broke out in other parts of the empire or alarming tidings from
abroad came in they never evoked the slightest dangerous echo there. It
is a most remarkable fact that during the trying time the Russian
Government had when the Polish insurrection was going on, and later, in
the equally difficult period through which we passed at the close of
the seventies, Finland remained perfectly calm; and in the long list of
political criminals sprung from the various nationalities of Russia, we
do not find a single Finlander.

In like manner fear of Finland's aspirations toward independence, of
her inordinate demands in the matter of military legislation, of her
turning her population into an armed nation; in a word, all the
apprehensions felt that Finland may break loose from Russia are, down
to the present moment, devoid of foundation in fact.

"Finland under the egis of the Russian realm," our present Emperor has
said, "and strong in virtue of Russia's protection through the lapse of
almost a whole century, has advanced along the way of peaceful progress
unswervingly, and in the hearts of the Finnish people lived the
consciousness of their attachment to the Russian monarchs and to
Russia." In moments of stress and of Russia's danger, the Finnish
troops have always come forward as the fellow soldiers of our armies,
and Finland has shared with us unhesitatingly our military triumphs and
also the irksome consequences and tribulations of war-time. Thus, in
the year 1812 and in the Crimean campaign, her armies grew in number
considerably; in that eastern war almost her entire mercantile marine
was destroyed--a possession which was one of the principal sources of
the revenue of the country. During the Polish insurrection and the war
for the emancipation of Bulgaria Finnish troops took part in the
expeditions, and when in 1885 the Diet was opened, the Emperor
Alexander III., in his speech from the throne, bore witness to "the
unimpeachable way in which the population of the country had discharged
its military obligations," and he gave utterance to his conviction that
the Finnish troops would attain the object for which they existed.

By way of proving Finland's striving to cut herself apart from Russia,
people point to the doctrine disseminated about the Finnish State, to
its unwillingness to establish military conscription on the same lines
as the empire, and to the speeches of the Deputies of the Diets of
1877-1878 and 1879. But no