The Press. — London, England, 1853-05-21 00:00:00

the sudden gratification of him young am bition ; but, when the ehmnie dixeount of Ex chequer Bills has convinced him that he is not exaetly Mr. lhrr, him peeuliar temperament will prevent his acting any length of time without prineiples. and.he will be in extremes. one way or the other. will either sing " Yankee Doodle" or take refuge in the Conservative sanetuary. These are their principal ineu ; for, so far as the present Administration is concerned, Lard Nutt:lmo/I is a mask. Before a year hes pawed it will be generally recognised that the abasement of the Whig party by Lord .louN licastni. wax one of the most unjustifiable, and perhaps one of the :nest deplorable, events of out' timed. THE POSITION OF THE EASTERN QUESTION. IT is certainly a curious fact that once in twenty yam, on an average, Turkey coneew trews on itself the eyes of Europe. like Spain, it never eon be a substantive power, and its in ternal weakness is so patent, that it is periodi cally threatened with extinction. A person Uluequailited with the politics of Europe wadi', at fi►st sight, be justified in expressing astonishmea at the long continuance of the Turkish purer. But further inqui►y would soon explain the protracted existence of "this •, excrescence in the European systan," us Lord CANTLEREAOH called It, in one of the des patches which have been published within this fortnight. The answer to the query, " Why " Turkey exists?" is to be real in POTEMILIN's inscription on the southern gate of Chttsan— wills is the road to Constantinople !" In fact, us Lord CAMERRA6H, thirty years since, told the Emperor of RUSsIA, Turkey is " a " necessary evil "in the European system. The four limit Powers—England, Austria, Prussia, and France—have no desire to see a tempting lino of seaeoust indented with harbours an nexed to Russia; and they have always felt that it, would be a work of insuperable ditli mdty to agree. in any sense, o►► its peaceful partition. This policy has often, indeed, been endan gered by the progress of events—the emanci pation of Greece, the b.4ttlo of Navarilio, and the cession of E .....gppt to ET ; and of course then , has been considerable variety of 'sentiment amongst the Four Powers on the putire question. Prussia and France would appear to think that, in ease there was a parti tion of Turkey, Austria and Russia would ob tain Turkey in Europe, and England would get Egypt. Recolleeting the often expressed views of various parties in France, about malting the Mediterranean " at French lake," we are not surprised at our neighbours being apt to judge of our foreign pokey in Europe by their own. It is possible that the o inions of France and Prussia are biassed on this point by the populations of the two main por tions of Turkey being nearly equal, and there fore suggesting the particular line of division, as shown by the sum total in the following table of the Turkish population, taken from the census of 1844 Uwe.. Europe. Asia. I Alma. I Total. —.-- Ottuoilol% Sela‘ll 4 .... 7.24111AM1 %2110,111111 lillUnit'llani .... 000,000 4,000,000 Arumut , 41 re 4.104 Armenians Jews 'ninon; Armlet byname and C . ~-...... doeur "I p 235, 233,000 ~ \ VS.OUI 25,0(ki Kunio .... 4 4 ''' "; f, 1 100110,0fil 1,000,1111 I TUCOOIeg . 1 0 • . 't , i 00 110,0U0 Mrs •••••••••• .10. 1111 =, 1' . AN 3,5114 /MOO 3b,3311,000 \;T:). Owe a t Win 61. t tg: iV THE PRESS. But nothing is easier than to attribute to England a plausible line of policy upon the partition of Turkey. In point of fact, our only care about Egypt is, that we shou!d have a safe road to India, without obstaeles or inter ruption, and we had rasher that the road was kept open at the expense of others. In this general line of conduct taken by the Circa. Powers, there was nothing of any arriere prim's, beyond the grounds of a policy de liberately- chosen for keeping the European system together. It is trite, however, that in 1t!t712-3 there has been danger of this policy being abandoned.. There is no concealing nor glossing over the fact, that the basis of the European system, with regard to Turkey, has been put in peril by the conduct of three of the Great Powers, who have played int') the' hands of Russia ; and, in connection viith the present state of the 9uestion, thene aro four points to which attention should be directed:— I. The conduct of Lord STRATFORD t►E RED METE has not been signalised fur prudence or discretion. At the time when Lord 1)ERIIV came into office, Lord STRATFORD asked fin• leave to return ; and as, the impression was created at Constantinople that he would not go buck again, there was a public dinner given to him by the English residents, at which he made a long and most injudicious speech. cri ticising the whole domestic policy of the Sr•r: TAN and the corruption of his Government. There can be no doubt. that this publie decla r•ation from the English Ambassador humi liated the Porte, and leaded at all events to most disastrous consequences. 11. The !Montenegro revolt, to the subduing of which the SULTAN sent OMAR POODI. As we have just condemned the eondnet of an Eng fish Ambassador, so here we must speeifj• the unwarranted interference of Austria through Count LEININOEN as being one of the " nn "toward" incidents in the present complication of Turkish affairs. 111. In order to add to the variety Of causes leading to the present embroilment. religicus dissension and se •tarian animosities have Hot been wanting. It might have been difficult to have invented a plausible exeuse for the inter ference of France in the domestic state of Tut.- key, but the pretext was furnished in behalf of the Latin Chureh.and certain privileges which it elaimed at the holy shrines. Howe the mission of M. 14AvAtErTE. to whose demands the SCLTAN gave way, and thereby so prOtt diced the interests of the Greek Chung' as to mill, on the other hand. for the interference of Russia. IV. The insolent eml cissy ofPrinee S4lll - Wltt4 despatehed by Russia with the avowed objeet of recovering for the ()reek Church its exclusive privileges. It is worthy of notiee that even thirty years ic.to Russia made extra vagant (*Nuns about t!to pretensions of the Greek Church. lint that Lord ('A)ertimEmot in sisted upon the nntintemince Of the SION* qtm. It is evident. then. whatever opinions may be entertained upon any p•trticular phase of this controversy, that this co.teat onation has tended to degrade the SULTAN i I the eyes of his sub jects, and to prejudirc his power. But the authority of the CzAR 1 ests even more on his being praetieallY the lc oteetor of the Greek Church, and ail that I as reeently happened has made the Greek po• ulat ion of Turkey look to him as their future master. So that the question of maintaining the xlittus quo be comes more than ever of importance. Even if a pokey of indifference WCIV wished for by Austria and Prussia, ti,.. views atttibuted to the present Emperor of num."; would put it out of their power to st aloof. It is under stood that the Eloper 41' of Fn. N I: hits re vendy gone so fur as t I declare, that in the event of the partition Turkey. since Franee could get nothing, he would have an equiva lent by extending his dominion to the Rhine. A menace of this kind must effectually prevent Austria' and Prussia fro:a either neglecting 4)1. Ilatiieipating in the 11/4 ‘licy of the CzAtt. and should tend to reunite the Great Powers on the basis of the thaw; quo. Ilut what shall '.%t' ,:ty Of the posture Of atlairs if th • intelligence eommunicated in the Times of Friday. evidently from official sour ces , should prove to be true? We put the ease SATURDAY, hypothetically because we have grounds for presuming that the question has not yet reached that fatal stage in which the leading morning apologist of the Ministry. alarmed and perplexed at its new aspect, presents it. subsequent to the arrangement of the claims of France. it is time that Prince MENSCHIKOFF eitalC tOrward with a new proposal, or rather a demand on the Porte to execute re treaty by which the Porte should bind itself for ever to seetire to its Greek subjects all the privileges that the pr..sent ►r any flamer Sultan may have granted to this class. In effect, as another journal has phrased it, he has asked that the CZAR should be " placed in a position " through which his authority would over shadow and eclipse that of the Porte "on points of internal discipline in " which Christian interests— that is to " say, the affairs of by far the greater " portion of the people—should be con " coned." To illustrate this position— whenever any Christian subject of the Porte had any ground, real or imaginary, for supposing that he possessed privileges, old or new, the presumed gift of any Sultan of the Turkish race, the Russian Consul would be practically their aihiter; and am assumed in clination for Russian protection would be stereotyped in the form of at Protectorate thus established by treaty. It is hardly too much to say that every Greek who was at variance with the executive would avail himself of his legal rights, and that the Russian officials would thus become so many Russian lieu tenants posted over the Ottoman empire. TURKEY IlAs IN sUBSTANCE BECOME A RUSSIAN PRoVINuE, it' the announeement in the Times of Friday. that Prince Mensehikqrs ultimatum has been (retyped, be correct. And then, if it be correct, and the SULTAN hats collllllitted this act of suicide, who is to blame for the conse• qucuces to him and to Europe? Unless he had been deserted by the Ambassadors of Franee and England, would he have taken a step which involves a triumph to the CZAR, humiliation to himself as a member of the European system. and peril. and possibly per manent disarningement. to the balance of Euripeau power THE DOCKYARD INQUIRY. UNTut. the official publication of the whole of the evidence in this protracted ease we con sider WC are n o t in a lair 110Siti011 to do justice to its bearings on the conduct of any of the parties—be they friends or foes—whom it may be supposed to affect. The prompt and remorseless aspersions of the hour we are deliberately eoutent, under this disability, to leave unanswered and even unheeded. We are mistuken, however, if tl►is inquiry, apart fron► the personal interests it involves, and apart from the special purpose it contem plated, has not a I►utent importance to English men which precedes all eonsideration of its details. Here, in the middle of the nineteenth century. we have a process sanctioned by the Constitution which includes the most delicate and compromising charges against the per sonad h moor unit integrity of its public se! ' " %Inas. and which is conducted by machinery and methods as follows: Of the judges eml►owered to try the cause a ►►►►ijorit// is selected from the I►olitical antago nists of the part• chiefly interested. The President of the Coml. himself a partisan, is empowered to put the most searching ques tions. not only to the witnesses on behalf of the accused, but to the accused himself, and this by no means to moderate the proceedings, or to fulfil the august functions of a judicial assessor. but to press the charges home by all the futilities in his power. The accused is at the same time in 011 open court. without the assistance of counsel. exposed to the cross currents of interrogatories from five individuals, who relieve each other's weariness and tx• haustion without the slightest regard for him or reference to the unequal chances. As TALLEYRAND was wont to say, it mattered not 50