[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission from the _American Review of
Reviews_.]
In criticizing Russian policy in Finland a distinction should be made
between its fundamental principles--_i.e.,_ the ends which it is meant
to attain, and its outward expression, which depends upon
circumstances.
The former,--_i.e.,_ the aims and principles, remain _unalterable_; the
latter,--_i.e.,_ the way in which this policy finds expression--is of
an incidental and temporary character, and does not always depend on
the Russian authority alone. This is what should be taken into
consideration by Russia's western friends when estimating the value of
the information which reaches them from Finland.
As to the program of the Russian Government in the Finland question, it
is substantially as follows:
The fundamental problem of every supreme authority--the happiness and
prosperity of the governed--can be solved only by the mutual
cooperation of the government and the people. The requirements
presented to the partners in this common task are, on the one hand,
that the people should recognize the unity of state principle and
policy and the binding character of its aims; and, on the other, that
the Government should acknowledge the benefit accruing to the state
from the public activity, along the lines of individual development, of
its component elements.
Such are the grounds on which the government and the people should
unite in the performance of their common task. The combination of
imperial unity with local autonomy, of autocracy with self-government,
forms the principle which must be taken into consideration in judging
the action of the Russian Government in the Grand Duchy of Finland. The
manifesto of February 3-15, 1899, is not a negation of such a peaceful
cooperation, but a confirmation of the aforesaid leading principle of
our Government in its full development. It decides that the issue of
imperial laws, common both to Russia and Finland, must not depend
altogether on the consent of the members of the Finland Diet, but is
the prerogative of the Imperial Council of State, with the
participation on such occasions of members of the Finland Senate. There
is nothing in this manifesto to shake the belief of Russia's friends in
the compatibility of the principles of autocracy with a large measure
of local self-government and civic liberty. The development of the
spiritual and material powers of the population by its gradual
introduction to participation in the conscious public life of
the state, as a healthy, conservative principle of government,
has always entered into the plans of the sovereign leaders of the life
of Russia as a state. These intentions were announced afresh from the
throne by the manifesto of February 26, 1903. In our country this
process takes place in accordance with the historical basis of the
empire, with the national peculiarities of its population.
The result is that in Russia we have the organization of local
institutions which give self-government in the narrow sense of the
word--_i.e.,_ the right of the people to see to the satisfaction of
their local economic needs. In Finland the idea of local autonomy was
developed far earlier and in a far wider manner. Its present scope,
which has grown and developed under Russian rule, embraces all sides,
not only of the economic, but of the civil, life of the land. Russian
autocracy has thus given irrefragable proof of its constructive powers
in the sphere of civic development. The historian of the future will
have to note its ethical importance in a far wider sphere as well: the
greatest of social problems have found a peaceable solution in Russia,
thanks to the conditions of its political organization.
For a full comprehension, however, of the manifesto of 1899, it must be
regarded as one of the phases in the development of Finland's relations
to Russia. It will then become evident that as a legacy of the past it
is the outcome of the natural course of events which sooner or later
must have led up to it. The initiation of Finland into the historical
destinies of the Russian Empire was bound to lead to the rise of
questions calling for a general solution common both to the empire and
to Finland. Naturally, in view of the subordinate status of the latter,
such questions could be solved only in the order appointed for imperial
legislation. At the same time, neither the fundamental laws of the
Swedish period of rule in Finland, which were completely incompatible
with its new status, nor the Statutes of the Diet, introduced by
Alexander II., and determining the order of issue of local laws,
touched, or could touch, the question of the issue of general imperial
laws. This question arose in the course of the legislative work
on the systematization of the fundamental laws of Finland. This task,
undertaken by order of the Emperor Alexander II. for the more precise
determination of the status of Finland as an indivisible part of our
state, was continued during the reign of his august successor, the
Emperor Alexander III., and led to the question of determining the
order of issue of general imperial laws. The rules drafted for this
purpose in 1893 formed the contents of the manifesto of 1899. Thus we
see that during six years they remained without application, there
being no practical necessity for their publication. When, however, this
necessity arose, owing to the lapse of the former military law, the
manifesto was issued. It was, therefore, the finishing touch to the
labor of many years at the determination of the manner in which the
principle of a united empire was to find expression within the limits
of Finland, and remained substantially true to the traditions which for
a century had reigned in the relations between Russia and Finland. It
presented a combination of the principle of autocracy with that of
local self-government without any serious limitations of the rights of
the latter. Moreover, while preserving the historical principle of
Russian empire-building, this law determined the form of the expression
of the autocratic power within the limits of the Grand Duchy in a
manner so much in accord with the conditions of life in Finland that it
did not touch the organization of a single one of the national local
institutions of the duchy.
This law, in its application to the new conscription regulations, has
alleviated the condition of the population of Finland. The military
burden laid on the population of the land has been decreased from 2,000
men to 500 per annum, and latterly to 280. As you will see, there is in
reality no opposition between the will of the Emperor of Russia as
announced to Finland in 1899 and his generous initiative at The Hague
Conference. But, you ask me, has not this confirmation of the ancient
principles of Russian state policy in Finland been bought at too dear a
price? I shall try to answer you. The hostility of public opinion
toward us in the West in connection with Finnish matters is much to be
regretted, but hopes may be entertained that under the influence of
better information on Finnish affairs this hostility may lose its
present bitterness. We are accustomed, moreover, to see that the West,
while welcoming the progressive development of Russia along the old
lines it, Europe, has followed itself, is not always as amicably
disposed toward the growth of the political and social
self-consciousness of Russia and toward the independent historical
process taking place in her in the shape of the concentration of her
forces for the fulfilment of her peaceful vocation in the history of
the human race.
The attitude of the population of Finland toward Russia is not at all
so inimical as would appear on reading the articles in the foreign
press proceeding from the pen of hostile journalists. To the honor of
the best elements of the Finnish population, it must be said that the
degree of prosperity attained by Finland during the past century under
the egis of the Russian throne is perfectly evident to them; they know
that it is the Russian Government which has resuscitated the Finnish
race, systematically crushed down as it had been in the days of Swedish
power. The more prudent among the Finlanders realize that now, as
before, the characteristic local organization of Finland remains
unaltered, that the laws which guarantee the provincial autonomy of
Finland are still preserved, and that now, as before, the institutions
are active which satisfy its social and economic needs on independent
lines.
They understand, likewise, the real causes of the increasing emigration
from Finland. If, along with them, political agitation has also played
a certain part, alarming the credulous peasantry with the specter of
military service on the distant borders of Russia, yet their emigration
was and remains an economic phenomenon. Having originated long before
the issue of the manifesto of 1899, it kept increasing under the
influence of bad harvests, industrial crises, and the demand for labor
in foreign lands. Such is also the case in Norway, where the percentage
of emigration is even greater than in Finland.
Having elucidated the substantially unalterable aims of Russian policy
in Finland, let us proceed to the causes which have led to its present
incidental and temporary form of expression. This, undoubtedly, is
distinguished by its severity, but such are the requirements of an
utilitarian policy. By the bye, the total of these severe measures
amounts to twenty-six Finlanders expelled from the country and a few
officials dismissed the service without the right to a pension. It was
scarcely possible, however, to retain officials in the service of the
state once they refused to obey their superiors. Nor was it possible to
bear with the existence of a conspiracy which attempted to draw the
peaceful and law-abiding population into a conflict with the
Government, and that, too, at a moment when the prudent members of the
population of the duchy took the side of lawful authority, thereby
calling forth against themselves persecution on the part of the secret
leaders of the agitation party. The upholders of the necessity for a
pacific policy toward Russia were subjected to moral and sometimes
physical outrage, and their opponents were not ashamed to institute
scandalous legal processes against them for the purpose of damaging
their reputations.
Very different is the attitude of the great mass of the population, as
the following incident shows: The president of the Abo Hofgericht,
declining to follow the instructions of the party hostile to Russia,
was, on his arrival in Helsingfors, subjected to a variety of insults
from the mob gathered at the railway station. On his return to Abo he
was, on the contrary, presented with an address from the peasantry and
local landowners, in which the following words occur: "We understand
very well that you have been led to your patriotic resolve to continue
your labors in obedience to the government by deep conviction, and do
not require gratitude either from us or from any others; but at the
important crisis our people is now experiencing it may be of some
relief to you to learn that the preponderating majority of the people,
and especially in broader classes, gratefully approve of the course you
have taken."
It will scarcely be known to any one in the West that when signatures
were being gathered for the great mass-address of protest dispatched to
St. Petersburg in 1899, those who refused their signatures numbered
martyrs among them. There are some who for their courage in refusing
their signatures suffered ruin and disgrace and were imprisoned on
trumped-up charges. Moreover, the agitators aimed at infecting the
lower classes of the population with their intolerance and their hatred
of Russians, but, it must be said, with scant success.
With regard to the essence of the question, I repeat that in matters of
government temporary phenomena should be distinguished from permanent
ones. The incidental expression of Russian policy, necessitated by an
open mutiny against the Government in Finland, will, undoubtedly, be
replaced by the former favor of the sovereign toward his Finnish
subjects as soon as peace is finally restored and the current of social
life in that country assumes its normal course. Then, certainly, all
repressive measures will be repealed. But the realization of the
fundamental aim which the Russian Government has set itself in
Finland--_i.e._, the confirming in that land of the principle of
imperial unity--must continue, and it would be best of all if this end
were attained with the trustful cooperation of local workers under the
guidance of the sovereign to whom Divine Providence has committed the
destinies of Russia and Finland.