The Press. — London, England, 1855-12-29 00:00:00

THE WEEK. Tax diplomatists of the Continent have been unusually active this week, and all their movements have had a pacific tendency. Count ESTERHAZY, the Austrian Minister at Berlin, had an audience of the King of PRUSSIA on the 28th instant, and delivered to him an autograph letter from the Emperor of AUSTRIA, containing, it is said, an urgent request that the King would use his influence with the Russian Court to secure the acceptance of the pacific proposals which had been sent to St. Petersburg. A copy of these proposals had been forwarded to the King two days previously. On Wednesday last, M. de SEEBACH, the Minister of Saxony at the French Court, had a long interview with the Emperor just previous to his departure from Paris for St. Peters burg. He is the son-in-law of M. de NESSELRODE, and it is said that the object of his mission is to suggest to the Russian Court the pro priety of a European Congress. The notion put forward by our Ministerial journals that Count VALENTINE ESTERHAZY was the bearer of an Ida/satins, is universally discredited by the continental journals, and it is confidently stated by the best-informed German papers that Austria is not disposed to insist on either the demolition of the Russian fortresses in the Black Sea, or the cession of a part of Bess arabia to secure the freedom of the Danube. All that is certain is, that Count ESTERHAZY is the bearer of undoubted pacific proposals, and that he will be well inclined to confer with the Russian Cabinet in the most friendly spirit. The paper just published in Paris on the " Necessity of a Congress to Pacify Europe," is issued with a great show of authority, and at first sight seems as if it could only proceed from the Imperial pen. The style of the Emperor is adroitly imitated, and the object is to follow out the idea he projected in his address on closing the Paris Exposition. It does not appear, however, how a Congress of all the Powers of Europe, which is here hinted at, would be practicable, or what decisive influence such Congress could exercise over the con tending Powers, were the representative of all States, great and small, to assemble. When the animals met to choose a king, the lion, dis gusted with the absurd pretensions he heard, was the first to with draw, satisfied with his own position, and he was followed by the other beasts next in dignity. A Congress of all the States of Europe would be likely to break up in much the same manner. The document, however, has some significance, as indicating the strength of the party favorable to a pacific settlement in Paris, and as embodying the sentiments of an influential portion of the Cabinet. As accounts have reached us of the safe arrival of Count ESTER NAZY at St. Petersburg, we shall probably have important news from that capital in the course of another week. The leading journal of yesterday again c u t rer forward the mis ohievous notion that a pacific settlement, w debated, must lithedukd upon " suck terms as the successes of one party enable them demand, and the necessities of the other oblige them to concede." Aeosito this, the terms of the Allies would vary with every alter nation • rtune. Thcy would rise a little higher just after the fall of Sebastopol, and sink a little lower just after the fall of Kars. As a consequence, the belligerents would be for ever haggling, one side enhancing every success, the other diminishing every failure. Plainly, the more principled policy is to declare that we can be satisfied with no less terms than will secure our objects, and that, unless forced from our atttitude of moderation, we have no wish to ask for more. It is a barbarous notion that in war there is no right or wrong but as the sword sways. We are much deceived in the spirit of our country if it will ever consent to adopt this sentiment, or, whatever may be the turns and accidents of the struggle, to accede to other conditions than aro consistent with justice and sound policy. The fall of Kars, if it proves nothing else, proves the most gross negligence of the responsible authorities in this country. The private letters of General WILLIAMS, lately received, declare appeals to have been made time after time to the Government of the Porte and the Government of this country for assistance and relief. How these were regarded, the fate of the town can well answer. No honest •Engliah heart can read the terrible accounts of the sufferings of that garrison and people without a sense of shame at the criminal policy, or wilful indifference, which oould condemn brave men to such a trial Women and children dying of hunger in the streets—starving men beseeching General WILLIAMS to give them food, and dying on his door-step the hospitals crowded with sick, and the streets with corpses what a picture does not all this brieg before the mind ! Lord PALMERSTON last session urged upon the House the necessities of Turkey. Has he taken one sin le step to relieve Kars ? Lord PANMURE, who is held up by his friends as a fit object for worship for energy and decision, and a thorough acquaintance with the principles of military administration— we should be glad to know what steps he took during the last six months of his career for the relief of Kars. That this result is due mainly to our having men of but " one idea," and that an indifferent one, at the head of affairs, we are inclined to believe. Had Lord ELLENBOROUOII directed the administration of the War Department, his large views, his undoubted sagacity, his appreciation of the dangers of Russian successes in Asia Minor, anti his great energy, would have preserved us from this sad shame. Under his adminis tration, MtF.tt l'AestA would not have been kept idle in the Crimea while his countrymen were starving at Kars : the strong farce at Erzerottin would not have been intrusted to incapable hands, and the • relief wonltt at least have been effectually attempted, if nut successfully achierid. ~~ ~. . . 41 . ": ,11" 1240 - ' 4. THE PRESS. SATURDAY, The Marquis D'AzEomo has replied with dignified asperity to an address presented to the King of SARDINIA by the inhabitants of Edin burgh. Protestants in this country do not, perhaps, always distin guish sufficiently between what is old, catholic, and venerable in the Church of Rome, and what is new, heretical, and despicable. The people of Edinburgh, with whose views in the main we sympathise warmly, must have forgotten at the moment what the Sardinian Minister so pointedly reminds them of, that VICTOR EMANUEL is the descendant of an ancient Catholic house, reigns over a nation of Catholics, and is himself, in the better sense of the term, a true son of that Church. The vile superfluities which Popery has grafted on Catholicism the King has manfully shaken off; but, like our own Reformers, he is by no means ready to proceed from correction to destruction—not at all opposed to the stability of the Piedmonteso Church. They fo..get, too, that the principle of which the King of SARDINIA is in this case the representative, is that of toleration, not in tolerance ; and though it is impossible that Protestants can just now be too much on the alert, yet we are, on the whole, sorry that the address to our excellent Ally should not have been couched in more guarded terms. The intelligence from the camp is not altogether pleasant: Our new roads, which were to rival the Appian way, have failed under the first few hours heavy rain, and resolved—or rather dissolved—them selves into their original mud. The French roads have given way altogether; and, to judge from the amount of extra traffic thrown upon our own, have become for the time utterly impassable. Our Land Transport Corps, organised with so much care and at so vast an expense, has broken down; the mules and horses are dying off by the hundred a day ; the pack-saddles and carts, of little use at the best of times, have turned out utterly worthless now they are really wanted ; and the carriage of hutting and stores to the front is suspended, so that many thousand men of our army will probably have to pass this winter under canvas, and run the risk of being occasionally half-starved into the bargain. If this is the result of a few days wet weather, may we not anticipate a repetition of the worst horrors of last winter? It is really incredible that an army, stationary and enjoying so ample a period of rest, should not have been better provided against the bad weather. Everything hitherto has been favorable ; the finest weather continued fully a month later than the best average seasons led us to anticipate, and yet, in the second week of December, we find the army, in point of preparation against the winter, little more than a week in advance of their pre parations last year. The break-down of the Land Transport Corps will be a serious loss to the army. No measures can possibly put it into an effective state this winter. It has failed simply from want of strength. Admirably organised in every department, it has yet on the first pinch failed to carry out the object of its organisation. Lord PANMURE has now enjoyed the best part of the year for the perfection of all those admirable plans which we were told would render our army the envy and admiration of the world. But what has he done when we come to the facts of the case ? We find the army well clothed, and with good boots on their feet, because they have no trench-work to do ; but only partially hutted, with no stables for the mules and horses, no forage in store, bad carts, worse waggons and harness, and everything over which he has had the more immediate control, showing a lamen table want of discretion and good management and an amount of ignorance perfectly incredible. It is the season for pantomime, and the Lord Advocate of Scot land, Mr. MONCRIEFF, has been amusing the public by a most divert ing speech at Leith. It was an harangue about everything in general, ani nothing besides in particular He commenced with an announce ment of " a few words," and he proceeded to fill three columns of small type, and passed from topic to topic with a facility that would have caused envy in the breast of a London auctioneer—equally rap turous on a ribbon or a Raphael. A hint on reticence is much wanted for talkative Scotch lawyers. He opines that the House of Commons is a peculiar and moat remarkable assembly. " Other characteristics might he struck off," continues the learned humorist, " if I had the pencil of DICIENS, and if I had " malice sufficient." We leave Mr. Boz to digest that sentence, and to look for a new specimen of the grotesque under a wig and gown. " Little Dorrit " will before long, probably, make the acquaintance of a walking whimsicality, with a mouth full of intended truisms, to be estimated as taunts. It would be a new character, and we should have to look far north for " the original." Poor Mr. MONCRIEFF ! only fancy a Scotch lawyer put into pantomime and monthly num bers ! After praising Lord ABERDEEN, this fluently-incautious tongue of the Lord Advocate dashes out encoimums on Lord PALMERSTON and Lord PANMURE. " The state in which the troops now find themselves does entitle the Noble Lords to the gratitude of this country." But let Mr. MONCRIEFF answer how Lord PALMERSTON can be entitled to " gratitude," when our Premier was a powerful Minister in the Cabinet which intrusted the war to inexperienced officials ? What did Lord PALMERSTON do when the troops were starving, and perishing miser ably ? Did he not even oppose every inquiry into their condition ? Mr. MONCRIEFF forgets that the public is not entirely without a memory, and that other persons beside himself can refer to the Annual Register for 1854. The whispering of the short monosyllable ought to make the Premier's professional panegyrists desist from their hazard ous eulogies. That one syllable is the name of a town in Asia Minor. The word is a short one, but there is a long story about it ; and as inqui►;y followed the mischance at Sebastopol, the same indeed must be applied in the case of No ; we will not print the little word for the benefit of the retrospective Lord Advocate. Let him open his ears to what people are talking and thinking of in the year of 1858, and he eanuot fait to timid it out. et). ieti tr•