The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-27 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 27, 1853.

THE EASTERN QUESTION.

(From the Morning Rerald.)

We must repeat the warning which yesterday we
felt ourselves compelled to address to the people of
England. The support of England is not yet ho-
nestly and unreservedly and energetically given to
the Sultan in the war which he has at last been
forced to declare. The drivellers of our Cabinet
are still dreaming of peace by negotiation, and it
has been determined that before England commits
herself to actual hostilities with the Czar, the me-
diation of Prussia shall be invoked. Until the
opportunity for this arises nothing is to be done
that will commit this country to an open hostility
with Russ:a.
We may, perhaps, venture to ask of our readers
to give credence to this statement upon the faith of
the verification of all that we have hitherto pre-
dicted or told in relation to this question. We
may remind them, that at the time whe-i every one
of our contemporaries represented the Eastern ques-
tion as brought to a close—when public opinion
acquiesced in these hopes, this journal persever-
ingly repeated the warning that these expectations

were mere delusions.
With the same confidence in the correctness of
our information with which we then maintained our
opinions in opposition to those whose judgment we
were bound to respect, we now emphatically tell
the British public, that it is not settled in our
Cabinet that England is to support Turkey in the
war which very likely has by this time commenced,
but that any active intervention of the Btitign Go-'
vernment is to be staved off until there is time for
another attempt at negotiation by the intervention
of Prussia as a mediator.

It has been found impossible so to control the
movements of the Porte as to afford the opportunity
for this before a formal declaration of war. In
spite of the treacherous councils of his allies, the
Sultan has vindicated his own independence by
demanding the evacuation of the Principalities,
and declaring war if it be not complied with. This
step, we are told, he has taken in opposition to the
advice of the representatives of the four Powers.
Why was this advice given ? Plainly because it
was still believed that the door to negotiation had
not been closed, and that it was still possible to
find a pacific solution of the dispute that threatened
the peace of Europe.
The Sultan, however, having declared war, it
was impossible for France and England openly to
desert him. The necessary consequence of that
proceeding was, that our fleets should. enter the

Dardanelles. It has, however, been intimated by
the Emperor of Russia, that if the movements of
France and England are confined to this step, his
Imperial Majesty will not consider this as an act
of war, or as an act necessarily interrupting his
friendly relations with the Western Powers. It
has accordingly been determined that the move-
ment of our fleet shall be confined to this.
The public must not be deluded by demi-
official announcements that the fleets of France
and England are at the disposal of the Sul-
tan for any purposes for which he pleases
to employ them. We most emphatically and
positively state that they are not so. No com-
munication whatever has been made to the Porte
than it can use a British mau of war for any pur-
pose whatever. The magnificent stories about
burning Sebastopol and mastering the Euxine, all
are dreams of the future. Up to the hour at which
the last advices left Constantinople, not a single
assurance had been given to the Sultan that Eng-
land would support him in the war which he has
undertaken, and the fleet has not offered its assist-
ance to the Turkish Government.

Thsse, it will be observed, are plain matters of
fact, upon which we can be contradicted and ex-
posed if we are wrong. Lord Clarendon has openly
stated that he has in one instance at least sent
official documents to the Times. We now defy
Lord Clarendon to contradict the statement which
we make. No communication has been made to

the Porte, assuring it of England's consent to the
war. No offer has been made of the services of our
fleet, either for the purpose of aggression or de-
fence. Nay, instructions have been sent which
prohibit the employment of our ships in support of
any movement that has for its object the dis-
lodgment of the Russian troops from the Princi-
palities.

- In the meantime it is perfectly understood. that
the Russian Government will abstain for the pre-
sent from attempting the passage of the Danube.
The presence of our fleet in the Sea of Marmora is,
therefore, for immediate purposes perfectly useless
—Russia can well afford not to resent it.
In this state of things intimations have been
given both to Austria and Prussia, and indirectly
at least to Russia, that the British Government
will accept of the mediation of Prussia when that
power flees the proper opportunity to interfere.
We do not of course profess to detail the precise
communications in which this plan has been ar-
ranged. But we can, and do positively, state that
the plan has been arranged, and that it is perfectly
understood that no active measures will be taken
by our Government to support Turkey until an-
other effort is made to avert the necessity by the
mediation of Prussia. On the other hand, it is
equally understood that no movement south of the
Danube will be made by the Russian troops until
time is given for the intervention of Prussia.
Unfortunately the Sultan—the party the most
interested—has not been consulted as to this
scheme. It is at least possible that as the
manoeuvres of diplomatists were before disconcerted
by the declaration of war, they may be again thrown
into confusion by the passage of the Danube by the
Turkish forces.

It is hoped, however, by the framers of the
scheme that even this untoward event would not

disconcert it. A hostile encounter, confined to the
Turks and Russians alone, would in their opinion
rather promote it. If the Turks were defeated on
the northern bank of the Danube it would be an
excuse for forcing unfavourable terms on the Porte.
ft would not precipitate matters it the Russian
Emperor observes his implied engagement not to
cross to the southern. On the other hand, it is
calculated that a defeat of the Russian troops in
the provinces might not indispose the Emperor to
a pacific accommodation.
Upon these miserable calculations the energetic
action of England is suspended, and we are incur-
ring the risk of permitting the hostile armies to
cross swords on the Danube before England has
declared her position in the contest. We believe
the idea of now terminating the dispute by the
mediation of Prussia is absurd. The scheme has
been invented for the purpose of paralysing the
action of England and France, and for the further
purpose of attaching Prussia and Austria as allies
to the Czar. It is to be observed, of all the schemes
that have been propounded for the pacific solution
of this question, not one of them has involved the
suspension of hostile preparations by Russia.
While Turkey was engaged by the protocols of
Menschikoff, Russia was concentrating her troops
upon the Danube and the Euxine. The Princi-
palities were seized while diplomatists were framing
very clever dispatches. While Europe was amused
with the pacific efforts of the Vienna con-
ference, Russia was strengthening her position,
pouring fresh troops into the conquered pro-
vinces, and sequestering their revenues to her
own use. So now she is p3rfectly willing that
Europe should again be occupied in the follies of
pacific notes, while she is steadily and resolutely
pursuing her own course, retaining the pro zinces of
Turkey by an armed occupation, and resisting by
force any attempt of the Turkish Government to
dispossess her. For so far Europe has been nego-
tiating, while Russia has been making war. Until
the Russian troops evacuate the Principalities there
is no negotiation on equal terms. To engage in
any, while they are occupied by the troops, is to
betray the cause of European independence.
It is with deep mortification that we repeat our
statement, that the resolve of our Cabinet is to
keep aloof from active participation in the contest
until one more chance is tried for Lord Aberdeen
and the interests of peace. And upon this hope-
less chance our Ministry are perilling the cause of
the civilisation of the world.
It is absurd to say that these frantic efforts offer
the most remote prospect of peace. They are not
adopted in any rational conviction that they can
do so. They are the struggles of the Cabinet, not
to maintain the peace of Europe, but to keep toge-
ther the Coalition. To postpone the evil day of
their dissolution every crotchet is grasped at ; and
the determination of the question that must break
them up is postponed for even the crotchet of a
Prussian mediation.

THE CORPORATION AND THE ROYAL COMMISSION.—
The following fact, with reference to the forthcoming in-
quiry into the state of the corporation, and the proba-
bility of the sittings of the commissioners being open or
closed, is given on the authority of the secretary, Mr.
J. D. Coleridge :—"lt is not the intention of the com-
missioners to admit reporters from the newspapers to be
in the room during their sittings. They propose to have
a short hand writer of their own, and to print and cir-
culate the evidence given before them from time to
ULM".

REMOVAL OF TEMPLE-BAR.

(From the Morning Chronicle. )
Temple-bar is, at the present moment, a conve-
nient scapegoat for sundry civic sins. It is in-
dicted on several accounts. It is an obstruction to
the traffic—it is ugly--and it perpetuatesa ridiculous
fiction, viz., that absurd jus civitatis, so dear to
the heart of preirtice and Common Councilman, by
which it is supposed that the Queen has to sue the
Lord Mayor for permission to enter within the
sacred precincts of his jurisdiction. Upon a recent
application to the Court of Common Council for
funds to repair the gate, the proposition, though
endorsed by a Select Committee, was rejected ;
and it is hence concluded that the prospects of the
poor old barrier are bad. The City has not actually
condemned it, but refuses to repair it. It is said
—upon what grounds we are not aware—that the
structure is in an insecure state. We do not our-
selves believe in its danger ; but the conclusion is
drawn that, as in the case of au ailing sheep, it
must be butchered to save its life.
We hardly know which to denounce most—the
flimsiness and folly of the arguments used for its
retention, or of those employed for its destruction
—the excuses, we mean, which have been venti-
lated in the City, where, of course, the real point
at issue has been, and not unintentionally,
shirked. The state of the approaches to the City
is a disgrace ; and of this the public reasonably com-
plains. But the public is inquiring where the City
funds go—the Royal Commission is looming omin-
ously near—and so Temple-bar, being a solid struc-
ture, is made to bear the burden of all the inconve-
nience of the City streets. Temple-bar is the conve-
nient answer to all complAints of civic mismangement.
This is mere hypocrisy. There is not—more shame
to the City—a decent and available arterial com-
munication through it ; and so the citizens lay the
blame on a passage which is out of the City. The
obstruction in the City always eddies round Lud-
gate-hill and Fleet-street, rather than at Temple-
bar. The City authorities seem to have succeeded
admirably in bringing a converging traffic to the
angle between Farringdon-street and Fleet-street
—they have done their best to choke the gorge at
that spot—and now they lay the blame on a com-
paratively open space half a mile further on. The
new. Cannon-street and the new Gresham-street
will be perfectly ineffectual to relieve the traffic,
so long as its westward current is confined to Lud-
gate-hill and Fleet-street. Holborn-hill, on ac-
count of the draught required, is totally useless ;
and simply to drive shafts of communication, to
terminate, as Cannon-street at present does, in
nothing—or to melt off into Ludgate-hill, as it
will do—is equally nugatory. Unless a parallel
line to Ludgate-hill and Fleet-street is opened
westward, Cannon-street might as well have been
left unbuilt. Of course, what is wanted is a line
of new street carried from the west end of Cheap-
side, annihilating the pestilential garbage cellars
of Newgate-market, removing the Central Criminal
Court, absorbing the site of the Fleet Prison, and
letting light, moral and physical, through the mass
of squalid courts, alleys, and lanes which form a
block between Farringdon-street and Charing-
Cross.

reason which ought to induce the guardians of our
acropolis to throw up a rampart, instead of the
ideal barricade of Holborn-bars, against the fierce
horde of Westmonasterians pouring eastward. If
Temple-bar is to be retained only as the symbol of
city exclusiveness, we should say, Down with it ;
and no better time could be chosen for its demoli-
tion than that of the inauguration of the commis-
sion, which is likely enough to level more serious
remembrances of civic grasping and isolation than
this gateway. Nor are we so enamoured of that
time-honoured and mystic ceremony in which the
King of London slams the door in the face of
the Queen of England, as to desire its perpetua-
tion according to the sapient plan of Mr. Com-
mon Councilman Cox—who proposes to substitute
for Wren's structure a neat and portable iron-wire
fence, to swing backwards and forwards, for-the
annual celebration of the great civic rites—or
rights. Perhaps Cox is an ironmonger, and wants
the contract; but at any rate we can assure him
that,and
it if Temple-bar goes, we are not going to sub-
mit the tomfoolery of " bronze gates of a light
elegant appearance." If Temple-bar is to fall,
it must fall. We have offered some considerations
for its retention ; but, if they do not avail with the
public—which, however, we are sanguine enough
to believe that they will—let Mr. Cox and the gen-
tlemen of Farringdon Without be assured that the
plea in favour of having something to perpetuate
the famous dialogue between the Queen's coach-
man and the Lord Mayor's lacquey, will not be
listened to for a moment.

TEMPLE-BAR, FLEET-STREET, AND VIE

STRAND.