The Sun.
London, England, 1855-05-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF

JOURNALS.

PEACE- OR WAR:
(From the Times of thiS-clotij* )
It, is high time that by-some means or other the
`opiniOn.of Parliament on peace and war should be
fairly tested ; indeed,
_SO serious is the necessity for
this step, that we grudge the interval of three or
four days that must -elapse 'between the .present
time and the day fixed for Mr. Milner Gibson's mo-
tion. We are constantly in fear of receiving intel-
ligence that the degrading scene so recently acted
at Vienna has been renewed, and that we are
_once
more debating with Russia, not whether she will
guarantee the integrity of Turkey, and thus bind
herself against any infraction of that integrity—
not whether she will consent tolimit naval forces
utterly useless for defence, and only required for
the purpose of aggression on au unoffending neigh-
bour—but whether she will condescend to limit
herself to the status quo, or require, in addition,
that. the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, pass-
ing as they do through the very heart of the
Turkish empire, shall -be thrown open to her
fleets. We can never feel wholly free from the -
apprehension:of an ignominious peace. We know
what advances have been made in this direction
already, and- we do not know to what further
compliances the nation may not be destined to be
reduced. M. Drouyrt de l'Huys has already
resigned his position in the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs because he condescended to listen to propo-
sitions and overtures which, in the opinions of his
Imperial master, were derogatory to the dignity of
Franco, and fatal to the objects for which the pre-
sent war was undertaken. Our own Plenipoten-

tiary has .
returned to us, but has not imitated
the example of his colleague and remains in
our Cabinet, to exert that influence which
a year and a half ago was put forth to urge us into
the war, in order Co bring about a dishonourable
peace. What change the air of Vienna or the con-
tact with Russian and Austrian plenipotentiaries
has wrought upon Lord John Russell we do not
pretend to know, but it is now said that, with that
versatility peculiar to minds not of the highest
order, nor sustained by lofty and consistent princi-
ple, LordJ.Russell is now seeking to undo the work
of last year—to renounce the career on which we
have entered, to throw away the task we hp.ve un-
dertaken, and to abandon to the discretion of Rus-
sia the ally whom last year we promised to defend
with all the weight of our power and all the pres-
tige of our influence. In this ignoble task he is, we
fear, seconded by no inconsiderable number of his
colleagues. • The division in the Cabinet is, we are
told, clearly and distinctly marked, and would long
ago probably have resulted in open discord and dis-
ruption, had the smallest encouragement been
afforded from without to the craven desire of peace
at any cost. Happily, however, if so many of their
leaders are unsound, the people themselves have
shown a manliness, firmness, and consistency which
put to shame 'the vacillating conduct of men who
claim to themselves the monopoly of Statesman-
ship, and look down with all the disdain of prac-
tised politicians on the plain sense and clear in-
sight of the mass of the nation. Were it other-
wise—did
Lord Grey and Mr. Gibson command
anything but a small minority—were there any
quarter in the political horizon to which the
advocates of peace at any price could turn
for support, we should possibly have seen ere this
a repetition of the proceeding at the beginning
of this year, and bad to chronicle the fate of a
second Ministry overthrown by the same hand,
—the first, because Lord John Russell could not
defend the management of the war ; the second,
because he could not defend the war itself. It
seems incredible that the same man who could last
year denounce the conduct of the Emperor of
Russia as fraudulent, declare that the existence of
Sebastopol was a standing menace to Turkey, and
announce in the firmest terms his resolution to carry
the contest through with the utmost vigour and
pertinacity, should, in one short year, so totally
have lost confidence in himself, his country, and his
cause as to be ready to compound with the fraud
and submit to the menace only to avoid that very
war which in such magniloquent phrases he has
proclaimed against the common disturber of the
peace of Europe.
Let Parliament, let the country, look to it well.
This is the very turning point in our destiny, the
very crisis in our fate, the very instant which
for good or for evil is to decide the future of Eng-
hind. We have been accustomed to regard our
Ministry as weak, but well-intentioned, possessing
no special gifts of eloquence or talent, but true to
the task they have undertaken, and pledged, above
nll things, to prosecute the war with vigour and
with honour. We aro now told that even in

is we have miscalculated, and that we may

have at this very moment at the head of affairs
men as little to be intrusted with tL•e stern and
trying emergencies of a struggle for life or
death as the members of the Peace Society them

solves. We have made all the sacrifices for which

a nation could be called upon in order to
secure success, and we have not secured
it. We are content to wait, to pay, and to suffer

till better times and better leaders arise; but surely
we have a right to expect that a nation which has
done and suffered so much shall not, without its
concurrence, nay, against and despite of its feelings
and convictions, be forced to sue for peace, and to
accept those terms from its enemy which not the
power of that enemy, nor its own weakness, but
the miserable timidity of its councillors, forces
upon it. If Parliament is really anxious to per-
form the duties with which a confiding nation has
intrusted it, no time should be lost in ascertaining
who is on our side, and who on that of the Empe-
ror of Russia, in order that, at whatever sacrifice
of historic names,' noble connexions, and official
experience, we may deliver ourselves from the dan-
ger and discredit of being any longer represented
by persons who believe our national credit and in-
terest to be as nothing compared with the escape
from that responsibility which a little while ago
they were so ready to undertake. To make peace
with Russia now, with all the objects of the war
unattained, would be to snatch from the hands of
our troops the blood-stained laurel they have striven
so long and so heroically to gain ; would give Russia
the power a second time of tricking the sagacity of
statesmen and ambassadors by passing off defeat
for victory ; would raise her character in every
capital, nation, and language, and lower our own
in the same proportion ; would place the Powers of
Northern Europe at her mercy ; would make the
kingdoms and empires of Germany her willing and
obsequious vassals, and leave Turkey without a
hope, without a friend, without a resource, to
perish whenever it should please the rower from
which we vauntingly profess to save her to sign the
warrant for her execution. When such things are
neither impossible nor improbable with our present
Cabinet, we do but do our duty in calling upon
Parliament to place on record with as little delay
as possible its own opinion, and to make itself
thoroughly acquainted with the opinions of our
Ministers. Whatever be the evils attendant on a
change—whatever the difficulties of replacing our
present Government, these evils are as nothing
compared with the risk of finding ourselves some
day hampered in the trammels of a hollow and dis-
honourable peace. Let the efforts of our enemies,
'et the treachery of our Allies do their worst, but

let us, at whatever sacrifice, by whatever means,
be freed at least from men who are capable at such
a moment of abandoning our honour and our in-
terest, and tarnishing by degrading compromises
the name of a nation which never before could be
brought.to lower its resolution to the level of its
fortunes, or draw any lessons but those of encou-
ragement and perseverance from the very depths
of its darkest disasters.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF THE CHM
RAVE QUESTION.

(Peon& the Times of this day.)
We live in a time of impossibilities. Every-
thing in turn is pronounced to be impossible. Only
a twelvemonth ago it was impossible to reform
some half-dozen departments, all confessed to be in
the worst possible condition, and still more impos-
sible to amalgamate them. We have now been
assured from both sides of the House of Lords that
it is impossible to, find men fit for office, that the
breed does not exist, and that we must be content
with what we can get. It is impossible to do any-
thing in the Baltic, or in the Black Sea either.
Impossibilities have latterly been closing around
us, like a huge wall, darkenin 2 and oppressing
the' soul of the natiop. Physiologists tell-
us that
the sense of impossibility is one that
with age ; and doubtless it is a increases
wise
of nature, to prevent old me provision
11
hands full of work when they are incapablegetting their
and should be thinking of of it,
another
England is not growing old, world. But
Mr. Jenkinson that the worldno r can
is very true that we are workingis in its dotage. It
men just now in almost Out a race of old
public service, and they every department of the
us everything is
impassible.
are, the very men who tell
man has spent half sible. Indeed, when a states-
' strong point is the a century in political life his
past, and he
risks a good deal