The Express.
London, England, 1853-08-17 00:00:00

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LOYDO.%, WBDNESDAY, AUGUST 17.

WELL: Lord Joffe Itesseu., as we announced
yesterday, li is said his say about the Eastern
question. Dore are few by whom his statement
will be read, a- there were few (if any) by whom it
was heard, w.th tut disappointment and regret. Not
a single fat of {mat or small importance was added
to the stock ut information which we already pos-
sessed on a motives which has engrossed for months
the generous sympathy and thoughtful solicitude of
the country, awl the effects of which have already
made themselves felt in every mart of industry and in
every sphere of productive labour. The Govern-
ment leader is the House of Commons excuses
himself fur the perfunctory manner in which he
must have been conscious that he performed his
task by a reference to ono or two precedents of
doubtful applicability, and by the reiteration of the
vague and cv isive stock phrase that as negotiations
were still pending, it would be injurious to afford Par-
liament any at-curate information as to their progress.
But almost every subsequent speaker who addressed
the House during the discussion took carp to remind
the noble Lord that for every precedent of the kind
he had towel there were many more the other way ;
and all concurred in specifically or inferentially ex-
pressing their Is lief that, in a couutry governed like
ours by public opinion, this system of mystification
scd siltnee could produce no other result than that
of damaging the national influence abroad and respect
for Government at home.
We gather from the meagre statement of Lord
JODY IiU,SELL but one fact of any importance, and
that is unhappily one of gloomy and grave signifi-
Caney. It is now no longer doubtful that the note
forwarded by the Austrian Government to St. Pe-
tersburg on the 2nd inst.,—the adhesion to which
on the part of the CZAR his been greedily accepted
by the partisans of despotism everywhere throughout
Europe as the baste of an immediate and satisfactory
settlement—it is now, see say, unhappily but too
clear that this note makes no m-ntion whatever of
the invasion of the Danubian Principalities, and no
demand for their evacuation. In point of fact,
the note in question was framed, not at
Vienna, but at Paris ; not by M. BUOL
but by M. DitotAN DE LIWTB before the Russian
columns had crossed the Pruth. As a mode of ac-
commodating by diplomatic forms the differences
which had diplomatically arisen between Russia and
Turkey, it tray have been wisely and well contrived;
nor will any one object that, as far as its scope and
purport are concerned, it should have been adopted
by Ans:ria and Prussia as well as by France and
England. But it is worse than trifling to pretend
that the Porte can assent to such a note with no
greater sacrifice of dignity, honour, and safety, now
that its enemy is in open and insolent possession of
its fairest provinces, than she might have done two
months ago, when her frontier was still inviolate.
What would have been friendly and sagacious counsel
on the part of her allies early in June, and wise mo-
deration on her .own part at the period and under
the circumstances in question, assumes a very different
aspect when proposed in the altered condition of
things we now behold. The SULTAN had not then
been outraged by a perfidious foe, the revenues of hie
provinces publicly entreated, and his viceroys pro-
hibited from rendering him the customary acts of
allegiance. If without noticing these intolerable
wrongs, or stipulating in any way for their repara-
tion, the Ministers of the SCLTAN shall advise their
master to succumb to the invader by accept-
ing this much vaunted note recommended
by the Four Powers, it will only be be•
cause they have learned to despair of BM
support on which they were taught to rely by the
representatives of England and of France. To use
the words of Mr. LATARD, Russia will have wane
plished all she wanted, and accomplished it in the
way most injurious to Turkey and most humiliating
to Europe. Had Turkey yielded to the diplomatic
TOSISSOIS of Prince MENCHIKOYF, the Divan and the
Foreign Embassies at Constantinople and some few
wealthy and intelligent persons, would have known
(Aber submission, and deplored the hardships inci-
dent to her anomalous state. But in the eyes of the
UM of her people, the diadem of her Sovereign
would not have been publicly trampled in
the dust ; her resources would not have been
squandered in gigantic preparations for armed
defence ; and, above all, the confidence, faith,
sad courage of the nation would not have been
fanned into flame and then irremediably quenched.
Infinitely better for Turkey, infinitely more honour-
able foe us, would it have been had she been told
honestly and frankly that she most fight unaided or
submit betimes to the overpowering and over-reach-
ing might of Russia. As it is, all that our Ministers
are prepared to tell Parliament and the public
amounts to this, that having tried to out-bluster the
Muscovite he laughed in their face, and told them be
did not believe they were in earnest; whereupon
they quietly turned round and bid Turkey get out of
the scrape as beet she may.
Lord Joax Russet'. told the House of Commons,
it is true, that the evacuation of the Principalities
mast be considered essential to any final settlement ;
and Mr. LATARD, as well as other speakers, appeared
to share in his Lordship's confident anticipation that
that event woald not be long delayed. For our-
selves we confess our inability to see the grounds of
such sanguine expectations. But, assuming the ac.
curacy of the prognostics adverted to, the serious
question still remains—what will the effect of the
entire of thee, transactions be upon the fate of
Turkey ? We cannot concur in any of the views
propounded by Mr. COBDEN in the course of his
extraordinary speech on this subject. We do
not think it is the duty or the intermit
of this country to concur in a crusade
to drive the Turks out of Europe, either
because they are Mahomedans or because their
Sovereign has not the same taste for road
making, or for architecture, that distinguishes the
Cossack King. The policy of the Porte has, year
after year, become more liberal in religion and in
trade, while that of St. Petersburg hem grown more
and more cruel towards every species of dissent, and
more and more prohibitive towards every branch of
British manufacture. We profess no special admi-
retina of the tenets of Islamism, or of the defects
which still retard the progress in material prosperity
of the Ottoman race. But be their faults or errors what
they may, they are ancient allies, of whom we have
nationally nothing to complain, and free
whom the rest of Europe has nothing to fear,
Rums, on the contrary, is the common enemy of
political, commercial, and religious freedom ; and
every province she is allowed to annex, every inter
pendent state she is permitted to insult and humblet
is a loss and a shams to the civilised world. Leal
PALMERSTON'S reply to Mr. CORM'S was