My object in referring to this, is to point out in what a confusion of interests Polish autonomy now perishes by force; and yet that autonomy was placed under the sanction of the whole of Europe. In truth, must not Russian policy have passed all limits, if quite recently a permission to teach Polish in schools for _one hour_ in the day (as if it was English or Turkish) came to be considered as a sort of reparation, almost as a liberal measure? I do not say that a similar policy, under like conditions, or with similar measures, has been followed in Prussian Poland. There, at least, so much of liberalism prevails that the right of complaining is left. Our griefs are not lost in the silence of a boundless oppression. Polish deputies have to this day a place in the parliament of Berlin, where, inch by inch, they defend the privileges of their country. But are the two systems, after all, so very unlike each other? The latter is less violent in one way, but its object is at bottom the same; for Prussia, like Russia, labours to denationalise Poland. M. de Flotwell, a man who governed the Grand Duchy (Posen) for many years, explained his views when he said, that she did so, by insensibly stifling Polish manners, inclinations, and tendencies, and by introducing the German element in their place. The work of infiltering the German element is carried on in a thousand ways; by bureaucracy, by education, by the compulsory substitution of the German for the Polish tongue; by the transfer of land, with the connivance of the state, which sometimes buys up Polish estates, and sells them to Germans at a loss. There is not a single Polish notary in Posen. Justice is administered in German, and he who appears before the public tribunals is often examined, accused, nay even defended, in a language which he does not understand. It is the same with public instruction: it has hitherto been found impossible to establish a Polish high school (Lyceum), and where a working-man’s college has been opened, the classes are taught and the course is in German. Even in private institutions it is forbidden to teach the history of Poland, and for this conclusive reason, ‘that this history not being taught in the public schools, ought not any more to be taught in private ones!’ The Prussian government, it must be said, makes no secret of its intentions; for it has promulgated in the parliament of Berlin, that ‘the province of Posen is neither more nor less than a simple province of Prussia.’