The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-12 00:00:00

shall be efficiently performed ; second, that the
burden shall be alleviated by every possible
means. Our men must be properly fed, clothed,
and lodged—must have weapons and. tools of the
best description, so as to be enabled. to fulfil the
most sanguine expectations that have been formed
respecting the results of their exertions, and there,
must also he plentY of men and materials. :No
deficiency in the personnel or materiel of war can
be tolerated. This will unquestionably be cm-
pensive. But we must, in order to meet chat
expenditure, abandon an unjust and impolitic
system, which even in times of profound peace hai;
occasioned intense misery and privation to a largo
proportion of the working population. There must be
a thorough revision of our fiscal and financial, but,
above all, of our monetary laws. The Act of
1844 must be totally repealed; that of 1819
materially modified. We must have a really
national bank, and an adequate supply of mai
notes of 11., 21., and 3/. Thus alone can we ob-
tain a circulating medium adequate to the wan is
and exigencies of the country, and supply the
necessary life-blood to industry.

The fate of the War depends not merely on Live
men and money devoted to its maintenance, bv.t
in no small degree to the measures of the lai;e
editor of the Edinburgh Review, the now Financial
Minister of the British empire.

What are we to think of Austria ? • Always (ma
the verge of acting, but never even declaring' her-
self ; getting diplomatic praises, we regret to •say,
in some instances the praises of the English press
also, and satisfied with renewing her drafts on
our credulity. We may reasonably ask our com-
mercial peace-at-any-price men at what rate they
would discount bills like hers ; or at how mush
they would estimate them in examining the con-
dition of a firm whose liabilities and assets they
had to state ? Such bills would fare worse in
the market than the Russian 5 per Cents. at
Hamburg, which the other day were scarcely
worth 80, when our 3 per Cents. were above 90.

It is now, if we remember rightly, two months
since Austria was to have been in action ; four-.
teen days were allowed the GORTSCHAKOFP 'Of
Vienna from the end .of December ; if no deci-
sive acceptance of the Allies' terms arrived at that
time Austria was to come out, and we should. see
what we should see. Promptly, a favourt.ble
telegraphic message came from the CZAR, antici-
pating even the fourteen days ; yet; nothing is
clearer now than that the all-important point of
the Black Sea was intentionally left vague. A
phrase was ingeniously lit upon with which
Russia could play, as_she did with* the celebrated
'Vienna Note, by which .she could gain a chance.
of paralysing somewhat the energy of the Allies:,
while she could make sure of keeping Austria.
from active measures.

The result fully justifies the view we now- give
of Russian and Austrian concert and duplicity.
The former soon complained that her assent to
the Four Points was not followed by cessation
'from aggressive action on the part of the Allies ;
that was what the late CZAR had chiefly in view.
Luckily, even our Ministers dared not to appear
so easily cheated. We may even hope that they
did not wish so to degrade themselves in the
eyes of the whole civilised world. The other
object, however, Russia gained to her heart's
content. Austria lay to again most willingly,
instead of venturing to face the danger ; .and there
she lies still, 'one sail blowing her towards the
Allies, the other towardS Russia ; while it is to
the latter that her course is really turned. The
alliance that "defensive to-day. might hecOme
offensive -te-merroW,” -which seems :even to .have.
-suggested such a hope to the cautious Emperor of
the FRENc,a, is still a gAncinm Austrian alliance,
one as remote-as ever from any result but that of
taking the best possible care of Hapsburg des—
potism.
The intention of the Four Points was discernible
enough to. every honest mind at once: The last
and all-important, one might have 'had a. efinite
minimum. assigned.-.--it 'might -have funs thus
The cession of the 'Crimea, or, .4:least, ..the perpe- .
tual dismantling of Sebastopol -; the restoration
CircaseiollS of
,tliio.r'Seg Oast, '4nd the` wit,}
'drawment of Russian troops-from-every inch -of
'theirterritery;"pieNnyasenient to'retifibe Nicolareff
.-and Odessa to purely commercial ports ;.-and that
none of the -Allies..lihofild be allowed
,more than a

limited naval force in. the Black Sea. Even with
the miserably 'paltry views which would' leave
, ,
Russian territory undiminished tlup =all might
babe been' insisted'- ; it-would-then have been
seen bow far
,Rgsga rejinquishee the thought of
injuring Turkey.

Our readers well know how much more we
deem it the duty of our statesmen to demand.
At Vienna, however, the point was so adroitly
stated that NICHOLAS might give as his views of
the proposal, that Turkey, and her Allies, if they
wished, might go to the enormous expense of
erecting and maintaining another Sebastopol, per-
'haps, at Sinope ; that Turkey, like Russia, was to
waste her future revenue in a race with the latter
in fort-building and ship-building. Turkey was to
become as barbarous as Russia—the SULTAN to
sink to the counterpart of a•-CzAR ! ' ,

_ Ever since the showy offer of the Four Points
to Russia, and the pother of diplomatists and cer-
tam. journalists about it,
_all has gone on most
smoothly with Austria and her Western Allies.
She has traded for two weary months on her
wordy 'virtue ; but thpre she is still, an ally who
fights with words
.merely, and whose words in the
end always turn out to ihave been selected for her
awn convenience and that of Russia. It seems
folly to expect that such an ally will ever join us
in fighting: Probably Lgrd Joan RusSnin does
•nat expect it, and may-be prepared to patch up a
peace which will leave Austria possibly a terri-
torial gainer, without firing a gun. • It is perhaps
too hard to Suspea the leading 'Whig statesman
so far. Vienna, is, however, a seductive capital.
Lord JoHh is by no,means insensible to flattery
when Courts, for Court purposes, are the flatterers.
Austrians and Russians may well prove.more'thau
a match for the statesman who allowed NicnoLAs
to absorb Poland, and who more than tolerated
his armed suppression of what he shamelessly de-
signated the " Hungarian rebellion." When the
interests of. German desPots are at stake, Lord
Sour/ borrows his words, and his thoughts too,
from Ccraitniv-pON.

The ' last little movements of Austria are all
pro-Russian. There was a needless ostentation 'of
condolence over the•death of the modern Mau-
ea.uw.zzin. ;- and, worse than all, a decree that
• Pginaent was still to retain the name of
_"lsTienoLltg'," because' -of the CzA.n'S services in
11111uAg47. This was, we suppose, to make amends
for' the Alma
congratulations. We can hardly
imagine, however,
anything more servile and de-
grading, setting ai,id
e the insult to the Allies of
parading the CZAR'S nata •
e regiments
itself. of
e on the banners of a
regiment. It not only telliciEe—Alligirthat that
regiment can never fight against th
NICHOLAS, but it brands on the regiment
the disgrace of the Austrian army, *ic. ,r..,
. • —oLAs
helped it only because the Hungarians had beaten
4: -.'The NICHOLAS regiment is the inenlorial of
Hungarian brayery and Austrian cowardice.