RUSSIAN OPINION ON THE ABYSSINIAN CAMPAIGN.

Southland Times, Issue 1025, 21 September 1868, Page 3

RUSSIAN OPINION ON THE ABYSSINIAN CAMPAIGN.

The strong impression created in Russia by the determination which undertook and the steadiness which finished up so promptly the. Abyssinian campaign is well reflected in the following article from the St. Petersburg Birjiviya Vedomosti :— *' The Abyssinian war places English foreign policy in a striking light. Bold and energetic as ever, the statesmen who planned the expedition bave been amply rewarded: ; for their venture, and will derive the greatest possible advantage from the millions invested in it. Without desiring to write a panegyric on English policy, we yet cannot help acknowledging that it is : based upon a true conception of- the interests of their country, and carried on with unremitting assiduity to promote the object in view. Of late England has been very often re prbached with apathy, arid indifference to current events. Her policy or non-in-terference people were in the habit of assuring each, other had lost her the influence formerly possessed on the Continent. But England's centre of gravity no longer lies in Europe. That she exercises the closest vigilance over the interests she has really at heart is sufficiently manifest from the history of her colonies, and also from the present war, which many among us a short time ago were fain to regard as a sort of British eccentricity. In invading Abyssinia England well knew what she, was about. "Although certainly provoked by King Theodore, she availed herself of the opportunity to strengthen her somewhat declining prestige in Eastern Africa, and succeeded. The battle of Magdala will be an effectual set off to French preponderance, so greatly in the ascendant in those parts since, the commencement of the Suez -Canal. The Abyssinian expedition affords. an instructive lesson to the other Powers.. We are perfectly" convinced that England were any" of her vital interests violated by European States, would act as resolutely as in this African difficulty. English policy has always been distinguished by a clear notion of the real, wants of the country and the immediate aims to be striven for. It is for this reason that I England, * as ' a "rule, - is so unwilling to meddle with the affairs ■of Other States, and to interfere in the, complicated questions called European. With her own concerns fully occupying her, she is not very apt to be enthusiastic about ' ideas,' or to aspire to a, prestige which does not produce substantial advantages. She docs nothing for the sake of appearances, but is ever ready to sacrifice her millions and pour out the bl.ood of her sons when something worth having is at stake. 'English policy, both'internal and external, is based upon a system established some hundred years ago, and

! perfectly independent of the men who | may temporarily compose the GovernI ment. To this consistency England, comparatively weak though she is in a military point of view, is indebted for her position at the head of the civilized world,