The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-09 00:00:00

from Belfast on Thursday next, the 12th inst., to replace
the Royal South Down Militia.
The Royal North Down Rifle Regiment of Militia,
commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Montgomery, will
arrive at Belfast from Newtownards on Friday next, the
13th inst., to replace the Antrim Rifles.
The Sligo Rifles have given a number of volunteers to
the line during the past week—all smart, able young
men, who have attained a high degree of efficiency in
their military duties.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

(From the Times of this clay.)
We did think that when Lord John Russell, after his
other numerous and varied appearances in public, sud-
denly broke up the Aberdeen Ministry, brought in his
old rival Lord Palmerston, started as Plenipotentiary to
Vienna, and on the way accepted the Colonies, he had
outdone even himself in the novelty and celerity of his
transformations. But his lordship is now presented to
the public in a fresh metamorphosis which beats all the
rest. He went out a British Plenipotentiary to the Con-
ference at Vienna, and returned an Austrian Plenipoten-
tiary to the Court of St. James's. True, it is not very
clear what is meant by "full powers ;" but, is whatever
capacity Lord John went out, in that capacity he came
home, with the single exception that he had changed
employers. In both missions he was equally unsuccess-
ful, for he neither persuaded Austria to agree to our
terms nor our own Government to agree to those of
Austria. He has been projected from London to Vienna
and from Vienna to London with equal effect. But
when the two missions thus successively discharged are
compared in their results, Lord John will be found to
have undoubtedly done a vast deal more service to his
Austrian than to his British employer. He has enabled
Austria to appeal to the authority of the British Pleni-
potentiary, pompously adorned for the occasion with a
Secretaryship of State, that she has fulfilled the obliga-
tions of the Treaty of December 2, and is released from
her promise to assist the allies in defence of Turkey.
The engagement, of course, with regard to the Third
Point was not to surrender her own judgment entirely
into the keeping of the allies, but to take a fair part in
the Conference for drawing up an ultimatum to be ten-
dered to Russia. She might have found a great difficulty
in satisfying the world that she had taken that fair part.
She might have left herself under the imputation of an
illusory and dishonest proposal, having evidently no
other object than to enable her to say that she had
done her best, that she had made a good offer, and if
the Western Powers had thought fit to refuse it, the re-
sponsibilty lay with them. We may, perhaps, still
think this the case. We may think her development of
the principal limitation so cumbrous and impracticable
as to be ridiculous, and meant only to save appearances.
But, whatever we may happen to think within our-
selves, Austria can now say, "Your own Plenipotentiary,
a Secretary of State, the man in whose honour and
judgment the Sovereign and the people of England have
ever placed most confidence, thought otherwise. He
thought it a fair offer, and a sufficient interpretation of
the principle involved in the Third Point. By whom
should we be judged, except by the man you have chosen
yourselves I" That is the result of Lord John Russell's
return mission to this country, and the important ser-
vice he has rendered to Austria.
No wonder that, when Lord John Russell found him-
self making as little way in the Conference at London
as in the Conference at Vienna, and that what he
brought back was as worthless as what he took out, he
felt no inclination to parade his second failure. To fail
in one mission for his own Sovereign was enough ; to
fail in another, gratuitously undertaken for a foreign
Power was no trifling discredit. Lord John must have
felt himself in the position of the young hero who took
an old horse to the market and brought back a gross of
green spectacles. It is true that neither was of great
value, but the former was what it professed to be, and
the latter was a inake•believe. A proposition that,
whatever fleet Russia kept in the Black Sea, the West-
ern Powers were to keep up another there equally ter-
rible and costly, can hardly be called bona fide, and we
can imagine the surprise and disgust with which the
Primrose family in Downing.street must have listened and
looked on as their messenger opened his return budget.
But what was to be done ? Tho whole Ministry was sure
to be called to account for the close of the Conference, and
here was one of them—the most important of them—
who had committed himself to the opinion that the Con-
ference need not have closed, and that it rested with us
to follow up a good tender. So it seems to have struck
them all as a happy thought to say nothing about it for
the time. Perhaps Sebastopol might fall soon, in which
case there would be a general indemnity for errors. So
a grand silence was observed as to the Austrian proposal,
and, when it came to Lord John Russell's turn to give
an account of his mission, he carefully omitted all men-
tion of his second negotiation. In place of it, .he gave
us a strong philippic against the Macedon of modern
times, leading us all to suppose that he saw no alterna-
tive but to carry on the war. Had he seen his mistake
—had he felt that he had been under Austrian chloro-
form, but was now himself again, that might have ex-
cused a little temporary reserve about the matter. But
all this time, during all the debates in Parliament, and
alterations of victory and defeat in the conduct of the
war, we have had a Secretary of State who solemnly be-
lieved the war to be causeless, and his country in the
position of an implacable and irreconcilable belligerent.
All this time Lord John Russell was sustaining two
characters, outwardly the indignant Plenipotentiary, in-
wardly the disappointed Cabinet Minister ; outwardly
the peacemaker who had done his best to secure Aus-
tria and tame Russia, inwardly the patriot grieving
over the fatal obstinacy of his own country and its
rulers ; to the eye and ear denouncing Russia and sur-
rendering Austria to the hard judgment of British poll.
ticians, inwardly regarding Queen Victoria and her ad-
visers as the only obstacles to the peace of Europe.
Now, in these days it is deliberately attempted to ex-
tend to Ministers the impeccability of the Crown. The
people, forsooth, and in particular the anonymous press,
is not to destroy confidence in public men. Who-
ever does so can have no other reason than that
they aspire to the helm themselves, and wish to rise on
the general wreck of political reputations. But this is
no occasion for abuse or depreciation, or any display of
worked-up animosity or pretended scorn. It is the sim-
ple question, how are we to understand our public men?
What are we to take them for ? What are their duties
as to veracity or reserve ? The seceding members of
Lord Palmerston's Cabinet tell us they think the war
unnecessary and criminal, and nobody doubts them ;
for, in fact, their conduct had long led us to expect that
this was the case ; but it is startling to find one of their
successors quite of their opinion. It is startling to find
while we are desolating the earth with fire and sword,
burning whole towns in the Baltic and Sea of Azoff, de-
stroying the food of millions, and pressing on a war
that will probably cost the human race half-a-million
souls yearly as long as it lasts—after all, the war is as
much an open question in our Cabinet as the Ballot or
Marriage with a Deceased's Wife's Sister. We will not
say we have no "confidence" in our Government, be-
cause in that case we incur Lord Palmerston's solemn
rebuke but we will say that we don't know which of
them are carrying on the war conscientiously, and which
of them against his conscience ; which of them thinks
the Czar in the wrong, and which Queen Victoria; which
of them only halt, and that the less important half.
War is a very horrid affair at the best, and requires that
a roan should be thoroughly nerved and braced for it.
It is a thing that a man must do in good earnest, or lie
will be sure to do it ill. The least misgiving paralyses
the arm and staggers tho resolution. If, after all,
half the Cabinet think they arc simply murdering
their species on a very large scale, we wholly de-
spair of those vigorous and decisive measures from
which success is alone to be anticipated. Lord John
is not the only Macbeth in the Cabinet, or he
would not long remain there. There must be others
who don't quite like their work, and who relent in mid
blow. After Lord Palmerston's homily on the use of
our pens, we will not deprecate confidence in these men,
but we will venture to ask—what are we to confide in ?
What is it that we are to believe ? We believe Lord J.
Russell when he tells us that, having rejected fair terms
of peace, he holds us to be responsible for the horrors of
the war. But, if this is his opinion, do we want a man
of such an opinion to be one of our Queen's advisers and
not to carry on the war ? No. It is confidence in the
word of a British statesman which satisfies us that Lord
John Russell should retire, and leave the conduct of the
war to those who think it a just one.

(P the Times of Otis day.)
In the courserom
of the extraordinary disclosures made
by Lord John Russell on Friday evening he entered
into some additional details on the proposals and con-
duct
any
tof the Austrian Government ; and he boasted that,
rate, he had made it his business to ascertain
what Austria and Prussia were ready to agree to. He
appears to us to have succeeded in that portion of his
mission as ill as in every other part of it, but his speech
on Friday does
apology for the unquestionably furnish a more plausible
conduct of Austria herself, since she may
fairly say that the proposal she had made was sufficient
to redeem her previous engagements, inasmuch as both
the French and the English Plenipotentiaries expressed
their approval of it, not as diplomatic agents only, but
as members of their as
Cabinets. This argument
ad homines does not however, touch the real question,
for, as it now turns out, Prance and England were re-
presented at Vienna by men who differed on the most
essential point from the policye
of thects of their mission.ose who sent them,
and who practically betrayed th obj
The Austrian Government itself
appears to be of opi-
nion that its recent measures for the reduction of the
Imperial army and its present relations to the other
Powers of Europe stand in need of some explanation,
and accordingly an article has been published by an
official journal at Vienna, which is attributed to the pen
of a statesman of high reputation, and has since been
transferred to the columns of the French Ilioniteur. The
yeyaresa,rabuint
first object of this cohrhunhiacsati
jonnsitsbteosenxpelffasinnttehde nature
of of the reduction which
Austrian army. The ordinary period of service for the
' liable to serve is
additionaleigh t
they remain
the reserves of the army. These what are termed
men drawn to servo in that country
f men in the strength of man.
arroy, but they consist o
The Emperor has discharged
re-
serves, consequently, form about one-fifth of the whole
hood and of veteran troops.
the reserves of the ,Ici
)of the grounds assigned
amounting
to busta 60,000 men, sand 4otnhec(l'Ps (l'alln6l''
ity f sending home this
f" Inu is the necess-d o peasant of the
body of men, • l 'iv, to the peas elneti be ongi
empire, bsfsre the by arves
nye dded that, iu spi
writer might •
whicherft truth h- -- a L exponse in-
of the efforts h i de and the
curred to put the In) ave. bee i ma
le foot-
s'fespectab
t. Te this excuse the Austrian
ing, the result has been army on a
losses sustained by tale
disease and
e imperial lot ces Irom .
want of food within the confines their rvn territories
of . 0
(hiring the past year ha b
.
to
yery upsatisfacto_ry, and that the
eett go frightfully large as
equal the ravages of a campaign. The recent visit of
military inspection made by the. Emperor Francis Joseph f