| 809 | Poland. | {June 30} | Poland. | 810 |
of the kingdom of Poland, and the Supreme Court of Justice shall be suppressed, and, by these presents, we create at Warsaw, for the kingdom of Poland, two new sections of the senate of the empire, which shall be called the 9th and 10th sections. These two sections shall preside over all the affairs over which the Council of State used to preside; with the exception of the budget, which shall be a department to itself.
"Article 3.—The 9th section of the senate of the empire succeeds to all the functions of the Supreme Court of Justice The 10th section shall preside over criminal matters, and shall be regulated by a penal code which will be published hereafter.
"Article 7.—The sections shall, in the first instance, be composed of persons named by the emperor; afterwards they shall be chosen from a list presented by the Viceroy."
I need not remind the House that, next to the enjoyment of freedom, nothing is so essential to the well being of a people as an administration of justice in which they confide. With what feelings, therefore, must the people of Poland behold their ancient supreme tribunal subverted, the administration of justice taken out of the hands of their countrymen, and a branch of the senate of Petersburgh installed in its stead? From the decisions of the 9th and 10th sections, the only appeal is to the Emperor himself, and an appeal which must be carried to Petersburgh, a distance of 1,500 miles, an appeal to which, an appeal from Dublin or Edinburgh to London would be a trifling inconvenience. The second Ukase makes the Russian money the current coin of Poland. But this is not all; for other Ukases have been issued which make it evident that Russia is acting upon a systematic plan of reducing Poland from a separate kingdom into an ordinary province of the empire, and nothing shows the deliberate intention more completely than the manner in which it is executed. All the changes are first introduced into the Polish provinces which Russia obtained by the first petition, and which, consequently, have been the longest habituated to their absolute control, and from those provinces they are gradually extended to the provinces of the kingdom. In the first place, with regard to the established religion of Poland, that religion of which Alexander declared the property to be inalienable, and which even the organic statute undertakes to respect. By a stroke of the pen, 4,000,000 of the united Greek Church, who acknowledge the pope as their head, have been converted into Russian Greeks, acknowledging the Emperor. Another Ukase dispossesses the Catholic clergy of all their landed property, and makes them dependent on the state. Another reduces their stipends. A Greek bishop is established at Warsaw—a Catholic church is turned into a Greek cathedral—and obstacles are thrown in the way of erecting Catholic chapels in the rural districts. Do not these measures reveal a fixed intention of extirpating the established religion of Poland, and introducing the Greek church in its stead? In the same way a Russian superintendent is appointed to watch over the public education of Poland, and the Russian language is made a principal part of Polish education. It has already been shown what has been done with the courts of justice. The Polish uniform, the Polish colours, the Polish cockade, have been made to give place to the Russian. Russians as well as Poles are allowed to exercise public offices, both social and military. All the public acts are henceforth to be published in the Russian language. Another Ukase changes the Polish palatinates into governments, to assimilate them even the more with the other divisions of the empire. The Russian money becomes the current coin of Poland. The metamorphosis descends from the most important offices to the most minute. Even the weights and measures of Poland are henceforth to be Russian: even the year is not undisturbed, and the Poles are obliged to abandon the new style, and return to the old, because it has been persevered in in Russia—a petty annoyance, which will remind them of their yoke every day. It is a complete system of fusion—a settled intention of effacing the Polish nationality, the Polish religion, the Polish language, of leaving not a trace behind; so that, at length, no man shall be able to say this was Poland. And now I think I have made out my case. I think I have shown that promises of a very different nature were originally held out by Russia, that the independence of Poland was considered by the late Lord Londonderry to be essential to the welfare of Europe, that, in conformity with those views, a constitution and a distinct administration were guaranteed to Poland by the treaty of Vienna, and that now the last fragment of that treaty is scattered to the winds;
