The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-08-11 00:00:00

THE DANUBIAN PRINCIPALITIES

The commissioners of the seven powers charged
with the re-organisation of the Principalities are
now assembling at Bucharest, much in the
character of ingenious political architects, who
attempt to raise a superstructure before they have
laid .a basis. The Austrian and Russian govern-
ments appear to have hit upon a most happy
scheme, directly calculated to nullify the labours
of the commissioners', and totally checkmate the
Treaty of Paris. Under a guise of the most vital
distrust, they seemed to have entered into an
arrangement marked by the most friendly confi-
dence. The institution of a liberal government in
Moldavia and Wallachia would be directly antago-
nistic, not only to their most cherished territorial
arrogations on the Danube, but to their fanatical
crusades against freedom on the confines of their
The commissioners, or the five more liberal
governments whom the five more liberal commis
sioners represent—now challenge the courts of
Vienna and St. Petersburg to give effect to their
promise of evacuation. The Austrian Government
appears to reply that so long as, in direct violation
of the Treaty of Paris, the Russians postpone the
cession of Southern Bessarabia, they must prolong
the occupation of the Principalities. The Western
Powers then turn to St. Petersburg; and they there
appear
mto be that so long as, in direct violation
~e ___. •

vi i.u,e ireaty ot Paris, the Austrians postpone the
evacuation of the Principalities, they must defer
the cession of Bessarabia. There is something
ludicrous in this reciprocity of causation ; it reminds
one of the resultless siege of Antwerp in 1809, in
which the martial ardour of the general was said
to have been held in check by the delay of the
admiral, and the impatient vehemence of the
admiral to have been neutralised by the unaccount
able procrastination of the general. The practical
result, at any rate, is that the Austrian and
Russian commanders, entertaining, no doubt, the
most diobolical suspicion of each other, rule in
placid tranquility on either side of the Pruth ; and
. .

ihe international commission, like it species of
political Mahomet's coffin, is suspended in the
air, midway between Bucharest and the clouds of
heaven. The blunder thus committed by the
negociators at Paris, in failing to fix
peremptorily a period beyond which the
military occupation should not be maintained, is
but the analogue of the original blunder which
introduced into the Principalities the forces of
Austria. It is obvious, from many concurrent
considerations, that an attempt to frame an organi-
sation for Moldavia and Wallachia during the
presence of the Austrian army, and for the ceded
territory of Bessarabia during the presence of the
Russian,-would be altogether abortive. The com-
missioners—according, at least, to theory of the
Treaty of Peace, do not proceed to the Wallaehian
capital with their own preconceived views of govern-
ment. The Sultan undertakes, by the terms of the

25th Art), to convoke a Divan in either Principality,
with the most liberal and comprehensive constitu-
tion, and the commissioners are charged with the
formation of a scheme of polity in consonance with
the opinions expressed by these Divans. Nothing,
therefore, can be more certain than that their
popular organisation, which is expressly set forth
as the groundwork of the whole policy of the
commission, would be totally defeated by the con•
tinuance of an Austrian military occupation. While
the commissioners sit at Bucharest under military
sufferance of the most despotic monarchy in
Europe, no will of theirs can stand for law. Those
who are acquainted with the policy" pursued by
Austria wherever her ptandard is planted, know
full well the manner in which she will tamper
with the representation which it is sought to
obtain through the instrumentality of the Divans.
The same observations apply to the occupation
of the ceded district of Bessarabia by the
Russians, and it is certain that any representation
cbtained during the dominance of either army,
will only secure the ascendancy of that odious and
rapacious oligarchy which the Treaty of Paris had
undertaken to depress and destroy. In a com-
mercial point of view, the Principalities possess
this enormous advantage over every other State
which trades upon the Danube, that their territory
lies immediately at its mouth ; while the acces
sion of the. ceded territory to the Moldavian
soil will add to that advantage an interest
in the sea-board of the Euxine. If it will
repay the Austrian empire to transmit her ex-
ports to the Black Sea through the' thousand
gyrations of that interminable river, how much
more remunerative will be the commerce of the.
Euxine to the two Principalities, with other facili-
ties at least equal in proportion ? Above all, be it
remembered that the results of the war have yet to
be determined ; and that their magnitude largely
rests in the political future of these States, which
must conform to the character of their organisa-
tion. And if the splendid opportunity which now
presents itself be seized, we shall have done much
in lands that have bowed beneath a traditionary
oppression to promote the cause of progress, and
to illustrate the name of England.

FRENCH LAW OP LrmrrATiorr.—Mr. Lamie Murray, an
English gentleman, obtained in London, in March 1839, a
loan of £l,OOO sterling from Dr. Elliotson,' and gave him a
bill for it. Subsequently Mr. Murray took up bin residence
in Paris, and he paid some portions of the amount, together
with interest on the whole snm up to Pl4B, since which
time he has paid nothing. On the Bth of June, 1855, a
French gentleman named 7osseaume notified to Mr. Murray
that the bill had been formally transferred to him by Dr.
Elliotson, and he obtained from one of the courts authorisa-
tion to make a provisional seizure of Mr. Murray's furni-
ture as a security for the payment. Mr. Murray took
proceedings to have the seizure set aside, and the tribunal,
that as the
after hearing what he and Josseaume had to say, decided
England,
rlebt owing by Murray had been contracted in
and
to an f
business, Englishman, and as the bill in question
had not been endorsed to Josseaume in the regular course
but transferred to hint long after it had become
he couy
ld
before a not, according to French law, proceed against
French court, and that, consequently,
,zure of the furniture was voia. M. Josseaume
appealed to the imperial Court against this decision, but
it was confirmed.

Mr. Mur'a