The Sun.
London, England, 1855-05-30 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 1855.

States, like individuals, can never act vigor.
ously without a well-marked policy. An ackiaow,
ledged principle to which everything can be
referred is the grand condition of success. The
misfortunes of the last campaign, and the long-
continued inefficiency of the present one, were for
the most part due to the want of singleness of
conception and of purpose. Russia has not been
proclaimed by the diplomatic world to be what
she is. Her character was indeed but toe well
known, the guilt of her deeds was understood,
but our public men were infatuated by her pie-
tensions, and to a great extent are so still.
Russia has been treated with respect, her honour
has been talked of and consulted, her territories
have been declared inviolable, she has been ad-
mitteel to negotiate as if the equal political
character of the Allies ; she has never once been
told plainly what she is, and dealt with as what
she is. All this has been more than mere diplo-
matic form—that were bad enough—but the dip-
lomatists have really endeavoured to deal with
her as a civilised, a respectable, and an honest
power. This diplomatic temper and diplomatic
language has stultified our proceedings from first
to last—from the first shameless bullying of the
SULTAN by MENSCHIKOFF, and the passage of the
Prnth, to the hour when the telegraph sent word
to the Crimea that the English people, and even
the House of Commons, were determined to brook
a semi-Russianising policy no longer.
We lay it down as an axiom, that the War
against Russia is War against a thrice-convicted
and irreclaimable villain. All the talked-of pres-
tige of NICHOLAS was a prestige with despots,
and the wilfully blind only. He was a villain
towards Hungary, a villain of the most cruel
character towards Poland in 1830 ; a gross vio-
lator of the treaty of Vienna, in incorporating
Poland, in handing over Cracow to Austria, and
in stopping up the navigation of the Danube with
mud and quarantine. These are villanies of re-
cent date. We need not recall the legacy of a
villain's policy bequeathed to Russia by PETER
the Great, and most faithfully adhered to by every
passionate or polite CZA.R and every lewd CZARINA
who has wielded the Russian sceptre since PETER'S
death. The results proclaim her crimes. Almost

all Germany married, bought, or intimidated on
the one hand ; and, on the other, her vast border
of stolen territories ; and all of these, again, not
employed to increase her wealth and trade, but
studded even as far as Kamschatka with forts of
first-rate strength, and arsenals for the conquest
of half a world. Instead of commercial towns
springing up in every fresh acquisition, as is the
cise with new territories belonging to America
and England, ,we find nothing but Sebastopols,
Nicolaieffs, Bomarsunds, and Cronstadts ; and, in
Poland, Lord Jonx RUSSELL himself tells us of
X or seven fortresses, each equal in strength to
Belle'd4Pol l All this done, too, with the utmost
possible
seer
about esy. Now, no dile but a villain goes
about time of
by
sea
or
by
.peacea armed to the teeth, whether
; a villain
anidthenowneealthhuotf
Monarch would absorb
domi-
nions in accumulating to
the the munitions a war. Th an unheard-of extent
recent crime against
Turkey was but the hundredth crime of a
capture. political
highwayman, armed against
ipersecle
Russia If plain common sense, then, could supersede
the cant of diplomacy, fromwould the
beginning have been proclaimed a criminal, and
what th
dealt with accordingly. It is impossible to doubt
No
how we should then have pceeded, and
results would have been. one fl of e
listing with an armed burglar, or of consulting-1
Lis. amour propre, and all that sort of ineffable
31°1111eme, to borrow a word from Lord PALMER-
=mi. The only object aimed at is to secure his
Pers°7; to make over the stolen property
to the rightful
owner, and above all to put
it out
of his power to garotte or
injure his unoffending neighbour again. How
would a policeman laugh at the persons who bid