The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-26 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 28, 1855.

had been signally avenged during the current
month.

The conduct of the Russian war steamers which
inflicted such serious damage on the Allied ranks
has also taught us the necessity of silencing their
fire on the next occasion. There are ample means
of doing so, and we believe that they will not
now be disregarded. The Russian navy has been
reduced, and it requires but steady determination
to complete the work commenced by their own
hands, and to bring the Black Sea Fleet
within narrower limits than those suggested by
the French and English Plenipotentiaries at
the Conferences of Vienna. This can and must
be accomplished ; and it will not only greatly
facilitate the chief object in view, viz.—the cap-
ture or destruction of Sebastopol, but it will,
taken per se, be a very important achievement,
which will materially add to the stability and
security of the Ottoman empire.
Many well-informed and sound-judging persons
assert, and with much apparent reason, that the
very difficulties we have experienced during the
siege will be productive of beneficial results, and
go far to reduce the Russian Power, and to change
the policy inaugurated by PETER, and steadily
kept in view by CATHERINE, by NICHOLAS, and
the two ALEXANDERS. They say that had Sebas-
topol been captured by a coup de main imme-
diately after the victory of the Alma, it
would, in pursuance of the ABERDEEN policy, have
been restored uninjured to Russia, and that our
then Government would have acted on the dan-
gerous and injudicious principle of " saving the
honour of Russia," and of patching up a peace
which, if not inglorious, would be transitory,
affording no permanent or binding security to
Turkey or Europe. The successes so easily
achieved might have been undervalued, and the
restoration of a fortress, the capture whereof was
so speedily effected, might be looked on as a mat-
ter of comparatively trivial importance. Now we
know better. We can form a more correct esti-
mate of its great value to Russia, and of the
magnitude of the perpetually impending menace
to Constantinople. Palma non sine pulvere is
a sound principle, and the blood and treasure
already expended will not be thrown away, if we
are thereby induced to keep what we have so la-
boriously attained. All matters, too, are looking
more favourable for our aims. The climate is
rather better than was expected, and the disease
and sickness are already dying away. On the
whole there is no reason for repining, or sup-
posing that we shall not accomplish that on which
we have set our hearts—the complete destruction
of Sebastopol, and the annihilation of the Russian
Fleet in the Engine, so that they will be com-
pelled for the best possible reasons to assent to
the complete neutrality of the Black Sea, and its
becoming, so far as they are concerned—a " mere
commercial lake."

Before Parliament disbands we want to know h ow
far they have advanced beyond these views. Is
the War to be " carried on with vigour," to get
a treaty of German paper manufacturing, or to
wrest for ever from Russia territories and fortresses
which she has stolen or built for the subjugation
of Turkey and the East, and the mediatising of
all Germany ?
To know this is essential to that confidence in
the Government, which is necessary to the succesu-
ful administration of affairs. It is useless to
vapour about the danger of telling the enemy our
projects ; the danger lies in concealing them. No
one wishes any Lord JOHN to give Russia notice
a second time of the particular place we mean to
attack at a particular time ; it is mere affectation
or disingenuousness to confound things so totally
distinct. If we now, on the contrary, publicly
disavow Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S conceited, yet fatal,
declaration, of wishing to leave the Russian terri-
tories undiminished, if we avow that we will con-
quer from her, and keep from her, everytYng we ,
can, from the gulf of Finland to the Black Sea,
that we will continue to fight for real securities
till we get sufficient, or till Russia strikes, not
only would the people of this country be reassured,
and rendered cordial in their support of the Go-
vernment, but Russia, not knowing where she
would be attacked, would be compelled to
divide her army while she increased its numbers,
at the same time exhausting her resources and
diminishing her strength in each locality.
We hold it, therefore, to be the duty of our
House of Commons in some way to declare its
own view, or rather that of the nation, on this
all-important question, and to require the Go-
vernment to do the same. Such a course will
save us at home six months' suspicion and dis-
trust ; will encourage the country, the army, and
the navy; will distract and intimidate the enemy;
will bring Austria, Prussia, and all Germany to
their senses ; and, as we believe, will materially
shorten the War. Without such a pledge we
shall be draggled along another six months at the
, tail of Austria.

We wish for nothing unreasonable ; nothing
which, in the slang of the Treasury benches,
would be "inconvenient," or " detrimental to
the public service." There are, however, very
strong grounds for thinking that a distinct
avowal by our Government of what they aim
at by the War would be of the greatest ad-
vantage to the public service. The pleasures of
autumn will soon part even those attached friends,
our Cabinet and its Parliament, and hitherto we
have had nothing yet more explicit than those
elastic words, " a safe and honourable peace.''
The Vienna Conferences have but too plainly
shown how those convenient words may be twisted
to any meaning which sophistry and subserviency
to Austria and the Co linos may wish. The
Treaty of December 2d proved that it was con-
sidered secure and honourable for us to be bound
to help Austria while she might evade helping us ;
but the/ Four Points proved that a peace which
no one now considers, to use the language of Lord
LYNDHURST, worth the paper its terms would be
written on, was capable of being thought by a
whole English Cabinet safe and honourable !
peace of paper securities against hereditary bar-
barism, perfidy, and violence combined—against
the most remorseless and shameless ambition
which ever sacrificed its own slaves to make slaves
of other countries. We believe our countrymen
now almost shudder to think of the ignominy
which they have mercifully escaped. Far better
for our reputation with posterity to have sustained
great military and naval reverses, and to have
made peace on disadvantageous terms, because
fairly beaten in the field, than thus, with a vast
army in the Crimea, and omnipotent in the Baltic
and Euxine, to have signed a cowardly treaty on
the basis of the Four Points. Well may we be
alarmed at the idea of leaving for six months the
interpretation of this cant phrase in such con-
victed hands.

"Nothing new from the Crimea !" That now
appears a stereotyped paragraph in every journal.
We must not, however, suppose that the time is
wasted, or that our gallant soldiers indulge in any
unnecessary -inactivity. No ; although no de-
cisive action has been attempted since the unfor-
tunate attack of the 18th June, neither officers
nor men of the Allied Armies have been idle.
They have been steadily and laboriously pre-
paring for a repetition of the onslaught under more
favourable auspices. They now know the real ,
difficulties they have to encounter ; and, while
they can rely on their own prowess and resolu-
tion, they will yet take care that no obstruction
which can be got rid of shall remain. It
may be all very well to be prodigal of human
life when any great object is to be achieved.
An apparent prodigality may be true economy
but a reckless disregard of life, where it can
spared,
is anything but true bravery. A judi-
cious General will always have to consider many
conflicting points. He must be competent to
balance the advantages belonging to different
courses, and to decide promptly and correctly on
that which combines the greatest number. The
climate, the supplies, the health of his army, the
quantity of work, and the time within which it
must be accomplished, are all elements in the
calculation—to each of which due weight must
be accorded, and without full and accurate know-
ledge of all the premises it is difficult to criticise
the existing state of affairs.

The time has not, as we have stated, by any
means been wasted or misspent. Not only
have our approaches been carried close to the
points of attack, but our men have acquired much
valuable experience respecting the Russian tactics.
We now know the necessity of promptitude against
such a
foe—that any success must be rapidly fol-
lowed up, and that there must not be the slightest
rest afforded to such indefatigable labourers, who,
reversing the conduct of PENELOPE, halo invari-
ably contrived to repair during the night the
damage of the day. The result of the 18th June
might have been very different had there bee* a
few hours' cannonading in the morning before the
actual assault, and had the enemy been driven
into confusion by the fire of the Allies
before the escalade was attempted.- We
have had a severe lesson not to undervalue
the adversary, and we are convinced that it will
not be disregarded on the next occasion, which
may' arrive more speedily than we have any
notion of. Indeed it should not at all surprise
us if we heard that the failure of the 18th Jung

We cannot, moreover, forget that Lord JOHN
RUSSELL was betrayed yet farther. He could
think it both a secure and honourable peace if
Russia were allowed to muster for another Sinope,
with a proviso for its prevention about as
good as that which we possessed at the moment
of that perfidious massacre. Nor was Lord JOHN
alone ; other British statesmen of mark, some not
just now in power, but others it is to be feared,
intriguing under shelter of leaders, who know
better how to adapt their language to the views
of the nation, concur with hitn. A secure and
honourable peace, therefore, may, in the Ger-.
manised conceptions of men in high positions, be
understood in a sense the very reverse of that in
which the nation understands it. Htd Parlia-
ment not been sitting this spring, we think it quite
within the range of probability that au Austro-
Coburg peace might have been patched up for us by
secret diplomacy, which we could only have cen-
sured afterwards, but been practically powerless to
alter.
We much fear, however, that suspicion of
the secret cause of such mean and un-English policy
would have
shaken the security of the Throne,
and would certainly have entirely destroyed its
popularity. Ber MAJESTY'S advisers, as they
really tender her welfare, must be careful to main-
tain her throne en the basis of English, not of
German, sentiments.

The alarm sounded by Professor FARADAY, re-
specting the dangerous condition of the Thames,
has not been without some effect. The
Lord Mayor, it is well known, responded to the
Professor with becoming alacrity, and straight-
way instituted an inquiry into the cause of the
extraordinary pollution complained of. Further
revelations as to the state of the river have fol-
lowed, and the public had the strongest corrobo-
rative testimony given to the absolute correctness
of the Professor's statement. A tidal river like
the Thames, receiving the exuvice of two millions
and a half of people, and depositing mud a foot
in depth, at a short distance, every week,
to be turned up at each successive tide,
could hardly fail to be in the con-
dition described. Among the results of the
inquiry so far, would appear to be the discovery
that ono great aggravation of the evil of late has
arisen from encroachments made on the bed of
the river, and Sir JOHN MWEIL, who has called
attention to this fact, suggests a measure of a reme-
dial nature.

Starting with the conviction that the greater
the volume of water carried up with the
tide, the greater will be the scour on its return,
Sir JOHN recommends that the tidal river above
the bridges should be enlarged and widened,
and that reservoirs should be formed for
the penning of the clear water, and ;
letting it come down afterwards, when the ,
tide is out. Granting the correctness of his
theory, and supposing its being immediately put
into practice, there can be no reasonable hope of
an amelioration which will supersede the necessity
for a more thorough and costly measure. Sir
JOHN'S recommendation may be worth carrying
out, but cannot be made to do what is wanted.
There, however, the evil exists, and something
must be adopted to remedy it, great and threaten-
ing as it is. Accordingly, the disemboguement of
the sewerage of the Metropolis into the Thames 1
being confessedly the prime cause of its pollution,
we find a large minority of the Commissioners of
Sewers have come to the conclusion that the best
thing to be done is to put a limit to the quantity
of sewage admitted into the river. This, of course,
won't answer ; indeed it would most probably
involve the re-introduction of what might now
turn out a still greater evil, viz., the use of cess-
pools, reservoirs whose poisonous exhalations
might assail the population with deadlier force
from being more concentrated than, to the ma-
jority of the population, those of the Thames can
well be.

Nor can we feel satisfied with the prospect of
having the sewage entirely diverted from the
which theyppos cannot,ng
at
Thames, according to Sir B. HALL'S proposal,
years. supposing the
pthe b
itce
cr
on itlnda t
until that time, what provision would then be
aioffnordof tosixwai
found for the carrying away of the sewage ? It
is all very well to know that at a given and not
very remote period a noble stream, worthy an
im-
perial city, will have a chance of rescuing itself from
the condition of a sewer, but the satisfaction to he
derived from this assurance must be seriously di-
minished when there is no reason held out to be-
lieve that that which has poisoned the Thames,
and rendered its exhalations noxious, will not be
suffered to collect and breed malaria at our very
doors. With nothing less, in short, can we be
satisfied, for nothing less will suffice than tbe
finding a substitute for the Thames, laying down
a great main sewer into which all the sewage of
th e Metropolis may flow, to be discharged therefrom
at a convenient distance into suitable reservoirs,
and afterwards converted into saleable manure.
To this the public must come at last, and
while we would thoroughly approve of every
necessary step being taken to give, as we may say,
the river fair play, by removing encroachments on
its bed, which, apart from the question of sewage,
are seriously injuring the tideway, we would
seriously urge the propriety of immediate steps
being taken to carry out the above, or some other
equally efficient plan, which, whatever it may be,
cannot be in operation too soon. The credit, as
well as the health, of two millions and a half of
people, calls for the greatest promptitude com-
patible with the magnitude of the undertaking.

With these facts before us, then, we think it
would be most advantageous to the public service
for her MAiESTY'S Ministers voluntarily, or by
definite expressions
compulsion, to declare in some
what they think will be a safe and honourable
peace. The country has rejected with a feeling
of humiliation what has been offered in the name
of England and her Allies---in the name of irre-
sistible naval power, and unlimited military aad
pecuniary resources. What has our Government
learned by the nation's contempt' Are they pre-
pared to give us real securities instead of Russian
bonds ? We believe this is the kernel of the
question.. Russia, for her villanous purposes,
fully understands this. When she wanted the
SULTAN to sign a suicidal treaty or note, she took
the real security of the Provinces. Russia is a
sound and safe political banker for her own pure.
poses, and the common sense of England approves
for honest
h
ends that on which Russia relied for
obtaining:the ends of
heraas beenmbition. our causei'fafihermi
ty o
off
our ill-success hitherto .
purpose. - n
—ur.e°l3tAG Cabinets have thought fit
to intimidate Russia by
of ships, and Next 'to bind her
• a parade of soldiers and
by paper bends.

THE SUN, LONDON. THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 26. 1855.

increased, and its malignity is such that most of the
cases prove fatal. The inhabitants, who hitherto ap-
peared to view with indifference the ravages of the
scourge, are now in the greatest terror of it. Count
de Villa Real, a Portuguese Lieut.-General, Envoy-
Extraordinary and Minister-Plenipotentiary of the
King of Portugal to the Court of Russia, arrived
this morning from Lisbon, and will leave after to-
morrow for St. Petersburgh."