The favoured position of the Poles in Austria contrasts sharply with that of their brothers in Russia and Germany. They were oppressed in every way;—Russian _official_ policy towards the Poles bears all the stamp of autocratic tyranny. Their political rights are restricted to a minimum, and as regards civil rights they are nearly as badly off as the Russian Jews. Still it is characteristic that the reason for this oppression lay, not in the national, but in the religious element. Roman Catholicism, which was an advantage to the Austrian, proved a misfortune to the Russian Poles. For the Russian looks upon Catholicism as the very antithesis to his conception of the Slav ideal. Pravo-Slav Russia, with her ancient, wondrously pure Slavo-religious traditions, and all the warmth of her faith, could not take kindly to the haughty, frigidly cold Catholic Poles. The great political power of the Holy Synod, the supreme (unfortunately too clerical) representative body of this faith, exercised an influence adverse to the Polish people, and the Russian Government, which only too often has been the mere executive of the will of the Holy Synod, established an autocratic _régime_ with far-reaching national and personal restrictions. The first result of this policy was unmitigated hatred on the part of the Poles, and a craving for vengeance and freedom. The Russian Poles intrigued with their Austrian brothers, and envied them their favoured position. But the only support the Austrian Poles vouchsafed their brothers was that they applied the Russian methods of oppression to the Ruthenes. Whoever knows anything of Russia’s repressive measures, will realize that the Poles were in a hard case. Owing to the passive character of the Poles their struggles were never sufficiently organized to assume the proportions of a well organized revolution. But oppression has strengthened their national self-reliance, their ideals have burned more brightly, and a longing for freedom has entirely dominated them. Still, even now, they are far more inclined to wait for the miracle than to bestir themselves on their own behalf; and if in recent years their position has somewhat improved, it is not so much due to their own efforts as to the wave of modern thought among the Russians themselves.