The Sun.
London, England, 1853-09-20 00:00:00

VIE EASTERN QUESTION.

(From the Press.)
The answer of the Czar to the recommendation

of the Vienna Conference that he should accept the
modifications of the note proposed by the Porte has
at length been receives. He positively refuses to
concede those conditions which the Sultan has po-
sitively stated he cannot and will not dispense with.
The labours of the Conference have therefore come
to nothing, and the prospect of a pacific solution of
the difficulty is more distant now than at any time
since the crisis began.
We are assured that our Ministers are not dis-
couraged. " Nothing has occurred to affect the
substantial merits of the case. * * The ques-
tion remains precisely as before," writes one of their
organs of yesterday ; " the only fresh intelligence
is favourable to peace," says another; while a third
insinuates that " there is no new reason to prevent
Russia from acquiescing in a peaceful settlement of
the quarrel." We are told that " the dispute has
already been reduced to a question of form," though
the facts before the writer's eyes compel him to ad-
mit that "if the Porte insisted on supplementary
conditions when it was less able to enforce its will,
and less deeply committed to a policy of resistance,
there can be less expectation of its dispensing with
these conditions at a moment when the war party
is clearly in the ascendant."
As Russia will not yield to the reasonable condi-
tions of Turkey, it is now assumed that Turkey
must yield to the unreasonable conditions of Russia.

The Conference, on receipt of the Emperor's refusal,
sent proposals to the Sultan that he should recal
his words—that he should sign the note he had re-
fused to sign, and be content with an assurance
that the Conference would put any interpretation

on the note agreeable to the Sultan himself. Our

Government conceives that he should-accede to this

• -
request ; that, as he—is the weakest party in the
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quarrel, it is only reasonable he should give way
to the stronger ; and that, discarding all consider-
ations of right and honour, and all respects for
the opinion of his people, he should humble him-
self at the feet of the haughty enemy who has wan-

tonly invaded his dominion's, and whose troops,
encamped on Turkish territory, are savagely cla-

mourin-g for the extermination- of himself, his
nation, and . his faith. "It will be well if the
Sultan sign the note." "We trust that the Turkish
Government may be induced to defer to those
_ _

representations which the mediating Conference
will be called on to renew. * * " It

is hard to expect that they (the mediating Powers)
should support Turkey in a declaration of war."
We lay the more stress on these sentiments, as
it is notorious that they proceed from leading
members of the Government. They are not light
' words heedlessly written, but the deliberate
opinions of inen who now hold the reins-of empire:
In the same papers in whieh'these counsels are
given, the intelligence from Turkey emphatically
states that " the Sultan would lose his life if he
were to accept of dishonourable conditions."
Can any one doubt what his answer will be,—
what, in fact, it must be ? The publication of
Lord Clarendon's answer to the Russian manifesto
shows what language our Foreign Minister held
only two months back. On the 16th of July last,
Lord Clarendon wrote to doubt Nesselrode—" If
ancient rights exist, and are observed by Turkey,
Russia has no cause of complaint against Turkey.
But if she seeks to extend those rights, then is
Turkey justified in closely examining the nature of
such fresh demands, and in refusing those from
which her independence and dignity would suffer."
In this sentence is contained full justification of
the course the Sultan has hitherto pursued ; and
when he is requested to abandon those modifica-
tions of the note which he conceived essential to the
dignity and independence of his Government,
what other reply need he make than to lay his fin-
ger on this part of Lord Clarendon's dispatch, and
say,—You have my answer there !
Will England dare to withdraw from the side of
her old ally, should he persist in acting on those
principles of policy which she has taught him are
essential to the maintenance of his kingdom as a
sovereign and independent State ? No art of so-
phistry—no verbal juggling--can get over those
recorded words of our Foreign Minister. There
they stand, shaming the dastardly counsels which
are now urged on the Sultan, and justifying him
in adhering to the views he has already firmly ex-
pressed.
He has not taken exception to any merely ver-
bal formality ; it is to the substance of certain con-
ditions in the Vienna Note, affecting his rights of
sovereignty over large bodies of his subjects, that
he reasonably and consistently objects. The pro-
posal of the Conference is, that those conditions
should be read in a "non-natural" sense ; that
they should not be taken to imply what the words
do imply ; that the Porte should give up the point
now, and trust to the moderation of his formidable
foe, and the protection of the mediating Powers,
for an interpretation of the clauses in a sense es-
sentially different from their plain and obvious
meaning. Is it likely that this insulting sophistry
will be favourably listened to ?
It is to the armies on the banks of the Danube
that attention must now be directed, rather than
to the Conference at Vienna. The wisdom of our
Government has brought the belligerents face to
face. On one side the success of unprovoked ag-
gression has intoxicated the troops with confidence
in the might of their arms, and maddened them
with desire for conflict and victory, and on the
other a sense of insult and wrong has aroused a
storoi of indignation which the efforts of diplo-
macy will scarcely be able to repress. While we
have been deluded by expecting peace from nego-
tiation, Russia and the Porte have been actively
preparing for the last and desperate issue of the
battle. At the moment when we were assured
that orders were about to be given for the evacua-
tion of the Principalities the Russians were actively
engaged in fortifying themselves in their ,‘ con-
quests ;" and, as we learn by the latest telegraphic
dispatches, were concentrating a vast body of troops
on the line of the Danube. The Sultan reviewing
his levies at Unkiar Skelessi, and with a manifesto
of war, urgently appealing to the courage and fana-
ticism of his people, ready for publication, is not
less ominous than the military parade of Gortscha-
koff and his savage proclamation, exhorting his
soldiers to annihilate Paganism, and those who
"
would oppose Russia in the sacred mission, with
its blasphemous rallying cry— Long life to the
God of the Russians !"
The meeting appointed between the Czar
Nicholas and the young Emperor Francis, on the
23d inst., at Ohnutz, indicates the contempt with
which the former is disposed to regard the proceed-.
ings of the Conference. England is the party most
interested in thwarting his ambitious schemes ; but
what can lie care for the representations of a power
which, since the commencement of the quarrel, has
not dared even to be consistent even in timidity,
but has manifested the extremes of weakness by
continual vaccination ?
When, for the hundredth time, we are positively
assured that terms of settlement have been agreed
on, and that peace has been secured, we shall be
startled from our dream of repose by the announce-
ment that a great battle has effectually cut short
the subtleties of diplomatic negotiation. From the
hour that the Russian armies had crossed the Pruth,
war had virtually commenced. Had England, in
the consciousness of her magnificent strength, for-
bade the aggression, and dared, even though she
stood alone, all consequences of her righteous asai,
in a righteous cause, the perils which now threatens
the peace of Europe would have been checked in
its origin. The right moment for effectual media-