The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-22 00:00:00

out thinking of his own selfish ingratitude ? If
the people of England applaud the one—and what
true-hearted Englishman does not do so 4—how
strongly, must they condemn the other, the pen-
sioner of the English Treasury, the dere of Eng-
land's bounty. LEOPOLD has done much to bring
contempt on the House of Coburg. Let him
beware that the contempt be not exchanged for a
stronger feeling, if he perseveres in his anti-
English intrigues, and in striving to defeat the
objects for which we have engaged in a just and
necessary War.
We cannot dismiss the subject without in-
quiring what advice has he given to his nephew,
the young King of PosrvaiL, so lately a visitor
at his capital. We see that Sir RIONAID PAW-
ILLY has just been despatched on a special mission
to Lisbon to congratulate the young Ktxs► on
attaining his majority, and entering on the full
exercise of his Royal functions. Has there been
a hint given that it would be desirable, at length,
to inaugurate a Constitutional Government in
Portugal 4 Or, that the rendering some small
instalment of justice to the much-wronged bond-
holders of his country would be very accept-
able in England, and that 43 to 45 is not
a very creditable quotation for Portuguese Four
per Cents. LEOPOLD lived many years in Eng-
land. He knows the value set upon Consti-
tutional Government and probity of dealing in
this country. He has had the opportunity of
instilling sound principles into the mind of his
Grand Nephew, and we shall soon know by the
proceedings of the youthful KING the nature of
the lessons he has received.

There are few unofficial men whose judgment
we should be more disposed to respect than Mr.

LAING'S. His capacities for the administration
of business have placed him already at the head
of two very large public companies, and recent
events have proved how highly his ability and
integrity are valued in such positions. He has
now also had some little experience of the duties

of a Member of the British House of Commons,

and it may be supposed has somewhat extended
the range of a naturally good vision. It is not,
however, perhaps much to be wondered at that
the ledger view of the War should commend itself

to his mind. Abeunt atudia in mores, is a face
which most men, energetic in their own line, must

generally exemplify, and without imputing in
any criminal sense to the Hon. Member for
Wick that Vienna/ railway speculations may
have biassed his judgment his commercial habits
as a whole may have done so. Mr. GLADSTONI,
whom we can hardly regard in any other light
than an intentional sophist, knew his advantage
with men of the counting-house, and to the
counting-house and Stock Exchange mind he ac-
-1 cordingly addressed himself. He reduced the
Four Points to fractions. " Now," says he,
"gentlemen, yon have gob, or may get, seven-

eighths of them; the remaining eighth will cost
you a pretty sum to get. Are you prepared to pay
it t" Every chairman of a commercial company,
every head of a great firm, thinks he sees through
the whole question. Frequently enough he has
gladly written of 12i per cent, rather than spend
20 per cent. or more to get it. Nothing like
leather, said a certain one in iEsor, and
nothing like trade princiiileS" said Messrs.
COBDEN and BEIGE; and now Mr. LATNO joins
them. The laws of the counting-house should be
the laws of nations ; eighths and per ceutages are
the tests of international right and wrong. We
may forgive the business men who echo Mr.
GLADSTONE'S figures, but we cannot forgive him
for becoming the Bull of Russian interests, and
the Bear of English interests by such a conscious
limposition.

Does, then, Mr. GLADSTONE, or does the com-
mon eense of the country, believe that interna-
tional relations can be settled by halves and
eighths, like a bargain for Three per Cents., or
for some of his own Exchequer Bonds ? Did
Oxford and his ARISTOTLE teach him to include
such distinct subjects under one category ? The
instincts of every unbiassed mind revolt from
such reasoning. Even those who cannot lay their
finger on the fallacy yet feel quite sure that there
is one somewhere. But, in truth, it is nothing
else but fallacy ; it. makes the huge assumption
that national honour, and that the value of the
terms of a treaty can be determined by arithmetic
—by a calculation in vulgar fractions ! That the
position at Vienna could be expressed thus :

thatßussia offered of honour, and asked England
to give up for luck—why what Englishman ever
refuses to give back the shilling for luck in a bar-
gain ! If arbitration is to be carried on by arith-
metic, we only hope the decimal scale will very
quickly come into universal operati m.
But setting aside what moral and cultivated sen-
timent alone can estimate, and descending to more
material considerations, is not histor) replete with
instances of the mischief of conceding what might
be figuratively viewed as but the eighth part of
the terms of a treaty ? The dreadful Thirty Years'
War, and above all the wars and villanies of Russia
since the wicked concessions at Vienna in 1815,
are sufficient illustratioast., In truth, howeveiclin
obvious fallacy is that the terms of a treaty must,
F
like arguments, be weighed, not numbered. We
appeal, then to the sober part of England—and we
may take &Tory but venerable Lord LYNDHURST
as its repr .entative—were the Four Points alto-
gether worth going to war for ? Lord LTND-.
urnsT 'replies—" They were not worth the paper
they were written on." If, however, there was
a particle of value in them, it was just that part,
that despised eighth, which Boor. and GORT-
SCHAKOFF coaxed Lord JOHN out of, and which,
when Mr. LAING got to Vienna, lie also learned
to give up. We own, freely own, the difference
was insignificant. How, could it be otherwise
when the whole four proposals were worthless ?
But we affirm, that take away the difference and
„.
the Treaty would have been even worse than waste
paper : it would have been a boo—n to Russia.
Mr. LAING says that our rejection of the Vienna
proposals "alienated from us the whole moral
support of Europe !" Of course Poland, Hungary,
Italy, the peoples of Germany as distinguished
from their Courts, and from those Government
officials with whom great speculators in foreign
railways come in contact, Sardinia, and we suppose
we must even add Spain, are no part of Europe ;
Turkey, of course, is only now fighting to become
one of the happy European family—and France,
why she certainly goes for little in Europe. It
is really a pity to find men like Mr. LAING, re-
turning from a business trip to Vienna, the
very centre point of Russian influence and chica-
nery, only to prove, like Lord JOHN, the seduc-
tive powers of the head-quarters of European
despotism.

We must take the liberty to tell Mr. LAING
that if he did not, the nation generally did know
what it was fighting for; it has been treacherously
served by the Russian-hearted men whom he
praises as great statesmen, but it always wanted
to have the claws of Russia cut and its
teeth drawn. Those with any tincture of
historical knowledge were aware that the more
barbarous power had if not prevented in time always
overpowered the mom civilised. And thousands
irLo kis! Ziiir & PSio of Ilt&*.ogilid sea