The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-02-05 00:00:00

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1856

IF the Peace Conference about to be held at
Paris should really lead to the restoration of the
peace of Europe, it will be the result of some
aggravated necessity. Russia has not only failed
in her attempts to secure the objects for which she
went to war, but, it is said, she will be compelled to
concede terms and abandon pretensions which will

prove to the wo

I that a two years' contest has

exhausted all her agg

Absolute rulers find, that they have to
contend with the same circumstantial and physical

essive, if not her defensive

resource

difficulties which beset Constitutional mon-
archs. They know that in these days the com-
mand of great numerical strength goes for little or
nothing where they have not an exchequer, and
all the other artificial means of supply, organised

on a scale commensurate with the magnitude of
the exploits in which they embark. A great

injustice, a mighty invasion, or a monstrous
cruelty cannot be perpetrated in our times by
savages or semi-barbarians, in the absence of
those aids which civilisation has introduced.
Hundreds of thousands of men cannot traverse
frozen plains and snow-capped mountains without
food and raiment ; and an army cannot take
up and hold a position in the face of
an enemy, unless they be well supplied
with more than the ordinary necessaries of life.
The fate of our army of 1854. is a warning to all
nations on this head. With all our wealth, manu-

factoring, and maritime appliances, our army
perished on the heights before Sebastopol. Our
military chests were full to overflowing, and the
whole nation contributed willingly for the comfort
of their country's gallant defenders, but all to no
purpose. The wants of so vast a host were not
calculated before they embarked in the invasion of
an enemy's territory; and the first oversight was
found to be irreparable. That perfect naval and
military organisation which enabled England to
carry on mighty wars in India and China, and to
afford protection to her subjects and commerce
throughout the world, failed us in the Crimean
expedition, and we lost the noblest army that ever
took the field in moments of victory which can

never be forgotten.

Has Russia escaped these salutary lessons, and
woeful rebukes ? Has not the same amount of
melancholy vicissitudes and experience fallen to
her lot? She must have discovered that the
organisation which answers the purpose of a
military despotism is suited to nothing more than
the duties of police ; and that in war the length of a
march, and the occupation of a position in the face
of a comparatively weak belligerent, are quite a dif-
ferent thing to removing an army from garrison to
garrison, or supporting a few temporary camps
which break up after a short series of reviews and
sham fights. If we could persuade ourselves that
Russia has arrived at these wholesome convictions,
and that the Emperor ALIMAIsIDIJI is not as mad
as were his predecessors, from Pwrza clown to
NICHOLAS, we should place great reliance on the
promised pacific issue of the coming negotiations.
But, as it is, our misgivings with regard to the
Autocrat's sincerity increase when we consider
the political phases of the present struggle. St.
Petersburg has been for three-quarters of a

nastic sympathies
century the depository of dy
and the focus of Court intrigue. Europe has seen
the extraordinary duration and cost of those wars in
whichßussiahas identified herself with the dynastic
policy of the West. The Czar -NICHOLAS doubtless
relied on, counter-movements in France, and
popular agitation in England, to favour his views
in the present war, and he must have placed

twofold confidence in this direction when he

ventured to continue the contest against the united
strength of France and England. In these hopes
both NICHOLAS and ALEXANDER have, fortunately,
been most signally foiled. The alliance of the two

great Western Powers appears to have been a
that was required to secure the peace of the
Continent. Russian statesmen have long since
discovered this; and though they may profess to be
willing to consent to peace on the terms proposed
by Austria, we cannot believe that the Muscovite
nobles and people will at once abandon their fixed
determination to subjugate Turkey, and to carry
entirety, the long cherished
lesigns of their rulers. With the restoration of
peace, each European state will revert to its former
position and policy, and a thousand different cir-
cumstances may transpire within even a year or
two, to render the renewal of the western alliance
impossible,

Out, in their