The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-29 00:00:00

THE COMING STRUGGLE.

Oue of Bonaparte's amusements at St. Helena was ridi-
culing the folly of Great Britain in securing for herself no
better bargain at the Peace. "So silly a treaty," he said,
"as that made by your Ministers for their own country
was never made before. You give up everything, and
gain nothing." Whether we were " silly" or not depends,
not on the opinion of a military despot, who may possibly
be incompetent to judge of our interests for us, but on
our own national views and aims. We are now at war,
and we know that Parliament will soon cease its sittings,
and that, during the recess, the plan of another peace may
be concocted in the interests of despotism. No such
scheme must be ratified. After the last great war, if we
had wished for territorial aggrandisement, of course we
should have made such a treaty, while we held such influ-
ence as would have enabled us to help ourselves to a share of
the plunder. It did not enter into the Great Soldier's
head that the British are not a nation of conquerors
measuring their fortunes by their victories ; but, on the
contrary, so far advanced in civilisation as to regard peace,
rest, self-containment, and regularity of the national life
as worth more than the nominal wealth of an accretion of
foreign territory and heterogeneous peoples. It did not
occur to Bonaparte that the progression we desire is in-
ternal—consisting rather of elevation than extension. It
did not occur to him that there might be somethin., sacred
and solemn to us in the ancient landmarks, and that we
had rather decline touching them on our own account. It
did uct occur to him that a time might come when we
should feel a serene satisfaction, in the midst of the dis-
turbances of Europe, that our landmarks are ancient, and
that, while strong to aid the right, we are distracted by
no fears of territorial loss, and no embarrassments from
the stir among stolen nations, forcibly brought under our
rule at the peace. Bonaparte could foresee, with wonder-
ful accuracy, what a man of his own sort would
do in the middle of the century. He predicted the course
that the Czar has taken (though without estimating the
weakness of an empire so governed) ; but it did not enter
his bead that in that great day—in the day of the bursting
of the floodgates, and the tempestuous conflicts of despo-
tisms—it might be a supreme blessing to any European
naticn to find itself safe and calm on its island rock, above
the storm, and able to succour the sufferers from it. Such
a blessing is now ours ; and we shall feel the privilege
attendant upon moral wisdom and political moderation
more and more from year to year, if the present war runs
on, as many wise men anticipate, to a final conflict between
dynasties and peoples.
Bonaparte thought, as most potentates on the Continent
thought, that it was a very fine thing to cut and carve among
the nationalities, and deal with peoples as rulers accuse the
Owens and Fouriers of dealing with individuals or associa-
tions ; and they all took for granted that the thing was
dune the matter settled; and that any disturbance or restive-
ness that there might be would subside under the pressure
of a strong government. It can hardly be but that a doubt
of this must now be haunting many minds which, while
ill at ease, still dread all change. If there happens to be
in the royal palaces of the continent an atlas of half a cen-
tury old, any casual glimpse of its European contsmts
must agitate any royal mind. Such a work is probably
among the forbidden books in countries where the press is
not free. It is otherwise with us ; and we, dispassionate
and at ease about the whole matter, can contemplate that
old map of Europe in a way which is perhaps as prophetic
as it is mournful and instructive.
There are the Peninsula and Switzerland and our own
country, bounded as they are now, France nearly so :
they and no others. As for the rest,—Poland first attracts
notice. There it stretches,—beyond the Dwina, beyond
the Dnieper,—touching the Baltic, and very nearly reach-
ing the Black Sea. Thore was no Austrian frontier then
which need keep watch against Russia. Poland separated
Russia from all the rest of Europe, except a small portion of
the Black Sea which belonged to Turkey. As for the other
now reduced countries,—there is Hungary stretching along
the Polish frontier, and down to the Danube, and away
to the Adriatic ; andi Italy looks as if it were settled down I
for ever under its natural boundary of the Alps. Between
them lies little Austria,—so humble as to look as if her
portion of the Netherlands were her chief title to conside-
ration : and there is little Prussia, niched in, like Rutland

, .
among our English counties. , There is Russia, now more
changed than any country, unless it be Austria and Prussia.
No Finland belonging to her then,-...n0 Poland,—no access
to the Danube,—not a foot of ground beyond the Don.
There is Sweden, compact and complete, with her two sides
of the Bothnian Gulf, and her frontier on the Gulf of Fin-
laud. There is Norway in her independence, with her frontier
of fiords on the one hand, and of mountains on the other.
There is something melancholy enough in the aspect of that
old map, where we see, as it were, the despotisms of
Europe lying in wait to seize and devour the victims
whom a greater despot was to turn out to wander within
reach of their clutches. Bonaparte was not yet a sovereign.
It was he who, as a sovereign, prepared for the removal of
so many landmarks, and enabled Russia to do what a pre-
vious encroachment on Poland and Turkey had shown that
she was inclined to do. His conquesutsawmeorset ypeetotole seem
come ;
and the consequent redistribution of territory at the peace.
And is it so certain—as the Metternichs, and the Castle-
reaghs, and the Nesselrodes thouahgmahte ret—mtidliniadsr
tiitbhue:rieotiis
wnaos-
thing more to come ? Wise men always believed that there
n
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abcetsiboemneaoorn
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In
cgioieemshe i
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for
rer
same
a
i u
made without and against the assent of th.e peoples. Bel-
a the n
gium could not be kept united with Hollan:an di
sw intho
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sslivah, i
tenni('
oorfe
Hunstandgaryandad;nobodynd union
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p
Italy with
supposes
it can ever be made
real The
pessential
dp rin
ontc itphl
ee
nolaitnioodneorfn imwthicehs
sovereigns who must decide
in
vi
(when choice becomes neces-
sary) under what rule they shall live—having been wholly
set at nought in the redistribution
of Europe, the scheme
may give way at any moment, d
first conflagration. . an must explode in the
This certainty, or rather the reluc-
tance of rulers to •
dilat admit the fact, is the real cause of the
ory and hesitating conduct of the war. Delay,ho - ever, will do no good, while it •
advantage
to the general enemy. The lesson we English in
particular have to learn from a comparison of the old and the
modern snap of Europe is, first, that our business is to strike
a std cog and heavy blow at the chief aggressor, without a
moment's delay from apprehension of what cannot possibly
be avoided by delay; secondly, that we must on no account
so entangle ourselves in alliance with any despotic Powers
as to find ourselves on the wrong side in the day of the up-
rising of the oppressed nationalities; and thirdly, that if it
should fall to us to find on our side the Finlanders, or the
inhabitants of the provinces on the Danube, the Dnieper,
the Don, and the Kuban, in their severance from the Rus-
sia which they hate, we must see that the choice shall be
theirs under what nationality they shall range themselves,
or whether they shall have one of their own. These are
the rules of our duty in the coming reversals or eonituo-
tions of Europe; and we shall best show our sense of our
superior blessedness, and our privilege of disinterestedness
in the great cause to which we have pledged ourselves, by
tivliggipg Ott ditty we,11.---DOV Arm