The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-12 00:00:00

MR. CO.

'DEN'S LETTER TO THE WEST
RIDING.

(Fro;n the Weekly Despatch.)

We talsiit as the mo-t infallible sign of the extremity
to which t e Czar is driven, that his British patrons at
this time Press upon us so urgently the policy of making,
the duty hir suing for, peace. Yes ; suing for it—going,
cap in harill and with pecravi on the lip, to the Autocrat
of Holy Russia—confessing humbly that we have—
given him A good licking, and that, therefore, we hope
he will condescend to—kiss and be friends. 'The lan-
guage of opr Russian party in England is uniformly. the
same. They proclaim to all the world that their client
will never overture us for a cessation of hostilities, and
that the wh,r is a great crime. The inference is plain by
the logic off exhaustion—ifthe Cz sr won't yield, and to
yield is a duty, there is drily one other party in tke
field, and that party must give in. It is very apparent
that it is always after some signal disaster to the Mu'-
covites that we are conjured to pacify-them by subinis-
sic's). Mn! Cobden is alarmed fur his Imperial protege
—he sees his fortunes waning. He fears that if he can-
not succeed in humbugging and frightening his country-
men into 4egotiation, truce and peace, our armies and
navies may have driven the enemy to propose terms of
*capitulation. It is as if he had received a message from
the Czar Oat he. must alarm us, and coerce our Govern-
ment into instant negotiation, for positively he cannot
hold out any longer. Mr. George Thompson has been
seized with another lecturing diarrhoea—our walls are
again placarded with enormous bills, and inflammatory
placards (" regardless of expense," which must be very
coesiderahle) connecting the high price of bread with
our resistance to• Russian encroachment. To the same
end the riots in Hyde-park are kept up by the enemies
of society!a.nd of order ; and .Sr. Bright has announced
his intentien of breaking out in a fresh place with an
effusion of his boisterous eloquence, and indignant im
partiality: These are all symptoms of a "move"--con-
eenta.neods enough to liaveall 'the features of a " coin-
cidence" Of the sort described by " Puff "in the
"Critic."' It is, doubtless, -high time these evangelists
made haste ; for, notwithstanding all their gross mis-
statements and diversions in favour of the enemy, his
days of greatness are numbered, unless he can intro-
duce his 'wooden horse of sympathizing Quakers and
Peace SoCiety partizans into our citadel to betray us.
Nothing is gained in the end with Englishmen by flat-
tering their hopes, or magnifying their pro=pects.
have no desire to overstate our case, or to exaggerate
our resources. It is a plain and a portentous fact, that
since the time of the last great war, the wants, cuiefurts
and luxuries of all classes have materially increased.
We are, by a course of self-indulgence and expensive
habits, hiss able to bear the pinch of heavy taxes, or to
deny ourfelves those appliances which the heavy costs
of the war call upon us to resign. The masses, in par-
ticular, have greatly improved their condition—raised
their standard of comfort and ta-te—expanded their
ideal of social life and domestic habits. Excised here of
their surplus earnings by the tax gatherer, and cut down
there in their income of wages by the contraction of
enterprise and circumscription of trade—the necessary
result of war—a trial, doubtless, is bef 're them similar
to that which, in times past, has produced ri A, rebel-
lion and treason. It shall not he said, with any show
of justice, that the press, which is charged by the Man-
chester sect with the organization and defence of the
war by means of ga:conadire misrepresentation, has
suppressed or concealed any facts which could conduce
to a sober judgment on the subject. We shall Notice
these more willingly because they are already producing
a very signal effect on our capitalists, financiers, and
laige merchants and manufacturers, who begin to regard
the money market and the state of trade with deep
anxiety, to waver in the faith which led them either to
advocate or permit the war, and who are being prepared
.during the interval before the meeting of Parliament to
join in the powerful efforts which wi l be made by a large
section of our Parliament, and not by a few of our lead-
ing statesm, n, to compel the Government to initiate pro-
posals of accommodation with the enemy. It is, we
are assured, very certain that this country is, at the pre-
sent moment, spending one million sterling per week on
this .war directly, besides the sacrifice of its trade, and
the drain of its able-bodied labourers, which must be sub-
mitted to that the war may be fed effectively. In the
language of the pro-Russian placards, the campaign has
annihilated six hundred thousand men, and as much
money as would give 241. to each family in the King-
dom, besides supplies adequate to feed the entire popu-
lation of Manchester for a whole year. It is positively
stated to us by the authority of one of the largest finan-
ciers in the world, that the expenditure of France on
this -sear is at the rate of one million and a half per
week—and it is more than hinted that our neighbours
cannot support that exhaustion of their resources much
longer. We are prepared to take the facts for granted.
Is it necessary to expose the utter groundlessness of the
deductions ? In the 30 years of the late war, France,
with half her present pepulatien, and less than half htr
present income and wealth, sustained a successful con-
test with all Europe, and maintained a great and splen-
did navy, coming out of the struggle in 1815 richer and
strouger than when it began. England, amid distress.
embarrassment, discontent and sedition, found 400,000
troops of the line, 120,000 seamen and Marines, 500,000
Militia, 1,000,000 volunteers for the contest, and
700,000,0001. of money. She is now twice as populous,
and more than twice as rich—with a navy made by
steam and science incomparably more efficient—and an
army, with all its faults, unequalled in heroism either
by its own or any other country. In twelvemonths we
.have gained four great battles, destroyed four consider-
able strongholds of the enemy, and the greatest fortress
in the world —seized enormous stores in Azoff and Sebas-
topol—ravaged the enemy's coasts—destroyed hit
greatest fleet, captured a large portion of his commercial
marine, sealed up his navy in its harbour, and destroyed
600,000 of his troops in the Principalities, Asia, the
Crimea and the Baltic. If it has cost the allies .126
millions to do this ; what has it cost the Czar to suffer
it ? Is it necessary for us to say that his expenditure
and loss and exhaustion, with a ruined trade, and stag-
nant commerce, must have been nearly twice as great
the the cannot keep the field an hour without having la-
c surse to thesame expensive appliances of modan, civilised
an d scientific warfare employed by us, which must be more
cmetly to him than to us whose ready money and open sea
enable us to procure everything at the cheapest rate ?
The war, in fact, is a question of money; and we who
have the most. of it must have the best of it, just as the
'spinning-jenny and the steam-engine conquered Bona-
parte at Waterloo. How accordingly stands the account I
Our revenue is even more responsive to the call of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer than his own calculations
anticipated.. Our trade never was sounder or our finance
_
safer. The traffic on our railways, the index at once of
the state of commerce, and the condition of our people,
f
is fully 10 per cent. greater than it was last year. That
'which Mr, Cobden regards as evidence of the uri
of the
ity of the war is only proof of the vast prosperity
country. Men enlisted formerly in the army and navy
because no other course of profitable ensP 037_111.thwas
opien to them. We have lost two millions of by
famine.; and our
Employment is so
people have emigrated to_ the extent of
three millions in the last tea years.
abundant, wages is so high, and taxation has been so
readjusted to relieve the masses, that they, like their
betters, can find better remuneration for their services
and thirteenpence a day and a red coat in the trenches
or on the forlorn hope. The men of desperate fortunes,

[ PRICE 4D. STAMPED SD•

who, at the beginning of the century, took refuge in our
reeiments,. have drafted themselves off to our Colonies
and the 'United States ; wbile our mercantile marine,
quadrupled in extent, naturally swallows up our.seafar-
ing population. Our masses did not - enlist during the.
last war because it was popular—for, in sootb, they ,did.
net care three straws what cause it was which they
fought—and our only surprise is that so many have been"
found to.engatre in this. in the face of such discourage-
'Tents as the Peaoe party have offered, the gross mis-
'management under which the troops have suffered and
the appalling mortality which has swept like a .p'ague
through out cohorts, and swallowed them up. in
famine,
,cold, hunger, fatigue and preventible disease
If the war be not popular, how does •it happen that it
it is carried on ? Dizzy and Derby have done their best
to'burke it. The Manchester school have denounced it,
with few exceptions. The leading statesmen, of every
party in both houses have, one after another, .fallen
away from its support, and openly avowed their convic-
tion of its impolicy ; yet, in the face of all this, it is
pursued with greater vigour than ever. On what possi-
ble support can it rest against such .opposition but that
of the nation itself, which has risen here superior to the
aPostaeYof cowardly politicians, doctlinaire crotcheteers,
the low cunning.of faction and the sophistry which leads
the pAtical casuist through the mire of his logical Ceti-
undrums with implicit tnit most ridiculous "nissidUction.”.
We are even now in want of a Colonial Secretary, be-
cause Lord Derby withholds his son from a war Minis-
try. Yet that Ministry is the strongest that is at pre-
sent possible, because it prosecutes the war. We. are
quiteready to accept Mr. Cobden's test of the opinion
of the people on this pOint. He tells us with 26;800
men we outnumbered the French on the Alma, and that
.so little popular has been the cause ,Of quart el, the
masses have withheld from enlistment even to -supply
,the w-aste of tbat:small contingent.. -:If that be so .how
oonquer at_ Alizia, Balaklav nii_o; Taber-
itergt,lpgi,A-1011; inior-Wd-46isaiamtfr
_

taya;-

lose 500,000 men Sow is it that weentert-th;:fisild
spring with 70,000 British Fayonets 'and sabres, and
30,000 Foreign auxiliaries, all the fruit of voluntary: en-
liscient ? Let the sage for the West .Riding rest per-
fectly easy on the score of recruits for this war. Should
England fail to supply her contisgent, France can
readily furnish twice as many as ever can be wanted,
and we will probably address ourselves to the proper
business of England, that of balancing by her navy the
preponderance of France in military resources. The
ininuter details of this important letter, which is, in
fact, the manifesto of a powerful party, deserve and de-
mand a second anl special examination. It remains for
us now to add that, haying done enough to prove our
superiority to the enemy, and to vindicate the law of
nations against gross and shameless violation, we shall
be prepared to consider, in no spirit of exaction, and to
settle, on no stringent terms, any proposals from our
beaten and exhausted enemy which he may be disposed
to offer as a suitor for peace ; that, it being notorious
the population of Russia has utterly failed to supply the
drafts of troops recently demanded from them, the war
must necessarily, at no distant date, burn itself out ;
that the operations of Omer Paella and General Wil-
liams, in Asia, are straining the resources of Russia to
the utmost ; and that, in the event of the insane perse-
verance of the Czar in maintaining his unprincipled pre-
tensions, his final expulsion from the Crimea and the
Caucasus, with the aid of Sehamyl and the arcassians,
will form the natural solution of the politcal problem
in the prosecution of the war.