The Sun.
London, England, 1855-04-12 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1855.

In all the conferences and negotiations that
have hitherto taken place—with a view to the
settlement of the Eastern Question—the wishes
and interests of Turkey seem to have been
completely disregarded ; nay, more, her very
existence, as an Independent Power completely
ignored. The Sublime Porte—" our excellent
Ally," in defence of whose unquestionable rights
we have entered on the War—is more deeply
interested in each and every of " the Four
Points" than any of the other Powers, and yet
France and England on the one side, and Russia
on the other, with Austria—

"Always strong, upon the strongest aide,"

ready to take part with whichever appears to be
the predominant interest—are dealing with ques-
tions affecting the protectorate of the Princi-
palities, the free navigation of the Danube, the
balance of power in the Euxine, and even
the Government of some ten millions of
Turkish subjects, as if the SULTAN or Lis Go-
vernment were not in any way concerned in the
conclusions to be eventually arrived at. It is
certainly a strange mode of sustaining the "inde-
pendence" of our protegie, and we earnestly hope
that Ann-T.-J.-Mu:um may not speedily find that
he had ab initio scarcely less to fear from his
"affectionate friends" than from his open and

avowed adversary.
A document has recently been published in
several of the Continental journals, purporting to
be the instructions furnished by the Ottoman
Government to its representative at Vienna. It
is, of course, impossible to speak positively as to
its authenticity.

It is, however, such a document as might well
proceed from the Porte under existing circum-
stances ; and the observations and arguments
therein contained are well worthy the notice of the
Western Powers and the diplomatists assembled
in the Austrian metropolis. It would, indeed,
reflect indelible disgrace on those who professed
to be influenced only by cowiderations of justice
and equity, and who chivalrously arrayed them-
selves on the weaker side to prevent the triumph
of might over right, if they now vamped up a
precarious truce, which could not truly be re-
garded as a permanent peace, for the purpose of
evading the responsibilities which they delibe-
rately and voluntarily assumed.

Assuming, then, for the purpose of discussion
the authenticity of the document, the first in-
,
struction to the Ottoman Plenipotentiary is,
that
he is "'to restrict himself to taking the question 3
which might be brought forward only a i referen-
chm, The vast importance of the topic to
Turkey
not merely the material inter-
eats, but the very vitality of the Otto-
man Empire being involved in the result, and
the gross blunders already committed at Vienna
--blunders which have been long since candidly
acknowledged by the Western Powers—impera-
tively deman d the most careful deliberation on
the part of the Turkish Cabinet. It is prepared
to receive wit h deference, and, if 'consistent with
its independeAce, to maintain which it has already
1a3416 many sacrifices, to accept any sugge3tion
of tox-33 Powers. But until these sugges-
%Lona asor%
received a definite shape—until some'
tangible pro,,e..
—ltiort i 8 put forward for its accept-
ance,itlasstaut be
engagements, .w7e "tedto enter into any binding
and Austria are in; aver, the Western Powers
accord
with Russia—when the
difficulties appamiti
permanent peace have truniPerable in the way of a
i
then must the project aneoessfully dissipated,
for its approval. An submitted to the Porte
•
Vienna can, therefore, dellteeolut, 10—„
8 adopted at
until they have been confirmed °l:4 Provisional
acceptance is indispensable to the eaYyluiLkeY• lts '
"little bill" of which so man the
w.ty Of the
urepeau
-
are to become joint drawers. "fors
Subject to these reservations, observations
well
worthy of attentive consideration have been offered.
on the different points. On the first, it einphati_
sally protests against the false assumption that a
real protectorate was ever granted to Russia in
virtue of the Treaties relative to the Danubian
Principalities. All that the Porte undertook,
and which it faithfully and irreproa3hably per-

f°9)ledi..i.7raathat " the established institutions ( f
11°5er-rrcrv4l94 s4lould not be abolished or rnocli-
( fied•"' Rlissial liowsler, chose to arrogate herself a
factodeo
7.Xeignti thus straining the concession
far beyond: its just ok reasonable limits. To this
V- 'ULM ' ti
mwartatt er in rpretation of thp concession
- .
1:53117:0(T110-- existing complications may be traced,

Turkey is, therefore, fully justified in demanding
that the guarantee or protectorate of the Great
Powers which is to be substituted for that of
Russia shall be clearly defined, so that it -may
not authorise any interference with the internal
state and administration of the Principalities,
but restrict itself to preventing the destruction of
their privileges, or any attempt against the exist-
ing institutions, the sovereign rights of the Porte.
On the Second Point, respecting the naviga-
tion of the Danube, it was the usurpation of
Russia that created the existing complications,
and care must be taken not to substitute one
usurpation for another. The perfect freedom of
commerce is what is required, and that must not
be restricted either by undue regard for quaran-
tine or other equally untenable pretexts.
On the Third Point—the chief difficulty—we
have already pointed out how inconsistent with
the independence and safety, and; we might have
added, the very existence of the Ottoman Empire,
have been some of the plans put forward. How
could fortifications to rival those of Seba,stopol—
ta act as an equivaleatto that " standing menace"
to Constantinople and to Europe—be constructed
on Turkish territory in Europe and Asia by
Powers which, although now the friends and allies
of Turkey, may hereafter become her enemies,
without destroying her security ? The free navi-
gation of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, at any
time and under any circumstances, is equally
inconsistent with the safety of the Turkish
Empire. By all Mira-MS let the preponderance of
Russia in the Euxine be terminated. Let her
naval power be limited within reasonable bounds,
and the forts, not essential for defence, but useful
only as a means of overawing her neighbours, be
demolished ; but let not Turkey be so deeply in,-
jured by those who designate themselves and
desire to be considered as her very good friends
and Allies.

On the Fourth Point the claims put forward
by Russia, to interfere with the internal Govern-
ment of the Christian subjects of the Porte, it
was that the Western Powers tcok up arms.
They protested against what would be directly
subversive of the independence of the Porte.
They must now take care that they do not sanc-
tion or connive at anything calculated to
infringe on that independence, or calculated to
render its future position worse than if it
had, in tho first instance, submitted to
the unaccountable demands so arrogantly put for-
ward by Prince MENSCHIKOFF, and which it has
made so many energetic efforts to defeat.
Once more, then, we say, the only prospect of
peace is that which may be opened by the un-
qualified destruction of Sebastopol, whether by
the military and naval forces now arrayed beneath
its walls and in front of its harbour, or by the
assent of the Russian Plenipotentiary. That is
the only solution of the problem,- and that must
be unanimously demanded by the People and Par-
liament of Great Britain.

Neither his Highness MARMOUD PASHA,
.nor his friend the Hon. ROBERT CunzoN—in
those eccentric opinions of theirs, in regard to the
treatment of criminals, to which we on Tuesday
made particular reference—appears .to have borne
in mind, for an instant, the double object kept in
view in this matter by the British Administration.
Both the English traveller and the Turkish gover-
nor seem to have altogether overlooked that ra-
ther important consideration. It is one, how-
ever, we take it, especially entitled to the remem-
brance of every individual who undertakes( to
examine, even in the most superficial manner, the
principles and practice, the purpose of all the
theories, the aim of all the endeavours, of this
important branch in our conplex system of juris-
prudence.

It should be constantly borne in recollection,
we maintain, by every one who may venture to
scrutinise the Criminal Code of Great Britain, by
every one who may presume to weigh that code in
the balance of impartial judgment, that as we have
here already expressed it, the object kept through-
out steadily in view by our legislators is one of a
twofold character. Briefly let us call it, at once,
the double object of—" reclamation" by disci-
pline, and "expiation" by punishment. It has
been instinctively felt throughout by every man
amongst us that any system would be incomplete
which aimed at the effectual treatment of crime
by the executive, p-therwise than by an equal
attention to those two inseparable require-
The moral principle upon which we

vents.

have thus acted, so to speak almost instinctively,
in the hope of somehow extracting at least a
small proportion of good out of an enormous and
unavoidable mass of evil, has had about it, curi-
ously enough, a very appreciable resemblance to
the scientific principle which not long since led
an eminent optician to the exquisite discovery of

appears, to ourselves, we repeat, (in one respect)
eminently. gratifying to bear in recollection even
such (from another point of view) terrible and
appalling figures, as to the number of our convicts,
and as to the expenses incurred by us in the treat-
ment of our whole criminal population. For we
cannot, of course, lose a remembrance of the fact,
that circumstances will now compel! us to deal
with the inevitable evil at home, now that the Act
16 and 17 VrcT. c. 99, has virtually put an end
to the unjust but convenient punishment of crimi-
nals by transportation. Beyond which circum-
stance, yet another and infinitely more important
one thrusts itself upon our consideration, the fact
that by all those disbursements the nation is sys-
tematically striving, upon an Imperial scale wor-
thy of the glory of the British Crown, to reclaim
from the Slough ofDespond in which theyhave been
hitherto almost irredeemably immersed, the fright=
ful throng of adult and juvenile offenders making
up that mass of ignorance and criminality long
recognised by statesmen and philanthropists as the
fatal plague-spot upon the body politic.