The Press. — London, England, 1855-05-26 00:00:00

MAY 26, 1855. posed neutrality, independently of Prussia and Aus tria, and on a ground of its own. Russia by dis honesty, perfidy, and falsehood, and Austria by insincerity, pusillanimity, and a breach of faith towards the Western powers, have lost their influ ence over Germany, and have been themselves in strumental in transferring it to the Emperor of Russia, on whose behalf their knavish tricks have been performed. The biters have been sharply bit. So much for the German question. The Oriental and Russian affair is matter apart ; for although the acceptance of the two first points of the Vienna Conference has been heralded by the Czar as a gracious act towards Germany, the two points in reality have no German bearing. The Danube is an Austrian river, and only German by way of being European. Are the Rhine and Rhone, having their source in the Alps, Swiss rivers ? The principalities affect Austria exclusively. But, waiv ing this territorial view of the case, Russia has met the demand of the Western powers by assenting to the reception of Turkey into the European family of nations. This is a great fact; this is a gain, won at the point of the bayonet; for without compulsion Russia would never have conceded the sovranic rights of a kingdom which she designed to usurp, and the acknowledged integrity of which by Europe in Congress solemnly convened fur the purpose must bar any Barabbas attempts for the future. When this important concession, held of little account by Lord John Russell, is set against the proposition to limit the vessels of war in the Black Sea, to which Russia could not agree out of respect to herself, the incapacity of the English plenipotentiary to conduct the conference becomes palpable. Russia agrees to the two first points, and on the third consents to the territorial introduction of the Ottoman power into the European Congress, so far as relates to Euro peen possessions. Now have to be determined the terms of the material guarantee ; and for this the allies are at war with Russia, and will continue to be at war until such terms be obtained that shall be judged by France and England to be just and proper. But in a spirit of fairness it must be allowed that by her own free will, and by her own proposition, Russia abandons the " status in quo ante helium." The Western powers would make more progress in negotiation with Russia if disconnected from Aus tria. The latter has peculiar interests to advance, for which she will betray any ally upon principle. With the Danube and principalities arranged to her liking she becomes ultra-Muscovite in her Euxine policy, and goes to strengthen the Czar against the Western powers. Her province of mediator is an unhappy consequence of the December treaty, whereby, with predisposed neutrality, she has design edly worked evil to the allies. Prussia is worthless in deed, destitute of honour, and her military problem was set at rest at Jena and Ligny. By the recent policy of St. Petersburg the Diet has been neutralised, or if dispo?ed to be active it would only be to injure the Germanic interests of Prussia and Austria. The events of the following week in the English Parliament are looked for with anxiety. If the earnest prosecution of the war be determined on, as it doubtlessly will, it will eventually lead to fresh combinations, and those combinations should be treated and resolved upon by the allies and Russia alone, without interference. Let them dictate to Europe when the dispute is over. A new state of things is arising in Germany. Prussia has lost her place ; Austria is faithless, and her prestige is gone ; and a strong and growing party exists in Germany and Italy, who would view the triple alliance of Eng land, France, and Russia, with considerable relish. J. E. L. PS.—The telegraph has announced the intelli gence that Milner Gibson has turned cur at the eleventh hour. BELGIUM AND THE WAR. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir.—The Independence Beige objects to the state ments of your Brussels correspondent, that Belgium is a hotbed of Russian intrigue, that the " Braves Beiges" sympathise with the Czar, and desire his success in the present war; and that the Belgian press in general, and the Independence in particular, are Russian organs under a thin disguise. The In dependence attempts to reply with a sneer, which ill conceals its vexation at your exposure of the truth : but it does not, and cannot, deny the correctness of your correspondent's assertions. I know not who that gentleman is, but as I have for some years had ample opportunities of acquaintance with the feelings and opinions of this enlightened and unbigoted nation, whose independence has ever been a historical fact, and whose bravery has passed into a proverb, I can vouch for the accuracy of your cor respondent, and therefore trouble you with this letter. From the commencement of the war a strong party in the saloons of Brussels has been attached to the Russian cause. Russian agents have been busily engaged in making proselytes, and not a few among the more sensible of the community allowed their fears to sway their reason, alarmed lest success THE PRESS. in the field should arouse what they conceive to be the traditional policy of the French empire, and bring the eagles of Napoleon to the banks of the Sambre and the Scheldt. Incapable of generous emotion, and unmoved by noble feeling, they cannot conceive that England and France should be contented to fight the battle of the weak against the strong, with out any intention of reaping territorial aggrandise ment as the fruit of the war. With these sentiments pervading a considerable number of the educated classes, an enormous sensation was pro duced among the masses, and the pro-Russian, anti Anglo-Gallican feeling received a great impulse from the unpleasant trnths which Lord Derby uttered in the House of Lords, during the debate on the Foreign Enlistment Bill. What! The brave Bel gian army fly before an enemy ! That noble, that unconquered, that resolute phalanx, which bad ever rushed unaided to its country's defence, and preserved it secure from the encroach ments of every foe, whether Spaniard, Austrian, French, or Dutch ! The very thought was libellous ; its utterrance due to ill-concealed envy on the part of the English peer. The Government accordingly " protested," and a Belgian general was soon found to prove conclusively that the British officers of Picton's division laboured under mental hal. lucination in supposing that the gallant band who formed Perponcher's brigade at Water loo " retired " at the approach of D'Erlon's corps ; or that those British officers with diffi culty restrained the Highlanders from firing on their resolute allies. The general's brochure was pub lished in the Independance, copied into the other journals, and its author thanked by Senate and Representative Chamber. Lord Derby being thus disposed of, and the nation convinced that their in vincible army was the real cause of Napoleon's fall, they have during the last six months been compla cently discussing the relative merits of the heroes of the Beverloo camp and Montagne de la Cour, and are th roughly persuaded that the allies will never take Sebastopol without that assistance, which they somewhat ostentatiously assert they are not pre pared to give; and as England and France are not likely to seek their aid, it is probable that the truth of this assertion may never be tested. It is really pitiable to see a nation whose existence dates from 1830, which owes its being to the united arms of England and France, which professed to borrow so much from the Constitution of Great Britain, which prates of liberty, and babbles of free dom, declaring that its wishes, its sympathies, and its hopes are with the representative of absolute government and brute force, and opposed to those great Western powers to which it is so deeply in debted. But so it is ; and England and France must combat as they may, uncheered by Belgian sympathy, unaided by Belgian valour. That the Indipendence Beige is an organ of Russia, that it serves the purpose of the Russian Chan cellerie in publishing such diplomatic or other in telligence as the latter desires to communicate to the nations of Western Europe, that its correspon dents are deeply imbued with contempt for England and France, and lost in awful admiration of the great autocrat of the North, are questions that admit of no doubt. It is but two months ago that the Russian Government desired to establish a French journal at Berlin, by aid of which they might possess increased means of obtaining proselytes, and of de fending their policy. A staff of editors, correspon dents, compositors, pressmen, dec., was formed, the greater part of whom were supplied from the office of the Independence. A house was taken at Berlin, and all was prepared for action ; when at the last motnent the resolute Frederick William mus tered all his courage, declared that his neutral Government could not countenance the estab lishment of a foreign journal in the metropolis, in avowed hostility to the Western powers, and ordered the journalists and their assistants to quit Berlin in a body. About the same time this inde pendent Independance inadvertently published a translation of an article in the Times, reflecting on the policy of Frederick William, the faithful ally and trusty servant of the Indipendance's master, the Czar. The Independance was accordingly stopped at the Prussian Post-office ; which produced from the editor a grovelling apology, promising better be haviour in future, and pointing to "other boys as bad as I am," who had translated the same article, and escaped unpunished. Many reflections on the King of Prussia have since been made in the Times and other English journals, but the Independance has not thought fit to translate them for the benefit of its readers. The Indipendattee contains no leading article on foreign polities ; its revue politique being a mere resume of the news of the day. To its correspon dents must we, therefore, look for its expressed opinions, and these gentlemen write from Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Constantinople, Hamburg, and London. The Anglophobia with which they are tor mented is quite ludicrous ; the wicked designs of England haunt them by night, and distract them by 473 day ; and, were it not ter the watehful eye and reso lute courage wherewith they see through and expose our machinations, Europe would soon fall a prey to the perfidies and treasons Latched in Great Britain. M. Jules Leoomte, the gentleman who "does" the Courier de Paris once a week, and who favours the Belgian publio with his views on the I ..:xhibition, looks down from the height of his stupendous intellect on all unfortunate Englishmen, criticises the cut of their garments with the air of a man-milliner, and wearies his readers with marvellous stories of the manners and customs of the uncivilised islanders who dwell beyond the Channel. "He speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in Paris. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them they are not worth the search." Another Parisian correspondent, under the signature " Y," has for weeks been endeavouring to prove that England and France must make peace on terms acceptable to Russia, and leave Sebastopol untaken. He asserts that the war feeling in England is purely factitious, and that she is of small advantage as an ally to France ! He of Vienna is still more vigorous. He looks upon the Czar as the greatest of mortals, and the Austrian Emperor as the second. This very day be informs his readers "that all the concessions made by Russia are due to the attitude assumed by Austria, and not to any success obtained by the allies." This, when England and France have swept the Russian flag from the seas, blockaded every Russian port, defeated her armies in every engagement, and besieged her in her mightiest stronghold, is rather strong even for the capacity of a Flemish stomach. The Berlin correspondent is the vehicle chosen to communicate the despatches, notes, and circulars, issuing from the Russian Chan cellerie. The gentleman at Constantinople hates Lord Stratford with a virulence exceeding even that with which the great diplomatist was honoured by the late Emperor of Russia, whose plans he had so often frustrated. According to this veracious scribe, Lord Stratford is in a state of continual diplomatic warfare with the representative of France, whom lie tries in vain to outwit. To-day he informs us that— Lord Stratford is furious against the French Chargé d'Affaires, to whom he attrihntes the dismissal of Rescind Pacha ; and since his return from the Crimea his relations with the Turkish Government have been marked by a bitterness indicative of his ill-humour. However, the Sultan now cares little about him, persuaded that the Cabinet of London does not now, as heretofore, blindly partake of his antipathies and spite; and it is expected his pouting will soon he brought to an end. The Ind ependance kindly volunteers the informa tion that your correspondent " robs you " in sending his intelligence in return for your money. May it not take counsel from itself, and profit by its own advice with regard to the twaddling trash here trans lated, in return for which its correspondent at Con stantinople doubtless receives a yearly salary ? The Hamburg correspondent keeps his readers well in formed as to the movements of the allied fleets in, and the Russian armies on the shores of, the Baltic ; but although he constantly sneers at the inglorious exploits of our navy in capturing merchant vessels and destroying Russian commerce, he forgets we can find no higher game ; for the idol of his admiration, the Grand Duke Constantine, has not yet fulfilled his threat of meeting us on the high seas in gallant battle t and he has no contempt to spare for the Russian fleet, which, like a whipped cur, sneaks and cowers beneath the protection of its powerful for tresses. "G. F." is the London correspondent. One of his principal occupations seems to consist in tele graphing, each Saturday, a portion of the intelli gence contained in your journal. As there are no Russian sources of information in London, he is shut out from those springs of intelligence which supply his fellow labourers at Vienna, Berlin, and Ham burg. Such is the Independattee Beige, and such the opinions of its chief that with the exception it alone of European Sebastopol, whose doings of us "outside fore taken to insert Muscovite readers, correspondents •ia feats of Russian Russian arms. To the Belgian press ludicrous in the Du sympathy anti cotmeetion agents.—l remair AN ENI Brussels, May A Sum or 10001., been paid to the royal, of the Amateur Artists' house, "to be applied r and orphans of British the present war." has been attended ' chiet contributors. We know that Lion of the Journal des Mats it an jeurnals obtains admission into se defenders it instructs As to the lutsitle barbarians." Care is there vsert nought that might annoy its rs, er wound their feelings and its via with each other in landing the valour, and exkilling the might of To those who It acquainted with ess there is something absolutely Indipendassee affecting to deny its connection with Ruben) and her in, sir, your! obediently, SOLISHISAN RESIDENT IN BELoium. 22, 1N25. N., (being a third instalment), has oyalcommissioners by the committee Artists' Exhibition at Burlington- plied exclusively in aid of the widows tritish officere who lose their lives in Up to this time every application Ito.