The Press.
London, England, 1854-02-18 00:00:00

SATURDAY,

opened the eyes of the Ministry as to the real cha-
racter of the Russian pretensions and the fragility of
their assurances of a pacific purpose long before that
conviction actually dawned upon their understand..
inv. The consequence of these errors he traced
through the subsequent transactions, showing how
they bore upon the conduct of the Czar, and the lane
guage of the British Ministers and Envoys, and to
what a serious result they had ultimately led. Ar-
guing that the Governtueut had totally mistaken the
way of obtaining their object--namely, peace—the
noble earl gave an outline of the principles on which
the controversy ought to have been conducted :
" They should have borne in mind that they had to deal
with a man of absolute power, a man of strong feelings, of
strong passions—a man who had an hereditary fixed idea
firmly impressed on his mind that it was decreed that
either he or his descendants should occupy Constantinople.
Having to deal with a man full of these feelings and this
prejudice, and of the most obstinately-determined char
meter, the English Government should have seen, at the
outset, that he was only to be deterred from his purpose by
having it distinctly manifested to him, in the most em-
phatic language mod manner, that dangers greater than
any glory or advantage he could hope to gain from his ob-
ject would inevitably befal him as the result of attempting
it. (Hear, hear.) They should have made him from the
very first distinctly understand that the existence of an
independent Sovereign at Constantinople was a political
necessity to England and to France, fully equal to that
which he might deem Russian possession of Constanti;
uople to be, and that England and France were resolute,
at all cost, to vindicate that necessity. (Hear.) Had it
been timely declared to the Autocrat that England and
France were resolute to defend the independence of Tur-
key with their last soldier and their last shilling, he would
then have comprehended the gravity of the undertaking he
had entered upon, when, without the least provocation, he
urged upon Turkey a belies of demands which no inde-
pendent sovereign could with dignity accept, and
which no independent nation should have heard of without
utter and open indignation. (Hear, hear.)"
Lord GLENELO believed that the Government bad
shown a good cause in the published documents. He
went on to delineate the fearful consequences of war,
but with regard to the war with Russia added a
warm exhortation to prosecute it vigorously, and
drew a cheerful horoscope of its probable fortunes.
Earl GREY considered that the radical fault of the
Government consisted in their having allowed the
country to be dragged into the quarrel at all.
There were precedents and pleas for a far more paci-
fic course than that which they had pursued. We
were arming to defend a phantasm ; for such had
the independence of Turkey been ever since the day
when Russian aid was invoked in order to protect
the l'orte against her rebellious vassal. The Otto-
man empire was a corpse which could never be re-
suscitated. While the conquerors declined, the con-
quered race, namely, the Greeks, increased and throve
amid their bondage. But though strong they were
still enslaved, and required protection. Drawing a
vivid picture of the oppressions inflicted on the
Greek Christians in Turkey, he inquired whether the
maintenance of the oppressors' domination was a
worthy object for our arms and sacrifices. The ap-
prehensions of danger from Russian aggression,
either in Europe or India, he considered utterly
futile. It would have been better if Turkey had ac-
cepted the ultimatum, as she must have done if not
sustained by promise of aid from the Western powers.
By giving that promise, war, which might have been
at least postponed, was rendered immediate and ine-
vitable, and the consequences, actual as regarded
Turkey and Russia, prospective with respect to the
rest of Europe, were most calamitous.
The Duke of AROYLL went over the narrative of
events from the beginning, compared the successive
events as they arose with the Ministerial decisions
formed concerning them, and argued that the policy
of the Government had been justifiable and prudent
throughout. He entered also into special defences
of the Vienna note and the Earl of Aberdeen.
The Earlof DERBY congratulated the Prime Minis-
ter on his finding one critic (Lord Grey) who believed
him to have been too warlike, while the country at
large censured him for timidity. He was ready to
admit that more might have been done to preserve
peace, but it should have been attempted by a very
different course from the one actually pursued.
Re-
marking upon the various definitions given by differ-
ent friends of the Government of our presentcon-
dition, he was forced to conclude that we were neithfr
in a state of war, nor of peace, nor of neutrality,
but drifting, and rapidly drifting, towards war.
Looking at the policy of the Government in relation
to their avowed purpose, and the circumstances with
which they had to deal, he described it as hesitating
and unsuccessful, and observed that Ministers had
been led away, no doubt with the best intentions, to
frustrate their own most strenuous efforts, In April
last year the Prime Minister bad assured them that
no disturbance was apprehended on the side of Tur-
key. That assurance was hazarded on the faith of
Russian assertions, and Lord Derby compared various
dates and documents to show how rashly it had been
given and how completely it was belied by the event.
So early as the 7th January the Government had