The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-10 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1854.

An energetic blow must be struck by the allies
of Turkey both in the Black Sea and in the
Baltic, and that promptly, and, as far as it is at
all practicable, simultaneously. There is no doubt
whatever that such a course of proceeding has
become at last imperatively, requisite, if the
enemies of Russia really and seriously wish to
bring the war to anything approaching to a satis-
factory termination. Unless this - combination of
. .
promptitude and decision be 'at length displayed
• •• •
by France and 4pgland, the consequences cannot
fail to be most disastrous. Furtter delays must
inevitably tend to magnify the perils and to mul-
tiply the difficulties in the way of anything like a
successful or decisive achievement.

As far as Russia, the aggressor, is concerned—
a continuance of this dilatory policy on the part
of her antagonists cannot but materially strengthen
her position along her frontiers, and enable her
to concentrate, at pleasure, her gigantic forces,
both military and maritime.
As far as Turkey, the aggressed, is concerned--
the obstinate pursuance of the policy hitherto
carried out by her Western supporters must un-
avoidably, and by necessity, militate against her
financial interests, while it cannot but tax to the
very uttermost, all the, even now, severely tried
energies of the no longer despised war department
of her administration. It is true that 03fER
PACHA, in a spirit of determined reliance upon
his followers worthy of that able and heroic com-
mander-in-chief, has recently intimated that Silis-
tria, for example (one of the most critically situ-
ated of all the Turkish strongholds in Bulgaria) is
capable of holding out for two months longer
without assistance ! Yet with all the self-sus-
taining courage of the soldiers, and all the incom-
parable abilities of the commander of the victori-
ous army—conquerors- successively at Oltenitza, at
Citate, and in the Dobrudscha-a--there cannot be
a doubt that the- gallanir attitude- of defence, so
long and up to the present moment so successfully
maintained by the Ottoman
unnatural strain
re-
quired from first to last an strain upon
its financial and military
the capacities both of
departments.
Everything, in short, combines to
prove logi-
cally the absolute and imperative need
for a
prompt, bold blow being struck at the
,night of
the Russian AUTOCRAT—at once in the North
and in the East, in the Euxine and in the Baltic,
under the walls of Cronstadt and under those of
Sebastopol.
This twofold display of resolution, in fact, is
positively necessary—on the part
necessary--is
of France and England, if only with a view to
shield from ignominy the reputation of their
Allied Governments.
A series of brilliant victories are eagerly expected,
are confidently looked for by the people of France
and of Great Britain. They must ,be achieved,
or discredit must inevitably fall upon the exist-
ing Administrations. it is the nature of the
situation at which matters have at length arrived.
It is the difficulty which has to be encountered.
France confidingly awaits the advent of this
triumphant close of the struggle which has now
commenced. She believes implicitly in the valour
of her troops, in the power of her maritime arma-
ments, in the genius of her Erryzon, in • the
pres-
tige of her eagles, of her tricolour, and of the
lOrion3 name of ITAPOLLOZT. It is the reliance
of her children upon all these swities of Bilowso
S is 110147/1-40, tto4l+.o4:46foonijaig, readily

with their contributions to the voluntary loan of
250,000,000 francs. It is this reliance which
will ptompt them no less readily to advance
another 250,000,000 francs, whenever that sup-
plernentaryloan may be demanded by the Imperial
Government.
England, in like manner, is prepared for nothing
short of a brilliant close to the bloody contest
upon which the. nations of the earth have again
adventured. Victory at all times requisite, has
become more than ever essential now than it can
alone be obtained under an intolerable pressure
of additional taxation. 'With the Income Tax,
the most unpopular of all taxes, doubled so long
as the war continues—Peace must before long be
arranged on some terms, good, bad, or indifferent.
Especially must this be the case, if, to a doubled
Income Tax, be added an enormous increase of
the duty (from 2s. 9d. to 4s. per bushel) upon
Malt, a hasty, and therefore to many an un-
avoidably injurious adjustment of the im-
posts levied upon Sugar, and a large increase
• of the Spirit Duty to the amount of Bd.
per_ gallon in Ireland and of ls. per gallon
in Scotland. Encumbered with this additional
burthen of taxation, amounting, as Mr. GLAD-
STONE himself calculates, to an increase of the
annual revenue by upwards of 10,000,0001.
: the people of England will assuredly become vo-
ciferous for a conclusion being brought to the
war, supposing this war be allowed to " drag its
slow length along," like its prototypes, the
wounded snake or the feeble alexandrine.

Can Ministers be counting on this ? Can they
be calculating upon a release from their present
difficulties through the medium of this in3vitable
impatience of the population ? Satisfied that
the doubled Income Tax (the Income Tax doubled
so long as the war continues), and the increased Malt
Tax, and the increased Spirit Duty, and the other
new war burthens proposed by Mr. GLADSTONE'S
third Budget, will render the country so restive
under the goad of these supplementary extortions
,by the taxgatherer that a Peace of any kind may
' be accepted as a relief from evils otherwise threat-
ening to be almost interminable. Can it be
that my Lord ABERDEEN and his sympathisers
have this odious scheme for a disgraceful com-
promise among the number of their hidden cal-
culations ?

However this may be—if England and France
be really desirous of bringing the war to a speedy
and glorious close, they can only accomplish this,
we repeat, by striking a series of resolute and
daring blows at Russia through the medium of
their combined fleets in the Baltic and in the
Euxine, as far as possible, simultaneously.

After the bombardment of Odessa, with some
half-dozen of frigates, the combined fleets in the
Black Sea, it will bo remembered, proceeded across
those waters directly to Sebastopol. It is known
with no less certainty that the combined fleets in
the Baltic have, with equally warlike intentions,
quitted Elfsnaben. The ultimate destination of
the maritime force under Admirals NAPIER and
DESCHENES may, wheresoever it shall proceed be-
forehand, be at once confidently anticipated.
That destination, obviously, is the inner part of
the Gulf of Finland, the vicinity of the island of
Cronstadt, the well-guarded channels leading to
the capital—St. Petersburg. Supposing Cronstadt
to be taken, and its batteries destroyed, have our
fleets the capacity of pushing onward to the Rus-
sian metropolis' Inquiries virtually amounting
to this were addressed last evening to the First
Lord of the Admiralty by the lion. gentleman the
member for Louth—inquiries', having reference to
the question whether Sir CHARLES NAPIER. iS to
be supplied with gun-boats fit for the requisite
shoal-water navigation. We do not by any

means quarrel with the manner in which Sir
JAMES GRAHAM objected to enter into particulars
in matters of such extreme delicacy as those in-
volved in the interrogation. Nevertheless, while
we conceive that the First Lord of the Admiralty
was more than simply justified in refusing to ex-
plain any such matters at any such crisis, we cannot
atthe same time but sympathisemost earnestly with
the solicitude evidently felt by Alr. KENNEDY in re-
gard to the notorious want of proper gun-boats in
the Baltic, gun-boats drawing so little water, even
when heavily armed, as to be suited to the shal-
low navigation of the Neva. The necessity in
this particular, we believe, is most urgent and
imperative. So urgent and so imperative, that
we shall not scruple to direct public attention to
the subject later on and more in detail—saving and
excepting iu the event that duo regard shall ap-
pear to have been paid to the matter by the mem-
bers of her MAJESTY'S Government. Upon the
proceedings taken by the Admiralty authorities in
this matter of proper gun-boats for the Baltic
fleet, we shall keep our eyes directed with vigilant
and unwinking watchfulness.

Since Mr. GLADSTONE has thought proper to
defend his capacity at the expense of his integrity
—since he has deemed it expedient to resort to
the specious fallacy put forward by the Times, a
quibble unworthy of the lowest class of Old
Bailey practitioners, it becomes necessary to com-
pare his statement of the 6th of March with that
of the Bth of May, and to ascertain how far the
statements of the one are consistent with those of
the other, and whether, looking to the former by
the additional light we have since obtained, the
charge of the night Honourable Gentleman the
member for Buckinghamshire, that it was a de-
luding estimate, and a deceptive Budget, has not
been fully and completely substantiated. Nay,
more, we fear that we must now add, that the
error did not arise through. mistake or misap-
prehension, but that the object was to delude the
public—to induce the people to believe that
which was not the 'whole truth, and to per-
suade their representatives in Parliament
to give their assent to propositions
which they might have rejected had the real facts
of the case been candidly placed before them,
without evasion or mental reservation.

These are serious charges, very damaging to
the character of a public man, and it is therefore
necessary that they should be thoroughly proved,
on unquestionable testimony. We shall do so.
Out of his own mouth shall we gather the mate-
rials of his condemnation. We do not wish in
this censure to be understood as uttering a single
syllable against Mr. GLADSTONE apart from his
official position and his official proceedings. We
believe that in 'private life he is an uptight, ami-
able, and honourable man, a gentleman in the
broadest sense of the designation—a title more
honourable than any that the proudest Monarch
of this world could confer. Agiinst Mr. GLAD.
STONE, the individual, 'we have nothing to
say inconsistent with the highest respect.
Against the Chancellor of the Exchequer
we are reluctantly compelled to put for-
ward a charge of . suppressiO yeri, if not a
sugge,stio falsi, which proves him to be unworthy
of confidence in his official capacity—prevents any
reliance from being placed in his financial mea-
sures, and disqualifies him from discharging, with
credit to himself or advantage to the nation, the
arduous and important duties of his high position.
Nothing could be more inconvenient—nothing
could be more impolitic, or more discreditable,
than being obliged to search for concealed or dis-
guised meanings in an elaborate statement. And
on the part of the community, we feel bound to
protest against the laxity of official morality that
tolerates such conduct. Mr. GLADSTONE himielf
protests against it in others. He even denounces
the system in operation. In No. 3 Budget, the
latest, and therefore the one which he will stand
by until it may be convenient to repudiate the
views put forward the
we have a fictitious statement Gentleman was deluded,ein,
awdechatynts_a Becauses
tate-
th;
ande s aof 3' 8 --" The Hon.
e
; ou
oa
ns
e,vof for
the
ineitt of accownts writtpu, aild 21
purpose of mystery." Re adds, "There are peo-
ple who think mystery in finance
greatest virtues. That is not an opinion which
I entertain, but lam not sure that it mayl "It
be held in some degree by the present Comptroller
of the Exchequer." While, then, he thus attacks
others, be must look to his own conduct, and
take heed lest, when condemning the mete in his
brother's eye, he disregard the beam in, his own !
On Monday evening Mr. GLADSTONE spoke of
the expenditure, sanctioned on the:Oth of- March
cc,
-u iiiat“rs trapp7ey Provision to rektor the

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