people intimately, speak well of them. “Sober, honest, industrious, the Turk, so long as he is poor and lowly, is a I’espectable member of society, with numerous good points in his. character.” Power depraves him, until he becomes brutal and rapacious in tho worst degree ; but, fortunately “ the tolerably good common people are many, the intolerably bad magnates are few in number.” Mr. Ralston seems fairly justified in saying that those who welcome such “stories” as he speaks of, cannot bo a bad people ; and he is sanguine that under a wise system of Government tho good qualities of tho Turks might bp so developed as greatly to elevate tho race, and to make their capital what a native writer says it was, in 1690, “ the school of great men, ‘ the surest of asylums for education ami science.’ ”

There are many who desire that Russia should not triumph in the present war, but who yet have an uncomfortable feeling that a victorious Turkey would be a curse. If such doubters could share Mr. Ralston’s faith, they might rest satisfied that nothing but good would come from Russia’s being very seriously erippled, if such crippling bo necessary to keep her out of Constantinople.