The Press.
London, England, 1856-03-08 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1856.

ANOTHER step, and a considerable one, has
been made towards the conclusion of peace.
But it still suits the purposes of our Ministry
to surround the negotiation with mystery, and
to affect doubt as to its progress. The
artifice is becoming too transparent to de-
ceive any one.

On Monday a statement was published that
Preliminaries of Peace had been signed by the
members of the Conference at Paris. In the
House of Commons that evening, Mr. DISRAELI
asked Lord PALMERSTON whether the state-
ment was correct. To this very simple ques-
tion the Premier avoided returning a direct
answer. He endeavoured to confuse the point
by a relation of all that had occurred since
the commencement of the negotiation, spoke
of the " Protocol of Vienna, and the Protocol of
" the first meeting at Paris, in which the pre-
" vious Protocol was inserted as part of the
" day's proceedings," and altogether managed to
give the impression that the Conference went
on without making progress, and that the
signature of the Preliminaries of Peace was in
reality nothing more than a recognition of
what had taken place at Vienna some weeks
previously.
When, asked Mr. DISRAELI, was the Pre-
liminary Treaty signed? Here is the answer
of Lord PALMERSTON :

It was last week. I forget the exact day. Very recently.
This is as much as to say that the transac-
tion was of no kind of consequence. It was
a mere formal proceeding, not worth special
attention. It might have taken place on the
day when the Conference first met (Monday).
or the day when it last met (Saturday). " Last
week" was near enough.
In opposition to his Lordship, we think it
of some importance that the exact day should
be known. The Preliminary Treaty was signed
on Saturday last. That fact must have been
perfectly well known to the Premier. Why,
then, did he seek to conceal it' The reason
is obvious.

When the Conference met on Monday the
Protocol of Vienna. embodying the proposi-
tions accepted by Russia, was recorded, and
an armistice was agreed to.
The Conference met next on Thursday, and
again on Saturday, when a Preliminary Treaty
was signed. Lord PALNIERSTON was perfectly
well aware that, in the interval between re-
cording the Vienna Protocol and the signature
of the Preliminary Treaty, the Propositions on
which a definitive Treaty is to be founded
.were discussed ; that points on which Luis-
ierstanding might arise were explained
and settled ; and that agreement was come to
as to the interpretation which the several
articles should bear. When all chance of
future misunderstanding was thus, as far as
possible, precluded, then—and not till then—
the articles accepted by Russia were formed
into a Preliminary Treaty and signed. The

protocol of Vienna and the Preliminary Treaty
—which it pleases Lord PALMERSTON to con-
found together—differed therefore from each
other in this essential particular :—that the
latter was not concluded until the former had
been discussed, explained, and the interpreta-
tion which should be put upon every point
susceptible of doubt, had been defined and
agreed to.
By this procedure the doubts which, pre-
vious to the meeting of the Conference, ex-
isted as to the opposite constructions which
might be put upon the several articles by the
Plenipotentiaries have been removed. It was
doubted, for instance, whether Russia had
been made fully aware of the reserved con-
ditions which the Allies, in the fifth article,
stipulated they should have a right to bring
forward. It was doubted whether a grave
difference might not arise as to the manner
in which Nicolaieff should be dealt with. It
was doubted whether serious complications
might not arise concerning the future state of
the Asiatic frontier. Well, those questions have
been discussed, and all difficulties have been
removed. The Plenipotentiaries, after three
days of unreserved personal communication,
came to a complete understanding as to the
fundamental conditions of peace. Is not a
Preliminary Treaty, concluded under those
circumstances, a matter of some importance ?
Ought not our Premier on the first day of this
week to have known the particular day in last
week when this important document was
signed ?
If we contrast the proceedings at the Paris
Conference with those at the Vienna Confer.
ence a year ago, we see more clearly the im-
portance to be attached to this Preliminary
Treaty. Last year, Russia accepted the four
points as a basis of negotiation ; the Plenipo-
tentiaries met to discuss those points, but
were unable to agree on their interpretation,
and the negotiation was broken off. In the
present instance, the Plenipotentiaries have
met, they have come to an understanding as to
the sense in which the articles shall be under-
stood, and they have taken a step which
authorises, and must immediately lead to, the
draft of a definitive Treaty being drawn up.
Is it likely that, having settled the funda-
mental conditions of Peace, there will be any
serious difficulty as to the words in which such
conditions are to be expressed ? Men who
are thoroughly agreed on the terms of a con-
tract, do not fly off on the manner of its
expression. There is a Lind of equity in
diplomacy as in law. Means are easily de-
vised for giving effect' to intentions ; and,
happily, contracts of agreement are, of all
sorts of contracts, those which are most easily
arranged.
The drift of Lord PALMERSTON'S answer is
discovered without difficulty; but what is the
motive of his drift? What can be his object
in attempting to create an impression that
thus far the proceedings of the Conference
have been merely of a formal nature ? If the
Conference had been sitting for a twelve-
month, his " very lately" would be intelligible;
but, considering the gravity of the occasion,
and the momentous nature of the question at
issue, his affectation of supercilious indiffer-
ence can only give an impression that he has
personally very little to do with the negotia-
tion, and that he still clings to the hope that
some accident will arise to break it off, and to
necessitate a resumption of the War.

THE FIRST LAW OFFICER OF IRELAND,
FOR several years past the influence of the
Irish Malcontents over the British Cabinet
has been a source of anxiety in our affairs.
Causes, apparently slight, produce prodigious
effects. A taint comes in the atmosphere,
and a population perishes from an epidemic ;
a plank starts, and the three-decker founders ;
a lit tle fibre snaps, and a giant is paralysed.
It is thus with the ruins of empires. States
debilitate as much from the virus of petty fac-
tions as from the ascendancy of overgrown
corruption. The disorganisinv influence of
the Irish Malcontents illustrates that truth.

But it is a cheering feature in English
society that when an evil is distinctly seen the
energy of the national mind applies itself to
an appropriate cure. The public are now
startled into attention at the means by which
a corrupt knot of Irish adventurers organised
such gigantic frauds and grasped such official
power. The commercial aspects of the case
belong to the economist ; but the credit of her
Majesty's service, and the future purity of the
ermine, are involved, also, on this occasion.
In the repulsive story of the Sadleirites and
their allies there is nothing so remarkable as
the signal manner in which chastisement has
overtaken them. They prospered for a time,
and they thought that the political knavery of
some, the joint-stock swindling of others,
and the infamous audacity of all, would never
stand revealed. While they were elated at
their successful schemes, others were dis-
mayed at their sudden prosperity. When
SADLEIR was made a patronage Lord of the
Treasury, and EDMUND O'FLAHERTY gazetted to
be an Income tax Commissioner, and Mr.
WILLIAM KEOGH nominated Solicitor-General,
a deceased Member of Parliament exclaimed,
"Is GOD'S Providence] superseded in Ire-
" land ?"

But if the questioner had lived till now, he
would have seen a sublime instance of myste-
rious retribution. There are astounding inci-
dents in the last act of the Sadleirite drama
which may well make the guilty quail and
rouse the apathetic. The doom of a Greek
tragedy is not more critically perfect than the
wonderful shaping of events in the few days
before the forger poisoned himself on Hama-
stead-heath. The suicide of Sadleir, and the
scandalous attack on the Irish Judicature,
were nearly simultaneous ! If Baron PENNS-
FATHER had been hunted from the Bench,
Mr. WILLIAM KEOGH would "by routine "
have succeeded. If the detection of SAnotia
could only have stood adjourned for two
or three months, things might have been
made pleasant for a judicial aspirant! Or
even when SADLEIR, two years since, used the
forged conveyance for the first time, if he had
been detected then, -hide Shelley motion
pending, mat
dated. Bin
auxiliary gen,
submit to con,
We rejoice,
was made.
The Conservati.
has a great
to these
House of
Lori WEN!
PARKE had
House of

k; : '•
h* 4

•ted then, while no Shelley motion was
tatters might have been accommo-
at now, as by pre-ordained - • • the
eneral of SADLEIR.' • .
condign scrutiny o .
, therefore, that thotal
Iservative party, a •
eat duty to disch&g
Malcontents On Irr`4 '
Peers lately objet
ILEYDALE s peerags.
I taken his seat, flue -t33/147.11.
Lords would have been, 7".• at

1

218

the future mercy of the Crown, or the caprice
of its advisers. So, in dealing with the un-
scrupulous deeds of the Irish mercenary Mal-
contents, a case must be selected, and a stand
made, for future example, and for the cause of
public principle. "The Dutchman hunts a rat
in a dyke, lest he should good a province."
As Parliament, also, according to Lord PAL-
3IERSTON and Sir GEORGE GREY, has a Consti-
tutional right to inquire into the conduct of
the Queen's Judges, we shall not be usurping
any prerogative in directing notice to the
public life and political defalcations of Mr.
WILLIAM KEOGH. We have a legal right to do
so, so long as we deal with proved and patent
t'icts. Her Majesty's Attorney-General (we blush
to write it) was a leading chief of the execrable
Brass Band. The swindler SADLEIR, the forger
G.FLAHERTY, and Mr. WILLIAM KEOGH, were
" friends in council," and their dialogues no
doubt were most edifying. An inquiry into the
public conduct of an Trish Attorney-General,
lawful at all times, is peculiarly seasonable
now.

The history of Mr. WILLIAM KEOGH'S tor-
tuous life would fill volumes. He began with
a vehement panegyric on DANIEL O'CONNELL !*
Though a " Catholic " in profession, he then
became a " Conservative," and crawled at the
heels of the Tory Ministry which crushed and
imprisoned O'CONNELL. He wrote " Ireland
under Lord De Grey," in which he mocked
the Whigs, and scouted the priests. Yet in
five years afterwards the man, who was anti-
priest and anti-O'Connellite in 1845, put him-
self at the head of the Brass Band of the Pope
in 1831!

He had been only seven years at the Bar
when he got into Parliament, in 1847. He en-
tered as " a Conservative," but he seemed to
attach himself particularly to " my dear Duke
of Newcastle,' and Sir JAMES GRAHAM. He was
set down as " a Peelite," but it was significant
that when the present Premier was ill a scrape,
and when the Peelites on the Pacifico debate
closed up with the Conservatives, Mr. WILLIAM
KEOGH left the Peelites and voted for Lord
Palmerston. He then passed for a " loose
fish," and some colonial office, it was
thought, would have hooked him.
The " Durham Letter" came, and no de-
monstration was made in Ireland by Mr.
WILLIAM KEOGH until the Peelites took up
their ground, when again he became a Peelite
in England, and a Tenant Leaguer in Ire-
land ! The author of " Ireland under Lord De
Grey " joined the confederacy of priestly and
Presbyterian agitators. Her Majesty's present
Attorney-General then worked in harness with
LUCAS and DeFrt, and the clerical declaimers !
Yet it appears that even in 1850 this "right
honourable " ambiguity continued to hold
himself forth as a member of the Carlton
Club. His meanderings, however, could
only he described on paper by Mr. WYLD'S
ingenious arts of hydrography. They are
almost as puzzling as the clue to Rosa-
mond's Bower at Hampton Court.
It is a most remarkable fact that there is
scarcely any political connection which he has
not joined and then deserted. He com-
menced an O'Connellite panegyrist. and ended
—Sadleirite. He has been against the Pope
and priests, and for the Pope and priests. He
has been " Conservative " and " Liberal,"
" Peelite and non-Peelite," and he is now a
Whig. To one connection only did he adhere.
In Parliamentary Sadleirism Mr. WILLIAM
KEOGH was " thorough."
There is one remarkable fact, touched on last
week, which requires elucidation.
No act in Mr. WILLIAM KEOGH'S public
career is more perfectly characteristic
than his desertion of the Peelites, when
the mismanagement of the war put them
under cloud. Many of them had opened

under a cloud. Many of them had opened
the rses for him, ostensibly on the plea of
setibt fuer his election expenses at the
..'
,11r. ; • .ugli4f Athlone. They had done so
~.
i ,-
.1„ii.,.. •, -. iii.tr.:: tec on the authority of Sir George Grey. In
. . :, r. W. Keogh assailed the administration
j 7-7- -•~3 . utAti Jury-packing. The debate turned on
, 0 • .1" 'to ' . tha, accuser. and it appears that even then
P. , 4. .teliptoken from many quarters against Mr.
"'I.-Its "rs• k oeedipiun Sir ti Grey said that "the member
''-;, '
600 • 'Mother member of the subsequent Brass
....t ly well m Itched," and he treated the house
'"C•'. .eel of Mr. Keogh, enthusiastically praising
1 s. ' •IT 4119•Calom he enlist A afterwards! All the other
...uts lisr "this article can be supported by references too
pso *x fdlrinewspaper.