The Press. — London, England, 1853-06-18 00:00:00

~~T 44 I ~I PRICE SIXPENCE. No. 7.—VOL. I. rtss. LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE Is, 1853. KONDON, 8.4TURD.41", JUNE lel. 18A. WE are on the eve of great events ; and it is just as well that the people of this country should be prepared for their occurrence. A nation that loves its hearth, and is fully occu pied with its eomplicated system of self government, shrinks with a natural repug nance from the consideration of eircumstsuces which are beyond its immediate ken. Our English ignorance of the relations which should subsist between us and foreign nations is proverbial, and has been costly. Hail we been better acquainted with the state of the European Continent, we should not have em barked in the first revolutionary war against France, and our public burdens would have been proportionately less. A single blunder in the conduct of our foreign adaire may cost us as much as a series of bad harvests. Take, for example, the refusal of this country, in 1t414, to unite in the general arrangements to provide a proper retreat for the Emperor NA POLEON. The reign of a hundred days was the consequence. and our national debt was in creased in one year by a sum little less than one hundred millions sterling. We are still paying, and must pay fur au indefinite period, the interest ou these millions, to an amount much inure considerable than will be levied under the new succession tax. Europe is now disturbed, as she has been periodically disturbed, by the designs of Russia. When we dendiunce these designs we do so because we believn,were they accom plished, they would be dean , ictive of our own power, and ultimately of the independence at least of the;Old NVorld. But we do not for a moment maintain that. because the policy of Russia, if successful, might be tidal to our selves, it is in consequence abstractedly un just. Russia has us much right to have her peeuliar theory of empire as any other power; but fur the same reasons that we would oppose the extension of the French empire to the Rhine, or the annexation Of Canada and Cuba by the United States, would we oppose a Northern power possessing itself of the Dardanelles. the designs of Russia are to be resisted by a vigilant and skilful di plomacy, resting on an assured basis of ma terial power; nor is there, in general. any fear of Russia attempting to advance those projects which British policy deems so tbmgerous, ex cept at periods when she fouls our diplomacy napping, and the administratiou of our attiiirs in the hands of iucompetent persons. Such an occasion occurred when Lord ABElt DEER was our Foreign Minister, and Russia veiled herself of it. She shook the Turkish empire to its centre ; and the timidity, the va cillation, the anti-Ottoman prejudices, and the total want of energy of Lord ABEREEN did then asgoed service for Russia its if the English Minister had been a traitor iii her pay. The Reform Act, among other good things. saved England then from Lord ARERDEEN. We have censured the foreign policy of Tend ABERDEEN, because we believe it to be a re currence to the disastrous system of WV. We charge him, since his accession to office, with having encouraged Russia, both by his public conduct and by his private conversation, to the prosecution of those designs, which, while Lord PALIIERSTON 01' Lord MALNIESBURY conducted our Weirs, were suspended and inert. In our criticisms we have made some statements of a character which are not frequently found in public journals. For ourselves, we make no boast of our sources of intelligence!. Our columns must depend upon the authenticity of their information, and the manner iu which our views arc sustained. Any ostentatious talk of our peculiar means would be just as nu gatory as any sneer against our recent origin. We must stand or fell upon our claims to public confidence exhibited in these pages. In our last number we made a serious charge against Lord CLARENDON. It was one which, whatever the organ of its communication, could scarcely be left unnoticed, or unrefuted, were it untrue. It attracted considerable attention, and the anxious friends of the Government made in convenient inquiries as to its authenticity. Accordingly, when silence could be no Warr prolonged, some leading articles appear in the principal organ of Lord ABERDEEN, which intended are as a reply, but of so oracular and hair-splitting a character that her Muslin's lieges still remain perplexed. Oar " informs tion," they are apprised. " is inaccurate," and we are to be met by " a plain statement" of Cimmerian darkness. We "confound different stages of the negotiation;" what we say happened, did certainly take place, but then it took place with another person, and • quite at another time. It was Lord Jens RUSSELL, and not Lord CLARRNIX)S, to whim the representa tion was made by the Russian Minister at this Court, mad then it was made in quite a dif ferent sense. Now we will neither practise, .nor tolerate, quibbling. The communication we referred to was not made to Lord long Busmen.. It was made to Lord CLARENDON. It matters not whether it was made the day hefiare or the day after the arrival of Prince Mt:swim:ore at Ca austanti 110ple. In that communication Lord CI AREN DON was distinctly informed that the affair of the Shrines was not the side object of the 'mission of the Russian Prince ; in that com munication " the general question " was gone into—the question of the tights of the Greek Christians of Turkey, and of the Emperor of RessiA with respect to them under certain treaties ; in that communication All these points were , catevaased, and the course about to be adopted by Russia explicitly stated. That course was precisely the same as the one de tailed in the projected convention of the 11th of May, and that course Lord . CLARENDON, with the assent of Lord Anzammx, in nowise dis approved or discouraged. Is that clear? We never stated that the draught of the convention was shown at that time to our Secretary of State, which the Aberdeen organ insists upon is the whole point at issue. Shown to our Secretary of State! That could scarcely be. Fur, had not it been for the eneouragement of our Minister on that occasion, the convention would never have been concocted. No wonder Lord ABERDEEN, under such eir e instances, resisted the sending of our fleet to the Turkish waters—no wonder Colonel ROSE was snubbed with his inconvenient in formation ; anal now, at this moment, what is the setuatOn of affairs? To prevent the breakiag up 91 his govetionent, Lord Ast;a• DEES has finally yielded to Lord PALiaEIIaTON, and eousented to the English and Frew h &etc repairing in union to the Dardanelles. TO fulfil his engagement with Russia, he has. we are informed, made a private eounnuttica tion to St. Petersburg, that he will not tool. upon the occupation of the principalities b) the Rusaiaus as a raw belli. Observe the in - exhaustible but inevitable difficulties which must attend a. course at once timid and tor tuous. The invasion of the prineipalities by the Russians is a clear violation of the treaty of 184 e, which regulates the relatioos of those countries with Turkey. Lord PALMERSTON, as we are assured, viewing it in this light, recom mended the Cabinet to take their stand at ouee, and declare tiny would rerognise the in vasion as a declaration of war. The sympa thies of the Cabinet, we arc also assured, were with Lord PALMERSTON. But Lord ASERLKEN,• having iu fact consented to the fleet repairing to the Dardanelles only through the under standing that Russia would not act in that quarter, was now at bay. The existence Of the tioveniment has again, this week, been at stake. It is probable that Lord Pstuensiox would have remained firm had not these who generally uphold his views been alarmed by the prospect of breaking up the Adminis tration. We have reason to believe that within these eight-and-forty hours he had given, or was prepared to give, a sullen awnt to the unchallenged occupation of the principalities by Russia, when a despatch arrives from Paris that the Emperor of the FRENcit, wearied with our chicane. and resolved to itet according to the spirit of treaties Mai the dictate's of high policy, has resolved to view the occupation of the principalities asass awe and calls upon Great Britain to act with him iu concert. And this is the last phase of oar danger's and our ineptitude! Before us, at the best, is a prospect of three or four months of paralysis of our commerce and finance, with the probability of a general war in the autumn or the spring ; and all this entirely occasioned by the wilful and sys tematie repudiation by l.oiul A umunies of the poliey so successfully pursued by his prede• CCSISOTS. MYSTERY Ul.' I'HE REBEI.I.ION IN CHINA. AISTONINHMENT, approaching to incredulity, has been exeited by the late intelligence disclosing the complexion of Christianity which has been communicated to the revolution 1,1 China by the pnwlamations and manifestoes of the rebel chief and his armies. At. first their authenti city was questioned ; but, doubts upon this head having been set at rest, sitspivions have been whispered whether these unlooked-for avowals of belief in the great doctrines of the Christian faith may not have been insti gated by some entity emissaries of the mission aries to Mil/Seal' their own objects, or adopted by the insurrectionary commanders with a view to excite the sympathies of European powers. Our impressions of the impenetrability of China, our notions of its inaccessibility to strangers, and our idea of the unchanging tenacity with which the Chinese cling to every. thing that is peculiar and their own, have indig poicd us to credit the possibility chalvie