Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-08-14 00:00:00

FRANCE.

PARIS, Atm 11.

It is stated in official quarters that the difference in
the Moldo—Wallachian question has been so far settled
during the Emperor's s ;journ at Osborne as not to re-
quire any further action on the part of a conference. A
conference, in the formal sense of the word, may be un-
necessary, but any future difficulty will be settled by the
resident representatives of the powers who formed part
of the congress that signed the treaty of peace with Russia.
The congress or conference, is still presumed to be in
existence, and will not be dissolved before the final or-
ganisation of the Principalities. The representatives of
the powers so nervously alive to the purity of elections
in general, who, doubtless cn moral grounds, demand the
annulling of those of Moldavia, and who, from their,,de-
mand not being complied with, were preparing to pack
up and leave the Sultan to his fate, had not quitted.Con-
stantinople on Tuesday last. It is presumed, on good
grounds, that they have already received tidings of what
passed at Osborne, and' that they will now remain at
their post. Of course Lord Stratford de Redefine, the
bugbear of French Foreign-office, is an exception.
M. de Redcliffe," as the Ministerial journals term the
irascible diplomatist, is to come home on leave of absence
—this is on the authority of the Pays. Of M. Thouvenel
nothing very particular is sale. Despatches have
also been received from M. de Bourquency at
Vienna, announcing that Count Buol had ietimated that
the Austrian Government is at present disposed to an
arrangement on the subject of the Moldavian question.
Where all parties are so conciliatory there is no possibility
of dispute. " When people do agree 'on the stage their
unanimity is wonderful." Without being over sensitive,
or attaching undue importance to what are vulgarly
termed " coups d'epinyle," it would be just as well if the
Foreign-office gave a slight reprimand to the emptoyes who
make
,up the article for the Constitutionnet.. That
independent journal says, in its "leader" of to day, on the
settlement of the Moldavian quarrel :
" In a country (Englani) which so highly respects law
and justice, public opinion would not have allowed the
Government to act otherwise in a matter of this kind.
England, moreover, stands too much in need of its union
withYrance in the East not to-ncake to her ally, in case of
need, a concession supported by equity as well as
policy."
Both England and France would, I doubt not, make
concessions, consistent with ho .our, in order to maintain
the alliance which, happily for • all- Europe, now exists
between them; but the motive hinted at by the person
who mixed up this day's dose in the Ministerial journal is
absurd and unnecessary.
In the Paris press the paper that discusses English
questions with the greatest fairness, temper, and judgment,
is unquestionably the Republican Siecle. In Its' criticisms
there is no rancour, no petty spite ; and in its censure,
when it thinks proper to employ censure, it speaks of
England as a great and free nation ought to be spoken of.
Our institutions, though monarchial, are discussed by the
Republican organ with impartiality. Our prejudices and
our faults are tenderly dealt with, and our virtues frankly
done justice to. One of the editors of the Siecle, M. H
La Marche, whose remarkable articles on foreign policy
during the Russian war were much admired, has pub-
lished a work entitled L'Eerope et la Russie, in which the
exce:lent qualities I have just alluded to appear in every
page. M. La Marche is a veteran Of the empire, and a
thorough Frenchman, but his predilections for his own
country have not prevented him from doing justice to
those whom he met as a foe in times now, happily, gone
by—and gone by, it is to be hoped, for ever.