The Press.
London, England, 1854-04-01 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

was one that would not be trifling, and the country
must be prepared to find that for years it might make
but little progress. He adverted at length to the
consequences to Europe of Russian domination over
Turkey. There was no hope for the liberties of
Europe till the one was entirely independent of the
other. Referring to the secret papers, he could not
see in them any deception on the part of Russia.
He believed that nothing that had occurred would
_ _

have taken place if Lord Aberdeen had not been at
the head of the Government. The memorandum
of 1844 referred to other communications. Where
.

were they? The late Ministry had not been in office
forty-eight hours before Baron Brunow called their
attention to the memorandum, to which he
never referred afterwards; but when the noble
earl succeeded to the Government the Czar, recol-
lecting this memorandum, in which he had been co
directly consulted, and taking advantage of the state
of Europe, brought forward his claims. It had been
argued at the date of that memorandum that, if any-
thing happened to Turkey, Russia and England were
to agree in its distribution. Austria, it was said,
would not venture to oppose Russia; and France,
isolated, would offer no resistance. These designs
were offered—unblushingly offered—to England by
Russia. Under these circumstances the Czar had
more reason to say that he had been misled, that the
British Government not only by previous occurrences,
but by the very tenor of the conversation debated in
the last despatches, and from which Lord Derby
showed that the Ministers, while disclaiming
all participation in the partition of Turkey,
had virtually admitted the right of the Czar to the
very protectorate which he claimed, and against
which we were now taking up arms. He believed
the Czar to be persuaded that he had been entirely
frank with the British Government. He passed a
warm eulogium on the conduct of France and the
extraordinary man who had rescued her from anarchy,
and said that where we might have had most to fear
we now received the most efficient assistance. He
could not forget that last year, in the very presence
of war, a budget was brought forward and applauded
which crippled the resources of the country—which
promised the abolition of the income tax, and this in
spite of warnings from within and from without.
He tben referred to the inadequacy of the means
proposed to meet the war—with a large source of in-
come cut off—the revenue anticipated ; and with all
this it was expected that the expenses of war were to
be met out of our yearly receipts, an expectation
utterly and absurdly impossible, unless, indeed, it
were done by a depreciated currency. An undue
economy would expose the country to greater danger
than it bad ever experienced. There must be no
paltering about a few hundred thousands ; the appeal
to the country must be, not to its enthusiasm, but to
its perseverance. He thought that the time was
come when we ought to be more fully informed of the
exact terms of our understanding with our allies, and
concluded by trusting that, as this was one of the
most just wars in which England bad ever been
engaged, so he hoped it would be the most suc-
cessful.
Lord ABERDEEN complained that private expres-
sions of friendship of the Czar had been construed
into an attack against himself. Lord Derby had
himself had his own compliments—on his accession
to office he had been congratulated by Austria—by
the only minister hostile to England—and had re-
turned a warm letter of thanks for the favour. The
note of 1844 was drawn up in real expectation of a
crisis in Turkey—it had been approved by the Duke
of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel—and was so
little distasteful to France that be bad himself
communicated it to the ambassador, who had ex
pressed no uneasiness. For the attacks on himself
he had read those before in a paper—it seemed more
in favour with his opponents than the Times—he
meant the PRESS. He read at length a leading anti•
de from that paper on the subject of the memo
randum, admittting the greater part of the personal
allegations against himself, of which, he said, he
felt proud. For the war itself its only legitimate ob-
ject was that of peace—peace had ever been upper-
most in his thoughts—but he had not neglected the
means for carrying on the war with dignity.
Lord MALMESBURY reprobated the light tone taken
by the head of the Government. Instead of taking
a statesmanlike view of the question, the head of the
Government amused the house by quoting extracts
from a weekly newspaper, which he could only
understand by supposing that the Prime Minister
had been paid by the editor to puff his periodical.
He then discussed the correspondence and the
memorandum at some length, repeating that Lord
Aberdeen was nidentitled with it, and showing the
importance attached to it by the Russian Govern•
ment.
Lord GRANVILLE remarked that the identity of
view between the speech of Lord Derby and of the
article in question warranted the suspicion of a
connection between them.
Lord BROUGHAM remarked that it was necessary
to prevent popular delusion and disappointment as

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