The Press. — London, England, 1855-07-14 00:00:00

~„ b t rtl; No. 115.—VoL. 111. LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 14, 1855. E 1 ,1t V rtss. bear the whole odium of openly advocating one course of policy while he secretly con tended with all his might for another. He did not stand alone. We have yet to learn what number of his colleagues sided with him, and who they were. Will these gentlemen not be inspired by the courageous example of their chief, and make a clean breast of it? Surely, as they have so long been sheltered by his protection and benefited by his pa tronage, they should not hesitate to share his peril in the hour of need. We have a right to know the names of those Abdiels, " faithful among the faithless found," who agreed with their leader that it was better they should, on the most vital question of their time, violate their conscience and act against their con vie• tions, rather than ran the hazard of breaking up their party, and the still greater calamity— for that is the real point—of resigning their places. LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 14, 1855. "PRESS" OFFICE, Friday Evening, July 13. WE have received the following conununi- cation from a high authority at Berlin : BERLIN, July 10, 1855. I hasten to communicate to you the im portant intelligence that the Prussian Gof3mment have received positive informa tion from St. Petersburg that the effective army Russia amounts, at the present time, to 650,000 men. Of this force it is ascertaLied that there are 140,000 in the Crimea, and that already General LUDERS and General GRABBE, the formerwith 80,000, the latter with 60,000, are advancing to the relief of the garrison of Sebastopol by forced marches. The knowledge of these facts, proceeding from an authentic source to the Court of Berlin, has produced a great sensation here. It cannot be doubted that Russia is straining every nerve to secure the active co-operation of Prussia by an im posing display of her strength. Nor can it be a matter of surprise that the intelligence I have here conveyed to you should have great weight in her councils. Conscious of.the services he has rendered to his faction, and secure of its support, Lord Joim challenges the issue. He has betrayed the trust reposed in his personal honour ; he has slighted his Sovereign ; he has deceived Parliament; he has recklessly played a part so palpably double-faced, and so glaringly unprincipled, as to be without parallel in English statesmanship. But be has trust in the management of HarrEa, and in the strength of his Whig connection, to secure for him a majority, and gain for him a verdict of acquittal. All the particulars of that intrigue which has been fermenting in the Cabinet Since its irmation are not yet made public. ' We have caught but glimpses of the darkness of the interior; but the track of Lord JOHN RUSSELL is to be marked by such a kind of fcetid light as putrescent substances throw forth. in the last stage of decay. It was he who first declared that the exist ence of Sebastopol was a standing menace to Turkey, and his words helped to give to the contest a character of mortal arbitrcineut. Conceiving that as he had been a principal in provoking the war he was for that reason the fittest to settle it, he wen t to Vienna the avowed emissary of peace. And now we find, from his own statement, as well as from the revelations of Count 13uoL, that he no sooner arrived at Vienna than he discussed with the Austrian diplomatists, not only the terms he was com missioned to accept by his Government, but others also which had never been agitated, and bad for their object to create an equilibrium in the Black Sea by maintaining there a French and English squadron equivalent to the Rus sian navy. These terms, when other proposals failed, he declared to Count Buol. in his opinion ought to be, and might be," accepted: — I said to Count Buol that I could assure him, and that he could convey that assurance to the Emperor of Austria, that I would lay the ease before the Cabinet of this coun try, and that I would use my best endeavours to put these propositions in such a light that they might hope for their adoption. It was while these terms were under dis cussion by our Government, and while it was yet doubtful which faction in the Cabinet would prevail, that Mr. MILNER Gissox con veniently postponed his motion, and that the penetration of Mr. Disaazu discovered that ERRORS are manifested by their consequences. It is now evident how great a fault the House of Commons committed when, after expelling Lord ABERDEEN'S Ministry from office, it ac cepted a mere reconstruction of that Ministry, instead of insisting on a total ehange of men. Transition Ministries are always dangerous in times of extremity. From the first the Govern ment was in a false position. Its members were implicated in the acts and committed to the policy of the condemned Ministry; and the decisive vote of the Commons, with all the political confusion • resulting from it, had no other result than to change the occupants of a few offices, some of them visibly for the worse Hence it has come, that while the country hugged itself in the belief that it had a Ministry unanimously resolved on the vigorous prosecution of the war, there were in that Government two parties—one for peace and one for war, and that their division, long smothered by interest, has at last exploded in a scandal which, if it be not promptly effaced, will make our Legislature and Government the scoff of Europe. Lord JOHN RUSSSLL is at present made to STAMPED .... SIXPENCE. UNSTAMPED..FIVEPENCE. " uncertainty of conduct and ambiguity of lan guage "on which he founded his motion. The justification of the course he took is now com plete. Defeated, Lord Jour; determined not only to remain in the Cabinet, but to conceal the part he had played under a new assumption of warlike ardour. Hardly had he ceased hie urgent advocacy for peace with Russia, than he rose in the Commons (May 24) to denounce the unscrupulous ambition of that Power. He pointed to her immense territory and population, to her fortresses in Poland, her strength in the Baltic, her influence in Ger many—all his observations being directed to show that there could be ho security for peace but in her material humiliation He spoke as if he had never entertained any other pro posal than that of the limitation of the Russian fleet, and directly stated that there were but two proposals to be considered : After all that I have heard against that project of limi tation, in the position of affairs in which we were placed. I see no better security than that limitation, or the plan to which Russia was more opposed—that of making the Black Sea a commercial sea altogether, and riot admitting say ships of war in that sea. This was spoken but a few days after he had hotly advocated terms essentially distinct from either of the above projects, and which terms he tells us he then thought, and still thinks. " might have been accepted." Yet, further, he argued against Mr. GLADSTONE'S proposal that we should be prepared to defend Turkey when in danger of attack from Russia. Why, that, he exclaimed with a sneer of triumph, " brings us to one of two conclusions—either " that we must be there perpetually to defend " Turkey and to make perpetual war, or that " we must be contented with leaving Turkey "as she is ;" the first conclusion that our fleet should be perpetually in the Euxine to defend Turkey, being the very proposal which in the first days of that same month of May, as ho tells us, he had been pressing on the Cabinet of which ho was a member. Indignation is sometimes expressed at the license of counsel, who lend their tongues and talents for a fee; their position is understood, and it is recognised that they stand in place of their clients. But what is to be said of the license of a statesman in the position of Lord JOHN RUSSELL, Nho prostitutes his character that he may obtain a momentary advantage in poliii2al warfare? His speech of the 25th of May, read in the light of that explanation wrung from him on the Bth of July, is one long tissue of the meanest deceit and sub terfuge. Lord PALMERSTON favoured the deception. He intimated that Lord JOHN, like himself, was resolved to be content with pothing less thin a limitation of the Russian fleet. " Turkey is " exposed," he said, "as my Noble Friend " (Lord ;Tons Rosszia,) has stated,toa standing " danger, and the existence of that fleet is a " standing menace to Turkey." How adroit! What a spectacle to be witnessed : the Minis• ters of a great country converting themselves into professors of legerdemain, and competing which could beat cheat the senses of their hearers by conveying to them false im• pressions. The question to be determined by Sir EDWARD LYTTON'S motion is,- whither this system is creditablter r. 7 be allowed to continue, wh et Ali. 'MO to have confidence in the •mt 1: •u. • • it? Lord Jowl declares lie is r • AA • i' b Ihf'.if ~' . e,i • 1 . -a, 1