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    November 5, 1853.] THE LEADER, 1069

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    K IT S S I A JST S E It I'1) O M. I " iC...

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    City Proposal For Obsequies To Prince Al...

    a statue to Kichard Coeur de Lion—not the best , thougli not a bad commencement of that long list ; but it will take some time and diligence in statue-making-before we Comedown to Prince Albert . There is one statue , indeed , in this metropolis , in gallant and graceful port , and chivalrous aspect a striking contrast to the caricatures that disgrace our streets , which , in all points of view , possesses a singular fascination for the most various beholders . Charles " the Martyr , " whose sovereign virtues

    are constitutionally embalmed in the ritual of a congenial " Establishment , " confronts the common gaze , prancing gaily towards that spot on which he laid Ms sacred head , a monument for all time of the perjury of Kings , and the righteous Nemesis of peoples . Royalists | and republicans alike may well cherish that statue , and leave that royal effigy in his pride of place . Our vices and our follies may nave asked for a king again , as Israel asked . But if that statue be a trophy of reactionary Courts , it is also a warning of popular justice .. It is a sign to generation after generation of that retribution which

    the national wrath of England , strong in her right and inflexible in her might ; once flung in the face of continental despotisms , a century and a-half before French Revolutions were even dreamed of in the contemptuous philosoph y of Versailles . Let crowned accomplices and diplomatic pacificators , who think to sacrifice the liberties of Europe to the obsolete pretensions of the Almanack de Gotha , remember that monument at Charing-cross , when , in their official parleys and secret conclaves , they babble of England palsied by trade , and gamble away the rights of nations on the tables of oppressors . There is a radical reason opposed to tho premature consecration of Prince Albert . lie has not

    yet completed his life , and although we have the utmost confidence , as people say , in his principles , yet to err is human , and we can but remember that to forgive may be the province of Queen Victoria , if not of her faithful people . We do not , indeed , anticipate any necessity for the exercise of that divine virtue , but who can predict the other half of a life heretofore shielded against much temptation , guarded by vigilant angels , and happily , perhaps , finding it almost difficult to err P There is no gainsaying the merits of the Prince , thus far ; but it would be awkward to raise a statue now , and then find later that we have cause to erase it , or retain it only as a memorandum of regret .

    We understand that a rival project has been suggested , which would logically cany out the statue plan . It is , to erect a momvnient to Prince Albert . The epitaph is already proposed , stating how he had survived to the ago of seventy years ; how lie had watched over tho early reign of his son , the king ; how he had never It is not for us , however , to divulge all the averments of this epitaph . r J ? he only objection to it is , that it might be liable to correction hereafter ; but it is difficult to correct a proof of which tho letters arc inscribed in stone . To erect

    ? i statue woidd scarcely bo more reasonable than to (> reel , a monument . Indeed , admirers have parried tho suggestion yet farther than tho tomb . The Dulce of Wellington had a State funeral after his death ; but Tiow imperfect must have been Inn gratification at that compliment , Avhon he had no opportunity of inspecting tho arrange-HionfcH from tho Heralds' Office or tho undertakor ' s department . The idea has occurred of giving to Pi-ineo Albert the gratification withheld jroni | Jio J ) uke of Wellington , by rehearsing bo-<> i'o him that State funeral which will one day

    DO 1 ) 1 * 1 IV If I * Wl liir « t jfiin \ - j \ i \ il ¦•» »» 4 * ai \ i \ f * st /' w itiun iir ^ k l' « provided by a grateful nation . Ofeourne wo ! " > not vouch for the truth of this report , but ; it j ; not more unreasonable to mourn in State be-JOJ \! ( lie time , than to commemorate boforo com-Plotion .

    November 5, 1853.] The Leader, 1069

    November 5 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER , 1069

    K It S S I A Jst S E It I'1) O M. I " Ic...

    K IT S S I A JST S E It I ' 1 ) O M . I " iCUtHT AltTICJjM . " ] 1 no emancipation ' or nil tho opprcHHwl and Hiifl ' crhif t iH tho vocation of tho «; i > ntury . " OititvimiH . JlIM Unio Ivan comowhen Kuhhian Sickroom ( should bo 'iiudo , if not ; an Muropean , ui > leant an EngliHhquoKtion . 'Oixion , which ban bocoiuo tho permanent oecumenical » nat of c ; ouiic ; il for all movements of liberty , enmnoipa-IOl > , progression , can Hcimsoly remain indifferent to !^ <; ' » a qucHtiou an that , of White Slavery in Russia . * ¦ At the moment when all iCnghmd wiih < linplaying a Pi'olound imd active Hympathy for tho hIuvch in . tho ^< iul , h ( . irn HfcatoH of North America , incited thereto by tho fjtcut work of Mrs . BoocHor Stowo , no ono Boomed to

    ro-Wbite Slavery in Russia has been too little attacked : perhaps because it has not been defended with the fierce tenacity of Transatlantic slaveholders . For it is to be remarked , that although many of the rich landholders in Russia passionately desire the maintenance of serfdom , no one is found to justify the institution;—no one to undertake its defence : not even the Government . It is nevertheless a question of capital importance . Indeed , the whole Russian Question , for the present at least , may be said to be included in that of Serfdom . Russia cannot make a step in advance until she has abolished slavery . The serfdom of the Russian peasant is the servitude of the Russian Empire .

    The political and social existence of Western Europe formerly was concentrated in ch & teaux and in . cities . It was essentially an aristocratic or municipal existence . The peasant remained outside of the movement . The Revolution took little thought of him . The sale of national property had no effect upon his condition , except to create a limited provincial bourgeoisie . The serf knew well enough that the land did not belong to him : he only , looked for a personal and negative emancipation : an emancipation of the labourer . In Russia the reverse is the case .

    The original organization of that agricultural and communistic people was essentially democratic . There were no chateaux , very few towns , and those few nothing but large villages . No distinction existed between the peasant and the citizen . The rural commune , as it still exists , is the exact image of the great catnmunes ofNovogrod , Pskow , Ki p ff . Muscovite centralization , indeed , destroyed the Autonomy of the towns : but the humble word , commune preserved its self-government , its trial by jury , its justices of the peace , till after the reign of Ivan the Terrible : that is to say , till the 17 th century .

    The soil was not as yet the subject of individual property : each rural commune held its allotment of land . Each of its members had the right to cultivate a portion of that holding , and each appropriated in effect the fruits of his own labour . Such is still the tenure of thirty million of peasants , de la commicne as they are called . Land , water , and woods were equally unrestricted by any feudal rights : fishing , hunting , and the navigation of rivers , were completely free . Moreover , the members of any commune could leave it and be admitted into another , or settle in the towns . The land was the basis of taxation ; but the quality was considered ; thus it was differently taxed on either side of the Oka and the " Volga .

    The condition of the peasants of the Crown has little changed . The Government , far from comprehending the wisdom of the old institutions , instituted for the land-tax a uniform capitation tax , in its very essence profoundly unjust . In some localities the peasants inhabited a domain belonging to a private person . The cession of the soil was made not to each peasant individually , but to the body ( Vensemble ) of the cultivators , to the commune , on the condition of cultivating it at half profits , or of supporting some other charge or service . The non-proprietary communes were besides organized like all the rest , and the peasant abandoned them at his own discretion .

    It should not be forgotten that the proprietor of this soil thus farmed ( lone ) had absolutely nothing in common Avith the seigneur of Western nations . In fact lie was nothing but a peasant liko tho rest , a peasant who had got rich , or who had served the Crown . Russia had never preserved an organized aristocracy : it was much less an institution than a customary fact , ( fait coutumicr ) vague and undetermined in character . Tho few Norman families who accompanied Rurick in

    the 10 th century to Novogrod , wero in less than a century after completely absorbed . The Boyards who surrounded the Grand Prince and tho appanaged Princes , wero almost all soldiers of fortune , who had achieved their titles by personal claims , and did not hand them down to their children . Thero wafl no conquering race , and therefore there could bo no real aristocracy . But a puroly Artificial aristocracy wan in course of formation ; a mongrel , hotorogonous aristocracy , destitute of any legal basis .

    Tho appanagod Princes , mediatized in the 16 th century , and their descendants , formed the first nucleus of this gwm-aristoornoy ; then came tho Tartar Mirzaa ; then adventurers from all tho countries of Europe , Polos , Servians , Germans , Sweden , Italians , Greeks . Tho Boyards and other dignitaries finally Hiirrondorud their hereditary titles . SicitifDoivi w . ih established , step by stop , at tho cotnnioncoment of tho 17 th century , and attained its < 1 « - velopinent under tho '' philosophical" reign of Catherine II . Thin seems inconceivable , and ifc will take many years to make Europo comprehend the course of Russian serfdom . Its origin and its development form ho extravagant and unparalleled « - history , that they nlinont defy belief . nioinher that nearer to England , acroM tho Baltic , in an . ontiro population the legal proporty of a butch of aoignoura ; a population not of !» , ( MK ) , O ( K ) but of 20 , 000 , 000 ! A friend of mine proponed to publish u pamphlet to remind English charity of thin fact . Hut his pamphlet wiih novor published . I have taken it up and added a few general eonniderationH , which however innnflioionfc in theinHolvee , may , I trunt , contribute to throw Homo light on tho melancholy subjects—A . Jf ,

    For ourselves , indeed , the monstrous and chaotic disorder of the regime to which we are accustomed from our birth , alone explains the phenomenon . In this institution , as in many others in Russia , there is an indefinable , indeterminate vagueness and looseness , an amalgam of customs not written and not practised ; and this strange incoherence it is , perhaps , which renders them less intolerable and more intelligible . How , indeed , is it possible to believe that one-half of a population of the same race , en dowed with rare physical and intellectual faculties , should be reduced to slavery , not by war , not by conquest , not by revolution , but by a series of special ordonnances , by immoral concessions , by abominable pretensions ? Yet this is the fact ; and a fact accomplished scarcely a century and a-half ago .

    On his very countenance the Russian peasant bears the evidence of this strange anomaly of recent growth . He has nothing ( it is the observation of Custine , Haxthausen , Blazius , and all Russian travellers ) of a slave in his features , but only an expression of profound dejection . He is , in truth , unhappy , and knows not his own identity in the strange position to which he is reduced . He has been caught unawares in the toils of the bureaucracy ; driven by a blind government , at the crack of the knout , into the ambush laid for him by the seigneurs . From tune immemorial he has settled without fear

    on the seigneurial lands ; he never drew a contract ; nay , his master was as incapable of drawing a contract as himself . To this day he never draws a contract with his equals . All his agreements are transacted by a shake of the hand and a glass of brandy , and the act is as binding as if it passed under the seal of a notary . Just in this way companies of carriers used to transport merchandise from the frontiers of China to Niini , without even a way-bill of the goods . Deprived of means , destitute of organization , the old Muscovite administration scarcely ever reached the peasant : all it looked to was , that the taxes were , more or less regularly paid , and its power not disputed .

    The peasant lived peaceably enough under the shelter of that charter given him by Nature in Russia /—protected by the impassable morasses , by the impenetrable and roadless mud . The State cared nothing for the peasant , or the peasant for the State . While he was dragging on this tranquil and reckless existence , an usurping Tzar , Bovis GodounofF , and a few petty seigneurs , seduced by the example of the German chevaliers , who had introduced a cruel serfdom into their Baltic possessions about tho end of the . sixteenth century , fastened on the commune fetters drawn more tight from day to day . Emit , the right of passing from one commune to another was limi fccrl : it could

    only be exercised on one day in the year , on St . George ' s day ( Youri ) . Some time after , the privilege of that single day was abolished , without , however , as yet putting the personal rights of those cultivators of the land in question . Finally came a grand master , Peter the Great : he ri . vei . ted the chain by a clasp forged « V Allemandc . Employe ' s of the State , fresh shaved , bearing the titles of landrath , landjiscal , and I know not what other Swedish or German designations , Hcourcd tho villages , ridiculousl y costumed , publishing everywhere an edict , written in a baldordash of mangled Russian . These

    functionaries proceeded to a census ; then they gavo notice " that the dwellers on tho seigneurial domains would be adscribed to tho land and to the sciyncnr , if within a given delay they did not protest . " The advent of these strangers in bizarre dresses had perhaps thrown the peasants into j * state of vague apprehension : they wero quite glad to sec them go away without having done more harm ! They had no notion of what was being said and done by thoso harmless visitors . Not only had the people no notion of what was going on , but tho Government itself knew nothing , and to this day is utterly blind to what it has done , and to what it maintains .

    Neither Peter tho First , nor Inn successors , nor his predecessors— -in short , no one ha . s ever explained what these words moan— "to be adnenbed ( ferine *) to tho land and to the lord . " " I am quite sun ; , " wrote tho ICmperor Alexander with his own hand , " that the Hale of serfw , without that of the , land , ha . s been long forbidden by tho law . " Ho then asked tho Council of State by virtue of what regulations peasants wero wold iudiridnalli /' / Tho Council of State , knowing no law which authorized a Hale of tho kind , referred to tho Senate . . In vain wero the archives of that corps fioarched for precedents : not a scrap could be found Jtpproaohing to such an

    authorization ; but ordonnances and laws m n contrary houho abounded . JnaukaHoof Peter the . Kirst , addressed to the . Senate , the Tzar in indignant " l . hat men should bo sold in KiiHsiu liko cattle ; " and ho ordaiiiH "tho preparation of a law prohibiting mieh a traflie , suul prohibiting in general the nnle of men without the , land — if poxulhle . " The Senate did nothing . A century later , it < lid wotno than nothing . Too deeply mt , »> - reHted in tho maintenance of thin traffic of human flesh , it reHUHcitateu a tariff of registration ( tarif de l ' enrc { fistrement ) , doting ho far back as tho reign of tho KinproHH Anne . This tariff maintained , among other thingfi , that the dutiow wore to be paid on tho Hale of inon on the land ( dam later re ) . The Council of State ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 5, 1853, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05111853/page/13/