If we may judge, not by the speeches and articles of particular Separatists, but by overt acts, during that long period of time the Finnish people never failed in their duty as loyal subjects of their monarch or citizens of the common fatherland, Russia.  The successors of the conqueror of Finland spoke many times from the height of the throne “of the numerous proofs of unalterable attachment and gratitude which the citizens of this country have given their monarchs.”  And in effect, neither general insurrections against Russia’s dominions, nor political plots, nor the tumults of an ignorant rabble—­such as our cholera riots, workmen’s outbreaks, Jewish pogroms, and other like disturbances—­have ever occurred in Finland; and when disorders of that kind 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 none of these arguments carries conviction.