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 acknow-
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 too well
known, the guilt of her deeds was understood,
but our public men were infatuated by her pre-
tensions, and to a great extent are so still.
Russia has been treated with respect, her honour
has bees talked of and consulted, her territories
have been declared inviolable, she has been ad-
mitted to negotiate as if the equal in 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
Prath, 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 CZAR 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 Kau. ' -11:1 with forts of
first-rate strength, and arses— the conquest
of half a world. Instead of commercial towns
springing up in every fresh acquisition, as is the
case with new territories belonging to America
and England, we find nothing but Sebastopols,
Nioolaieffs, Bomarsunds, and Cronstadts ; and, in

Poland,-Lord JOHN RUSSELL himself tells us of
84 Or seven fortresses, each equal in strength to
Sebastopol! All this done, too, with the utmost
possible secrecy. Now, no one but a villain goes
about in time of peace armed to the teeth, whether
by sea or by land ; and none but a villain
Monarch would'alasorb all the wealth of his domi-
nions in accumulating to an unheard-of extent
the munitions of war. The recent crime against
Turkey was but the hundredth crime of a political
highwayman, armed against capture.

If plain common sense, then, could
Supersede I
the cant of diplomacy, Russia would
fromproclaimed a. the
beginning have beencriminal, and
dealt with accordingly. It is impossible to doubt
how we should then have proceeded, and what the
results would have been. No one thinks of nego-
tiating with an armed burglar, or of consulting 1
Ins amour propre, and all that sort of ineffable
nonsense, to borrow a word from Lord PALMER-
car. The only object aimed at is to secure his
Person, to make over the stolen property
to the rightful oit out of
mwner, and above all to put
power to garotte or
injure his unce_nain
would 6 policeman g neighbour again. How
laugh at the persons who bid