The Press. — London, England, 1855-06-09 00:00:00

ii;Pr r.w `' : i , b t / No. 110.—VoL. 111. gke dress. LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1851 IT is pitiable to note the state to 'which the Government is reduced through the want of a little plain-dealing. Founded on false pre tences at the first, and destitute of any elements of real strength, it has maintained its existence by trick, and endeavoured to cloak its weakness by falsehood. The ambi tion of the Premier is just sufficiently power. ful to blind him to his position, and throw a little extra bluster into his tone, and that is all. It has no influence to change the condi tion of affairs. Ho took office without princi ple or following, and ever since his action has more resembled the frantic efforts of a sinking man than the considerate policy of a Minister who possesses sure grounds of confidence within himself. A fair statement of the course he intended to pursue would have rallied a majority to his side, or have arrayed it against him. But, rather than put his fate to the touch, he preferred a precarious tenure of office, and made a joke of honesty by syste matic evasion. His first difficulty was to form an Adminis tration at all. The Ministerial side of the House was divided on the question of peace or war. Equally indifferent which way the question was carried, he endeavoured to pro pitiate both parties in much the same way that a penniless debtor endeavours to stave off duns lie cannot satisfy by giving promises to pay which he never means to redeem. Some of his late colleagues were bribed to support him by a promise that the negotiation at Vienna should proceed ; Lord JOHN Res SELL had his vanity gratified by an appoint ment for which he was totally unfit, and in which it was morally certain he must fail ; and the war party were for the moment appeased by some empty boasts of " vigour " in the prosecution of hostilities, backed up by the nomination of Lord PANMURE to the War office, and by the estimates being intrusted to the tried ability of Mr. FREDERICK PEEL. It is a proof of Lord PALMERSTON'S skill in fence that he should have been able to carry on this delusion for three months. While the negotiations continued he was safe, for he could blow hot and cold, play at see-saw with Mr. BRIGHT and Mr. LAYARD, without positively committing himself. The return of his Pleni potentiary did not immediately disconcert him. It is useful to remember the language which he held on the evening of Mr. MILNER GIBSON'S motion, the 22nd of May, when it still seemed possible to uphold the juggle a little longer. In answer to Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT, whether all means of solution were exhausted—whether Austria still looked for means of accommoda tion—whether the Conference was dissolved, he replied in a manner favorable to the views of the peace party on all three points Her Majesty's Government certainly do not consider all the modes of solving the questions at issue as exhausted. We do consider that Austria is still charged, by her own LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1855. voluntary assumption—with the consent, of course, of tho allies—with the task of endeavouring to discover s means of bringing about an accommodati - on between the con tending parties. The Conference, although at present suspended, is not yet finally closed, and if any proposals should be made which was considered to be likely to con- duce to a satisfactory result, the Conference would be ready to reassemble. I can only add that it would be oon. sidered by her Majesty's Government to be their duty to give the moat favorable considerations to any proposals which may come to them from or through Austria, with a view to a safe, honourable, and satisfactory termination of the war. Can we wonder that, holding this language, the Noble Lord should have succeeded iu staving off the threatened motion, and in sa tisfying for the time that party which looked to the negotiations at Vienna for means of pacification? Mr. DISRAELI, contrasting this tone with that previously held by the Noble Premier and by Lord JOHN RUSSELL, declared that the lan guage of the Goverment was " ambiguous," and its conduct " uncertain." His motion was brought forward, and the Government was saved solely by the " ambiguity and uncertainty " which he declared to exist. His motion was in effect affirmed by the very majority which defeated it • for if the am biguity had been removed—had the Govern ment dared to take an open, straightforward course, it would in vain have looked for the majority it hailed with such rapture. Its triumph was its shame. The verdict which acquitted it, fixed the brand of falsehood on its brow. What followed? When the House reas• sembled last Monday, for the first time after that division, Lord PALMERSTON, in answer to Mr. DUNCOMBE, declared : It is perfectly true that her Majesty's Government ex pect that the Conference at Vienna was to assemble at one o'clock to-day, for the purpose of being finally closed. The consent of the Governments of England and France to such closing has been conveyed to their respective Minis ters at Vienna, and I believe it was the intention of the Austrian members of the Conference to declare that the Conference was closed. And on the next day the Premier announced that the Conference was closed on Monday, as he had anticipated it would be. We cannot learn that any circumstances have occurred in the interval between these two declarations to justify the contradictions they exhibit. There has been no negotiation to lead us to conclude that those means of solving the ques tion at issue, which existed only a fortnight previously, have been exhausted since—no circumstances to account for the sudden abandonment by Austria of her mission—no reason why the Conference, which was only suspended then, should be finally closed now. Must we suppose that on the 22nd of May Lord PALMERSTON had not the least idea what aspect the negotiation would assume on the 4th of June; that he was so tctally destitute of all power to guide the course of the negotiation that he held out in sincerity hopes of a pacific solution at the former date, which he was forced to acknowledge were entirely without foundation at the latter? Or shall we rather say that in the declaration of the 22nd May there was intentional deceit practised purely for party purposes. The question before the House this week has been substantially the same as that debated previous to the recess, though raised upon a different issue. The vote of censure has been rejected—will a vote of confidence be affirmed? Lord PALMERSTON has suffered more from the indiscretion of his friends than the hos tility of his opponents. The resolution of PRICE SIXPENCE. Mr. LOWE has, through the closing of the Vienna Conference, assumed a shape which directly sanctions the policy of the Govern ment in declaring that the principle of the limitation of the Russian fleet was the only sound basis of negotiation. It was on this point that Lord JOHN RUSSELL, as the repre sentative of the Government, made his stand —it was on this point that the negotiation was broken off—it is to enforce this point that we are now at war. The question to be deter• mined is, whether such limitation really did afford a satisfactory basis of negotiation? Mr . LowE's resolution affirms that it did. recognises the principle, and approves the conduct of the Ministry ; yet they abjectly shrink from voting for it because they dare not submit their conduct and their principle to the judgment of the House. They attempt to justify their refusal by a Nisi Prime quibble, though the Premier himself has expressed his perfect agreement in the substance of the resolution. Plausible as this principle of the limitation of the Russian fleet appears, it will not bear examination. It has been demolished over and over again in the debates of the week. As a safeguard against a Russian invasion of Constantinople it would be futile. Merchant vessels might convey troops and arms to the city of the Sultan even more commodiously than ships of war ; gun-boats might be built in the Russian rivers ; *zid the ingenuity of an artful enemy might. invent a thoomind devices for defeating the spirit while keeping the letter of such a provision. It would: 9 ll3 the pride without lessening the power of Russia, and would rather prove a stimulant to war than a guarantee of peace. The conclu sion of Lord JOHN RussELL, that the refusal of this stipulation by Russia is an evidence of her bad faith, is so far from being well-founded that the reverse would be more reasonable. Had Russia assented to this protocol it would have supplied a strong presumption that she did so only with the object of waiting a favor able moment for springing upon Turkey as the seeds of war would lurk within the treaty of peace she signed. The Government, may for the moment, escape an adverse division, but it cannot escape scrutiny. Its conduct throughout the negotiation must, in some shape or other, come before the House, and be stamped with its approval or branded with its censure. We have yet to learn why the Conference was opened at all, if the Government had secretly adopted an ultimatum which it was morally certain would not be accepted, or if accepted would not have proved satisfactory. And, further, we must know what new circumstances have occurred since the 22nd of May which destroyed that prospect of renewed negotia tions which Lord PALMERSTON then stated to exist. No severer condemnation can be pro nounced against any Government than that it makes questions momentously affecting . th e interests of the world depend on its necessities, and that it is ready to declare peace or war, or to affect zeal for both at the same moment, that it may catch a few votes, and so prolong its precarious existence. THE RECENT VICTORIES. BRILLIANT as are our recent successes in the Sea of Azoff, in the Caucasus, and before Sebastopol, we must not deceive ourselves by an exaggerated ides of their importance. A Ll~l te ISOM t A A