The Express.
London, England, 1853-08-25 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 25.

EVIDENCE to the effect that the Ottoman Govern-
ment has reluctantly consented to adopt the proposal
of the Great Powers, in its original form, has been
submitted to us, of a nature almost to eradicate our
scepticism. And in most quarters we hear a cond.,
dent expectation expressed that Russia will there-
upon evacuate the Danubian Provinces. We confess
that the language in which those expectations are
expressed is most frequently such as to inspire a
suspicion that the wish is father to the hope. Those
who use it have en awkward air of delicately hint-
ing to Russia what they are afraid to ask. Be
that, however, as it may, the utmost that Turkey
hnr to hope for is, the gaining of a brief breathing
time before the Muscovites renew their aggressions.

If the Emperor Nicitut. es survive, his character is
a guarantee that the aggrandisement of Russia at
the expense of the Porte will not for a moment be
'cot sight of. We entertain neither dislike of nor dis-
respect fur, the Emperor, though opposed to his
policy a l'outrance. We can make allowance for the
effect of po.it ion upon his mind. All who have seen
the CZAR arc unanimous as to the heroic mould in
which his frame is cast. He is a noble specimen of
the human animal, and he is endowed with great
powers of self•control, with sleepless activity and
perreveranc with talents above the average, and
with an ambition of a highly imaginative character.
His education was carefully attended to, and his
intellectual acquirements are of no common range or
order. But he has never heard any but the voice of
flattery ; he is at once ambitious of warlike glory
and success in Propagandism ; and he has at his
command a nation which, as we showed when last
we touched upon the Oriental question, is singularly
qualified to be an instrument in the hands of an
Imperial Nlatioamr, the majority of the lower
orders being grass fanatics—of the noblesse bankrupt
voluptuaries.
NICHOLAS will Hat lay aside his determination to
conquer Turkey, nor his people relinquish their
desire to be led to combat for the faith and for
plunder. And every step taken by Russia indicates
a pertinacious clinging to the scheme of extending
its sway to the south and west : the projected elec.
tric telegraph from St. Petersburg to the ports of the
Black Sea, the obstruction of the mouth of the
Danube, the fortification of the delta islands of that
river, and the construction of a bridge in front of

Ismail, the course pursued in Wallachia and Mol-
davia—all speak a language that cannot be mis-
understood.

It would therefore be the height of folly, even
should Russia recede from its present wanton aggres-
sion, to rest in the belief that the danger is over.
The consequences of the dismemberment of the
Ottoman Empire by the M Iscorites, and the means
for effecting this dismemberment upon which
Russia reliev, ought to be carefully scanned and
ana4sed, and kept ever before the public. The

motto of the Rams of Brudwardine--" Beware the
Bear"—is now a moat appropriate one for the whole
of Europe.

One of the agencies upon which the Russian Em-
peror appears most confidently to rely in carrying
out his 'chimes against Turkey is the Greek Church.
In this there is good reason to hope that he has
deceived himself. The Oreek Church is by unmans
the influential element in the society of the Otto-
man Empire that many have imagined. The dim
tinetion between the Greek race and the Greek
Church in Turkey must be steadily kept in view. The
latter embraces a great majority of the Christian
subjects of the Porte ; the former are an inconsi-
derable minority in respect of numben,aod generally
more inconsiderable still in respect of character and
influence.

Now, when we turn to the ruling hierarchy of the
Greek Church, we End neither its interests nor its
wishes arrayed in behalf of the Czaa. As subjects of
the Porte, this hierarchy rules its church without a
master. As subjects of Russia, they would be con-
verted into mere instruments of the CZAIre imperial
will. The CZAR and the beads of the Greek Church
stand to each other in much the same relatioa that the
Popes did to the old German Emperors. TheOutalL-
!Axes of Turkey have no wish to promote the ascend-
ancy of the Muscovite GUELPHS in that country.
But, turning next to the relations in which the high
dignitaries of the Greek Church in Turkey stand to
their fellow-believers throughout that empire, it is
. . _

far frourbeing one of such irresistible influence as has
been supposed. The ruling body in that church is a
close corporation of Greeks in Constantinople. They
elect their own colleagues in the capital, and they
arrogate the right of naming to all the high
ecelesiastical offices in the provinces. Compa-
ratively few Christians of the Greek ritual in the
provinces are Greeks; in the north they are for the
most part Sclavossians, in the south Arabs or other
Semitic tribes. The Greek prelates named in Con-
stantinople to preside over the provincial churches
scarcely ever understand the language of their
flocks, and are seldom resident. For example, in
Syria almost all the Christians of the Greek ritual
speak and understand only Arabic. But of their
dozen Bishops scarcely one can communicate with
his spiritual children in that tongue, and such of
them as do not remain in Constantinople
take up their residence in Jerusalem, and
rarely visit their sees. The hierarchy in Stam-
boul has little hold on the affections of those in
communion with it; on the contrary, it is regarded
as an intriguing, avaricious, close corporation. It
could do little to aid (even though it were willing—
whieh it is not) the Russian projects of conquest in
Turkey with the Christians of the Greek ritual; and
any overt set on its part of partisanship for Russia
would stir up all the other Christian communions in
Turkey to oppose it. They know right well that the
interference of the CZAR on the present and other oc-
casions is less to obtain security for Christians than
is obtain exclusive privileges for the Greek at the
expense of other Christian Churches.
It is clear, therefore, that the danger of the Porte
from the disaffection of its Christian subjects has
been much exaggerated. There are two very dif-
ferent dames in western Europe who have been in
the habit of regarding the Christian population in
Turkey as a lever by which Russia might work.
There are those who look merely to the fact that
in the northern provinces the Christians outnumber
the Moslem, and who infer from that fact active dis-
content at subjection to a Muesulman yoke. The
Christians of North Turkey are too well aware of the
character of the Austrian lull Russian Governments
to wish to change their masters. Again, there are
those who look to Russia as an instrument to pro-
mote Christianity in the territories now subject to
the Ottoman Government. It is a sad mistake to
imaiine that real Christianity would be promoted by
&maim conquest. The Porte has no interest in pre-

venting the enlightenment at.d moral elevation of
the Christian Churches within its dotAnioct4 and a
good deal his been donee: late years by missionaries
from Western Europe r.nd America, not to withdraw
the Christians of ":•urkey from their respective
churches, but to sow the seeds of a purer and more
vital Christianity in those churches. Were Russia
to obtain the &minion of Turkey, the Greek Church
would be frai.iwith converted into a mere instrument
of state ; all reforms within it would be zealously
I opposed, and all other churches would be directly or
indirectly persecuted.

ONE of the last questions asked in Parliament on
the last day of the session was about procuring a
due supply of guano. Colonel BLAIR inquired. of
Lord J. RUSSELL whether the Government was
attending to the recent discovery of more guano
islands. Lord J. RUSSELL promised serious atten-
tion on the part of the Government; and Colonel
BLAIR intimated that an increased supply was of
great consequence to the agriculture of Scotland.
Such an increased supply is of so much consequence
to every part of the kingdom, and it would be so
very easy to obtain all we want, that really there is
no other explanation of the existing deficiency than
that the Government is unaware of the facts of both
the demand and the practicable supply.
The frets are, that where manure is supplied to
the soil with a liberality amounting to daring, the
beneficial results are such as to astonish the experi-
menters. In the neighbourhood of a large town,
where the price of the town manure is ss. a ton, a
farmer finds it answer to apply 2,000 tons to IN
acres—an amount of manuring which would have
been called insanity half a century ago. We see
wheat lands yielding an increase of 11 bushels per
acre over and above former produce by an expendi-
ture of 30s. in guano and soot. We see four times
the old amount of stock fed on grasses which have
been dressed with guano in the proportion of

two-and•a-half or three cwts. to the acre. In
the dry southern parts of the country,
other manures may serve u well as guano,
or even better, unless there is a good apparatus for
artificial irrigation ; but in Scotland, as COI. BLAIR
suggests, and in the north of England, and wherever
the mists hang about the hills, or drive in from the
sea, and everywhere in showery Ireland, an abundant
supply of guano would be the greatest of blessings to
the producers, and of course to the consumers of food.
Now that the use of animal food is spreading abroad
and downwards in society, in proportion to the in-
creased power to purchase it; now that we are im-
porting live stock to such an amount that the sheep
alone outnumber the importations of all animals at
no distant date ; now that the value of the
butter trade is becoming understood, and the
cheese manufacture is largely on the increase, we
are not likely to be careless about the manure,
which will feed four times the amount of stock
that can be supported by the average tillage of the
soil. We want guano in quantities which cannot be
specifies:—nor perhaps imagined ; and we must have
it for less than the 91. per ton that we have to pay
for the Peruvian article.

Some little time since, when it appeared that last
year's importation of Peruvian guano fell very short
of that of the preceding year, there was a notion
that the farmers were getting displeased with it,
that the use of guano had been a mere fashion, a
temporary fancy, already repented of. The recep-
iltion now given to the news of fresh guano islands
I shows that this was an erroneous supposition. It is
true, some farmers had applied it too freely, without
the necessary correctives, to cereal crops, and found
they had too much straw and too little grain. It is
true that many were disheartened by the result of
experiments tried with an adulterated article—tempt-
ing them with the name of guano at 51. per ton or
less; and that the disrepute extended in many
minds to the use of the manure at all. But the main
cause of the decline in the importation—a decline of
more than one half—was a temporary one. The
requisite tonnage could not be had, owing to the ex-
traordinary demand of vessels for the Australian
trade. If the importation lessened, the stocks wets
sold cif under an accelerating demand ; and if there
were farmers who held back discouraged, there were
more who were eager to purchase, for last year's
sale of the best Peruvian guano exceeded that of the
preceding year by above 50,000 tons. If this is the
case with guano at the present price, what would
not the demand be if the supply and the traffic were
free? And why are they not so?
Now, let any one look at the map of the world, and
brush up his memory about the climate and inha-
bitancy of particular parts of it, and he will feel as-
sured that there must be plenty of guano to be had
if we sent out properly to seek for it. There must be
many islands in the wide oceans where birds come
and rain does not. As soon as this is pointed
unt, the thing wanted is found. In the Indian
Ocean, between Mauritius and Calcutta, there is an
island, forty times as large as Ichaboe, which is co-
vered deep with guano everywhere, some of which is
akesdy proved by chemical analysis to be equal to
that of Saldanba Bay, while there is reason to sup-
pose that what hall deeper is richer stilL A broad
hint is furnished by one incident of this discovery.
The greatest depth, and therefore the greatest rich-
ness, was found in caves and clefts of the rock. This
relieves us, apparently, from the grand condition that
the supplies must be looked for only in localities where
there is no rain. The idea of caves once suggested,
the search is guided to places where limestone rocks
are likely to be the undisturbed resort of birds; and
immediately the information is afforded us that
throughout the Indian Archipelago where the
edible bird's-nest of commerce is looked for—
that is, where there are caves inhabited by
that nest-building swallow—there are larger caves
where centuries of bats have been depositing guano
for our use, till it is found impossible at present to
penetrate the floor. We were recently favoured
with a letter from a correspondent, who had collected
notices of such deposits from a series of works on
the Indian Archipelago; and we can but hope that,
if the Government is really anxious to help us to
guano, its members have attended to the statements
of that letter. It is necessary to ascertain whether
the deposits described as existing in such vast quan-
tities in Burmah, Sumatra, Borneo, &ie., are as valua-
ble for manure as the treatment of them for nitrous
extract may authorise us to suppose. And it is
obvious that an interest so strong as this her become
should not be left to chance discovery. In the one
case before us, the captain sent a boat to the unknown
island for water; and the sailors, finding no water,
had the sense to tell him what they did find ; and
he chanced to have the knowledge which enabled him
to follow up the inquiry—by which we shall be
heartily glad if he makes his fortune. In the other
case, men go for birds' nests, and bring away the
soil to boil down with ashes to make saltpetre
—and it strikes a gentleman at Hampstead, who
reads of their doings, that a promise of guano lies
therein. We are thankful fur such chances; but
why should we depend on them when Government
has means of express exploration ready for use?
Among the great number of small vessels at the dis-1
posal of Government, why cannot half a dozen or so
be sent out on the search for guano islands ? With
a naval knowledge of physical geography, such as
would guide their search, we have little doubt they
would each find one in a trice. If the Americana had
the same need of manure that we have, they would