The Press. — London, England, 1855-06-16 00:00:00

.. , . l .. .. . • ~.. ,_ ~.. i ( . . • • ,ei s . / .. ........) 11 1 \ I I SN, Ini ft X ll ... v ,ail + , d No. 111.—VoL. 111. LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 1855. PRICE SIXPENCE. Ot V rtss. people to despise the Government and to trust in agitation ; while it affords a signifi cant hint to foreign Powers that there is no constancy in our policy and no real force in our Executive. Some weeks ago it was stated in this journal that we were in danger of foreign war of indefinite duration, of of a storm of public discontent occasioned by the misconduct and fomented by the intrigues of the Whig chiefs. We underrated the peril. Both have come upon us. The last hope of peace has vanished. We are in the midst of war and of discontent at the same time, and the people seem hardly to know which is most their foe—their own Government, or the Power with which they are at war. Those persons are greatly mistaken who imagine that the ferment will subside until its cause is removed. The very cry for Admi nistrative Reform is some presumption of a ' grievance experienced. A blind man may feel an injury though he knows not who inflicts it, nor can see his way to a remedy. The wrath which is indiscriminating is the most dan gerous; there is uo conjuncture more threat ening to the safety of a free State than a people enraged against the Government which is the creature of its will, and dependent on its breath. Among us there is a certain class of poli ticians, reared in those doctrines of expediency which have been too prevalent of late, who imagine that the whole art of Government is to yield to popular impulse, and that they are sure to be right, or at least safe, if they follow its latest changes. They are under a fatal mistake. The people are content to be ho nestly governed, but sooner or later they will discover the fraud which, pretending deference to their wishes, profits by their trustfulness, and drives a lucrative trade in political chicane. Since the Reform Bill the Liberal interest, as it is called, has proved itself the strongest in the country, and no marvel, therefore, that abuses have clustered thickly round it ; but this sham must have an end, and it is one favorable omen for the cause of good govern ment that the Opposition, whenever it is called to power, will come in unfettered by pledges, bound to no interest, and free to follow that course of action which it judges best for the public advantage. LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1855. THE Government is just now in that state of transition which among fowls is described as moulting. No one from its present scrubby appearance can guess what its plumage is likely to be in a few weeks hence. It has lost its old feathers before its new ones have begun to spread, and while shivering from a sense of its destitution it still continues to pluck itself bare. Lord PALM EASTON, with a kind of instinct that he cannot get rid of his old garb too soon, is pecking away, as Premier, that system of policy which he cordially approved as Home Secretary. Lord ABERDEEN had no more faithful adherent in his Austrian policy, and Lord ABERDEEN has no opponent more ready to cast it off. It was to be the salvation of Europe. It is a mere illusion of pacific dreamers. Lord JOHN as Secrerary of the Colonies is equally ready to discard all the notions he held as President of the Council (we think that was the place he occupied under Lord ABERDEEN, though lately he has shifted so often that we do not pretend to be positive), and more recently as Minister Plenipoten tiary. They have discarded their old senti ments with their old offices, and with a kind of unnatural cruelty for which we can find no parallel in gods, men, or brutes, they are eager to hiss their exploits in their old parts that they may have an opportunity of condemning the whole performance, and of reviling the actors with whom they played in amicable concert. If war were a mere affair of the mimic scene, as our Premier by his jocularity seems to suppose, this sudden change would be of no great consequence. But it is of vital con sequence to the nation, and may influence our state for ages to come. Lord ABERDEEN, to give dotage its due, was consistent He was all for peace; but his successor has not yet been able to make up his mind what he is for. A Premier in search of a Policy rightly describes his position. He is becalmed, and whistling for a breath of wind to bear him in some direction or another, no matter where. At this moment the policy of England is at the mercy of any chance current which may set in to influence it. It is open to a bid from oppressed nationalities, or from the houses of Hapsburg and Hohenzollern. As some metaphysicians assert that all reasoning must commence from self con sciousness, the Ministry takes its stand not on " Cogito " but on " Sum." Its existence is the only fact of which it is cognisant and for which it cares. While the " Whig families " arc in, what does it matter to Lord JOHN what system of either foreign or domestic policy prevails? HATTER, in spite of Administrative Reformers, is a sure card That influence ascribed to horse charmers he possesses in a supreme degree. A whisper in the ear from him can tame down the most unmanageable of Liberals into the quietest of hacks. In this system, sate as it seems, there is the greatest possible danger. It is teaching the AUSTRIA. WHEN the nation recovers from the trance into which it has been mesmerised by the late Coalition—and this last debate has gone far towards recovering it—it will be a standing marvel how it was ever seduced into dawdling away these two priceless years of the prepara tion for the war and the first campaign, and (but for the vigorous counterpasses of Mr. DISRAELI and his colleagues) very possibly a third, while we were dancing attendance at the Court of Vienna and soliciting her as sistance, on the strength of LORD ABERDEEN'S belief that she is "England's natural ally." After every imaginable pretext for vacillation and procrastinating has been exhausted, Aus tria speaks out plainly at last, or as plainly as she knows how, and tells us that "the attitude " of Austria is henceforth one of expectancy.' Vienna notes and valiant words, Alma congra tulations and Second-of-December protocols, stars and autograph letters from France and "judicious bottle-holding " from England not Austria has taken her time to see which way her interests lie, and to calculate the chances of the war—has thought (rather prematurely, after all,) that she saw signs of a dead lock at Sebastopol, and eventually has taken the magnanimous resolution to stand stock still. So the bottle-holding and bonbon nerie are all thrown away, and a couple of years' diplomacy has only filled a few waste paper baskets. We do not seriously blame Austria for all this; we only blame the sagacious Ministry who did not see what every one else saw from the beginning, that her tortuous conduct was, in fact, a necessity of her position. True, she might have acted straightforwardly, and by one vigorous, early word have stifled the war in its beginning, or by one vigorous act have prevented the invasion of the Principalities, which she is as much bound to defend as we are by treaty, and infinitely more by interest: if they become Russian provinces the Danube is lost to her, and her whole commerce (except through Trieste) is gone. True enough, only straightforwardness is not everybody's ape cialiter ; and in this degenerate age we must be contented to see the affairs of even great nations carried on upon the principles that regulate the lower sort of huckstering trades. That on these principles of base, naked self interest, and self-interest for the moment only, Austria is justified in her present course, is evident in a moment from two consideration*, which lie on the very surface. 1. Austria has everything to lose by takin a side. If she joins Russia , besides t he fa confession of impotence which an act of gratitude for the Hungarian intervention would amount to, she encounters a French invasion of Italy, a costly war, and very pro. bably the loss of her Lombardic provinces : and this is only one of many dangers. On the other hand, if she sides with the Allies, her frontier towards Russia is not what it was before her suicidal share in the plunder of. Poland. The new fortresses of Gallicia said to be good ; only they are in themsel evidences of her fear, and (at all events) they are untried, and probably will not be improved by a Russian cannonade. We fear the road over the Carpathians is still a painfully open one. Vienna is not many leagues from the Russian frontier. And, 2, while she has all to lose from taking a side, she has much to gain from neutrality. Firstly, the three great Powers, " the only " ones (as was well observed by Lord H. VAN/I the other night) that can stand alone," are wearing each other out in treasure, sinew, and blood. Let them go on long enough, Austria will be the arbiter of the destinies Central Europe. (It is a ghastly speculation, if one comes to think of it; but what of that, at Vienna?) Then, again, in a happy moment of profitable fraternisation after Inkermann, Austria signed something or other on Dec. 2, 1854 ; she does not quite know what : she only remembers she was to occupy the Prin.; cipalities--occupies them occordingly—is careful to make known at St. Petersburg that she occupies the provinces of one belligerent "in the interest of" the other: and very . devoutly at this moment the Principalitariannl wish either the Russians or the Turks well back again. However, Austria has now the command of the Danube, and means to keep