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

THE PRESS.

NECESSITY OF A CONGRESS FOR
PACIFYING EUROPE.
BY A STATESMAN,
[The following is the text of the pamphlet which has milted so
much sensation in Paris. J

Paris, Dec. 20.
Accoantwo as the probabilities of a pacific solution assume
greater consiEtency, certain organs of the English press
are endeavouring by iirritating articles to endanger the
effect of the sage resolutions and of the calm attitude of
the allied Governments.

In misrepresenting the form and the character of a
document which it is the duty of the official parties to
keep secret, a risk is run of offending the power which
Europe has applied to for concessions, when the interest
of all is to facilitate the success of the proceeding now
entered on.

It would be senseless to suppose that any statesman of
Great Britain can behold otherwise than with the deepest
regret this inconsiderate line of tactics.
In the plans of arrangement now in course of negotia-
tion, no one has any idea of humiliating Russia, or depre-
ciating the just share of influence and authority which she
is called on to preserve in the councils of Europe.
France and England have united together for a just
war, not only because it was a just one, but because their
own history proved to Russia that she could yield without
dishonour.

Do England and France find themselves lowered or
humiliated by the obligation in which they were placed,
the first to recognise the independence of the United
States, and the second to renounce the conquests of the
Republic and of the Empire ?
The result of the present struggle proves the contrary.
Yet both tin se concessions were wrested from them by
force of arms. It was France who constrained England
to abandon her colonies in North America, and it was
England who, in a greater degree than any other nation,
contributed to detach from the French ten itory Belgium
and the Rhenish provinces; and yet France and England
are at present closely united.
Proud of their new destinies, they assuredly have a
right to proclaim that, in making at present the aserifice
of a policy incompatible with the peace of the world, Russia
cannot decline in public estimation, but that, on the con-
trary, she must increase in the confidence and esteem of
Europe, and perhaps prepare herself for a not distant
future of new and precious alliances.
In that situation, the duty of the statesman is to seek
out under what form, and in what circumstances, the ac•

quiescence of Russia will best he reconciled with the dignity
of a sovereign who, the day on which he will have signed
peace, will find in his enemies of the day before nothing
else than brothers.

Since the Congress of Vienna, five peat powers have
governed Europe with common accord. Today, three of
these powers are at war, ant the spontaneous intervention
of the remaining two, either in an isolated manner, or in
conferences, fails to reconcile them. Is it, then, surprising
that the ordinary proceedings are insufficient to terminate
a conflict of so novel a nature ?

One hundred and twenty millions of men are engaged in
the struggle. On one side they are dying for their faith,
on the other for justice. Thousands of cannon are thun-
dering after forty years' peace; four thousand millions of
francs have been consumed in less than fifteen months, and
Europe awaits from this last holocaust of blood and gold a
peace which shall have no end.
Such is the present war !

When interests so noble and gigantic are at stake, can
there be any chance of reconciling the belligerent parties
otherwise than by a congress ? And is not that measure
justified, moreover, by the incontestable fact, that at the
sole announcement of the convocation of a congress the
different populations would consider peace concluded ?
And why is this anticipated confidence? It is because
nobody is ignorant that the sole difficulty is to find a con-
clusion worthy of the struggle, and that after the fall of
Sebastopol and the destruction of the Black Sea feet, peace
became possible. In fact, a new position was created by
this event, and it was pointed out with clearness in the ad-
dress delivered by Napoleon 111, to the exhibitors, and in
the official papers of his diplomacy.
As long as a decisive success had not been obtained,
the allies could only think of increasing their forces on the
field of battle. In pursuing, at the price of enormous
sacrifices, a result which would turn to the advantage of
all, they could not admit that neutrality had a useful mis-
sion to fulfil. But as England, France, Turkey, and Sar-
dinia had sufficed for the task, and as the proposed aim
was attained, the position of neutrals could be looked at in
a more favorable

SATURDAY,

It was then that the Emperor, making a solemn appeal
to the pressure of public opinion with the view of termi-
nating the war, exclaimed--" Let Europe decide and de-
clare who is in the right and who is in the wrong, for that
will be a grand step towards a solution."
He proclaimed with conviction and truth that, in the
present epoeh of civilisation, the success of armies id but
temporary, and that definitively it is " public opinion that
carries away the last victory."
Thus, in the thoughts of the allied Governments, the
last victory will be the conclusion of a peace. And it is
public opinion in Europe which will have the merit and
the honour, provided it interferes in the negotiations,
assists at their various phases, and officially pronounces
on all the minor difficulties which may issue from the
discussions.

A congress can alone offer the opportunity of doing this.

The readiness with which the secondary States have
replied to the invitation of the Emperor of the French
proves that Europe is prepared for that great spectacle.

Whilst Sweden was engaging herself by a treaty, the
Governments of Central Europe, of the first, second, and
even of the third order, were addressing to the Coprt of
Russia friendly representations, by no means commina-
tory, but expressing in the clearest manner the necessity
of making concessions which would guarantee to the
Western powers the fact that the object of the war was
really acquired. At the same time each of them informed
France and England of the steps which it had taken, and
invited them to receive with moderation the propositions
that Russia might make. The majority of the sovereign
Courts are consequently co-operating at this moment in
the negotiations. But their co-operation is isolated, non-
official, and without force. Theirs are local opinions, and
disjointed ; it is not the general opinion of Europe which
they express. 10,1

In order that the general opinion be rendered useful
and imposing, that it may carry away that last victory
which shall definitively endow the world with peace from
the fact that it will leave behind it neither victors nor van-
quished, it must necessarily be manifested 'solemnly, in an
assembly of the representatives of all the States, where
various modes of thinking may be conformed in one ides,
and where the will of all may hare but one voice.

In a coupes', Europe will be represented and per.
sonitied.

Ambitions will be restrained and men's minds re-
vivified; above all, over the powers will be suspended a
supreme authority, which will ennoble the sacrifices, give
to moderation the character of magnanimity, impose a
salutary restraint on religious or national exigencies,
over•excited by the contest, and render to each Govern-
ment a perfect liberty of action with respect to its subjects.
It would be most desirable were the idea of a congress
to proceed from Russia, and if, taking into consideration
as a basis of negotiations the propositions carried to St.
Petersburg by Count Esterhazy, she were to propose to
deliberate on them not only in a simple conference, but in
an assembly of all the sovereigns, and after solemn In:
sincere declarations on the origin, the character, an.'
results of the contest.

Stich an overture would be a more certain in
of the pacific dispositions of the Cabinet of St. Petersburg
than a pure and simple acceptance of an ultimatum which
might have no other aim than to retard the recal of the
Austrian ambassador. It will be remembered that a simi-
lar acceptance preceded the first conferences at Vienna,
and did not prevent their failure. If Russia were boldly to
adopt this step, her language would have a character of
frankness and of grandeur, which, in freeing her diploma-
tiste for ever from the reproach of duplicity, would mate-
rially facilitate the conclusion of peace.
It is only necessary to open contemporaneous history
to comprehend that Alexander 11. may eater on this path
without humiliating Russia; and if he considers the much
greater sacrifices which the other powers have been com-
pelled to make for the progress of civilisation, he will bless
God for having reserved to his people, in a similar crisis,
a privileged position. When the hour of American inde-
pendence sounded, England had no idea that the annihila-
tion of her old colonial policy was for her commerce and
her navy the germ of an unlimited development. At the
moment when coalesced Europe made Napoleonian France
violently return within the limits of the old monarchy, no
one could foresee that the resuscitated empire would find
in the renunciation of her conquests the means of extend-
ing over the free States of Europe an influence more
powerful than that of Louis XIV. or of Napoleon I.
It has been necessary that the national honour of the
two countries should suffer nearly half a century of humi-
liations before they could clearly see into their new desti.
nies and frankly resign themselves, one to the loss of her
North American possessions, and the other of the con•
vests of the Republic and the Empire.

DECELBER 29, 1855.

But Russia, after a peace of forty years, which has
changed the face of the world, softened manners, and

brought nations together in amity, enjoyed a better fate.

Immediately after the struggle she was able to appreciate
and appropriate the results of it; and at the very moment
at which she renounces her olii Eastern policy, she sees
that that policy does not die, that it is regenerated, and
that in civilising herself she triumphs !
What idea animated Peter the Great with respect to
Constantinople? An idea as generous and as holy as that
which conducted the King Saint Louis, Richard of End.