The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1855-10-16 00:00:00

FROM OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.

MONDAY MORNING.
THE past week has been a busy one in the political gossip
factories of the metropolis. In those circles, rumours of dire
portent and awful significance have been thick as
The leaves that strew the brook of Valombrosa.

These rumours had for their' food,—whatever might be their
object,—an assertion that the terms of a political alliance,
offensive and defensive, had been agreed upon by Messrs•
DISRAELI, GLADSTONE, and BRIGHT, the object of which

was the immediate de tion of Lord PALMERSTON, the
disruption of his CabinW and the reinstalment of the two

first named gentlemen into office, aided by the homespun
statesmanship of the Manchester cotton-spinner. Who were
to constitute the Dei minores of the tripartite " political
union" did not transpire, although the names of Sir JAMES
GRAHAM and Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT were freely given as
centurions in the motley cohort. Nor was it very clearly
stated what particular departments were to be allotted to the
adventurous chiefs, although it was generally surmised that
to brother BRIGHT would be assigned the administration of

the war department, from his uncompromising antipathy to
English feeling, and his practical familiarity with that branch
of the service emphatically known throughout the British
Islands as the " horse marines." The rumours referred to,
which were of curious fabric and most Protean form, were
believed to have had their origin in a leader which appeared
on Saturday week in that erratic, though clever paper,
The Press, understood, although it is now said erroneously,
to represent the Conservative party. In the article alluded
to, an elaborate attempt was made to show that circum-
stances, chiefly dependant on the fall of Sebastopol, have
so changed as to render it desirable to bring the war
to a conclusion, and strongly insisting on the inutility
of further prosecuting it, as all that was originally
contemplated by hostilities has now been accomplished.
The article argued plausibly that, by the punishment
already inflicted upon Russia, she has been sufficiently
humbled, while, by the destruction of her Black Sea fleet, and
the dismantling of Sebastopol, the integrity and safety of the
Turkish Empire is abundantly secured. To do more than this,
the writer in The Press averred, would be to exceed the pur-
pose of the war; while any attempt to dismember the Russian
empire, so he called the retention of the Crimea, he maintained
would be to depart from the justifiable objects of the war, and
to disturb the balance of power in Europe—any attempt at
whiCh, the writer in question said, would be resisted to the
death by Russia, and would, almost as a matter of certainty,
involve the whole of Europe in war.
An article, so Gladstonian in its sentiments, and so tho-
roughly Russian in its tendency, appearing in the columns of
a journal which, whether rightly or wrongly, was, by many,
supposed to speak the sentiments of the Conservative party,
and to be peculiarly the exponent of Mr. DISRAELI'S views,
attracted immediate and extensive attention. Scarcely had
the article referred to made its appearance, when it was repu-
diated in strong terms by the Standard, claiming to speak
authoritatively for the Conservative body. This was pub-
lished last Monday, and the Times on Tuesday, true to its
instinct of appearing to lead by a tolerably early following,
came out with an oracular allusion to the subject of a new
coalition, in which the GLADSTONE and DISRAELI elements
were freely mingled, but not before the sages of the Clubs
had seriously talked the matter over, as something within the
range of extremest possibility. Having hinted at the proba-
bility of such a coalition, and found that the bare ima-
gination of such a monstrosity had not done more than
produce a good-humoured guffaw among those whose
opinions are worth having, while it had unloosed the
tongue of querulous senility, anti ...wort the wakeful
avidity of place-hunters of every degree, the Thunderer came
out strongly on the following day. Assuming his own hypo-
thesis to be correct, and naively taking his own insinuated
rumour for a well-authenticated fact, he, in the second in-
stance, laid down the basis of the treaty by which the hitherto
conflicting triumvirate were to unite for the furtherance of
their assumed common purpose ; and, like the renowned war-
rior in " Tom Thumb," he created political giants of great
magnitude and importance, which he slaughtered without
mercy or remorse. The programme, says he, of the new party
is, the war was just and expedient when it was commenced,
but it has now changed its aspect, and having been prosecuted
successfully till the objects for which it was instituted have
been accomplished, it ought at once to be concluded, and any
attempt now to prolong hostilities would be immoral and unjust.
The " view halloo" once given in this direction, the chase has
been. followed up with wonderful alacrity by most of the
metropolitan journals, which have alternately attacked and
defended the proposed coalition, and the peace tactics on which
it is said to depend for its existence. The grounds of censure
and the anticipated chances of success or failure which await
the foreshadowed new " union of the talents" vary according
to the idiosyncracies of the journals expressing them. The
Globe virtuously stickles for the purity and honour of public,
men, and will not lend its ear or countenance to so slanderous
an insinuation. The Post having now no fixed object within
the scope of its political vision beyond the personal interests
of Lord PALMERSTON, and instinctively trembling for
anything which threatens that, cannot believe the tale,
but nevertheless comfortingly assures itself that if so mon-
strous a creation could have birth, it would consolidate the
power of the noble lord by the certainty with which so hor-
rible a combination would annihilate all minor sections of
politics, and unite men of all political shades of opinion in- two
great parties, the greatest of which would, as a matter of
course, support the lively and sarcastic PREMIER. The
Standard, once more roused in rescue of the Conservative
phalanx, gives, on Friday night, a flat contradiction to the
rumour .

While the confusion of tongues has been thus vividly exem-
plified among the journals, the wiseacres who suck in political
inspiration, as they sip their wine, at the clubs, have been
thrown into a desperate state of agitation by the conflicting
visions raised before their mental eye-sight. Each, as he
meets his fellow,
Now hope, now fear, his bosom rending,
gives equivocal expression to his thoughts by a• significant
shake of the head, to which that of Lord Burleigh, in the
farce, bears no comparison in grave stolidity and emptiness,
but simulated wisdom. They cannot solve the difficulty ;
they cannot master the position ; they are unable to fathom
the depth, or to unravel the mystery which obscures. the
" coming event," and so portentously and dimly " casts its
shadow before."
It• is not a little singular to see so much and such
venerable wisdom put about by so trivial an affair. The
Press, during its brief, but brilliant career, has been noted
for a certain waywardness of waggery, and seems to take as
much delight in mystifying its sage contemporaries, and
puzzling the quid nuncs, as a mischievous urchin does in
putting gunpowder in the bowl of an applewoman's tobacco
pipe, and enjoying the consternation caused by its explosion.
It has never, seemingly, entered into the heads of any or all
of those who have been so mightily perplexed upon the sub-
ject, that the whole was a hoax, invented to test the extent of
popular credulity.

. _
That the Conservative party could ever consort with-
the sophistical, fast and loose, war and peace policy ad.
vested by Mr. GLADSTONE, or fraternise with the levelling
and aggresive dogmas of Mr. BRIGHT, are propositions too.
monstrous to call for serious contradiction. Is there any
evidence then, that, any of those who have been honoured
with confidence by the party, as leaders, have given indica-
tion of such treason to their principles ? Certainly no symp-
toms of such dereliction of principle are to be found in the
declaration of Lord DERBY, made the other day at Eglinton
Castle, to the municipal authorities of Irvine :—" England,',
said his lordship, " will never sheathe the sword, which she
has so reluctantly drawn, until the noble and disinterested
designs of the Allies have been completely obtained, the inde-
pendence of Turkey secured, and the schemes of Russia upon
Europe and Asia effectually checked." What said the Royal
DUKE, the kinsman of our QUEEN—the gallant leader of our
brave soldiers, while, but yesterday as it were, partaking of
the municipal hospitalities of munificient Liverpool ? " I
have been much gratified," said his Royal Highness the Duke
of CAMBRIDGE on the occasion referred to, "by the state-
[ent_that although the.great commercial town of Liverpool
is deeply interested in a return of peace, one sentiment alone
pervades the whole community—and that is, a determination
to persevere in the war in which the country is engaged, at
all hazards and at every sacrifice, until its object is attained.
In that sentiment I entirely coincide; and I have a strongly-
rooted opinion that a peace concluded at the present moment
would not be an honourable, durable, and lasting peace
Until such a peace can be concluded, I am for carrying on the
war with all possible vigour and determination, and I am