The Sun.
London, England, 1854-12-08 00:00:00

RUSSIA AND THE WESTERN PO WERS.

(From the times.)
A note, addressed by Count Nesselrede to the
Russian Minister at Berlin about a month ago,
will be found in another part of our columns, in
which the Russian Cabinet signifies its consent to
take part in negotiations for peace upon the basis
of the Four Points, modified to suit the views
of the Court of St. Petersburg. About ten days
later, and after the result of the battle of Inkier-
man was known by the Czar, the Austrian
Minister at St. Petersburg was informed that
the Russian Government was disposed to accept
the Four Points without these modifications. In
both cases it is evident that the real object of the
Russian Cabinet in making these declarations was
to obtain from Germany " a neutrality supported
with firmness and perseverance ;" but in both
cases the manoeuvre seems to have failed, for oven
Prussia was not restrained from concluding the
additional article to her treaty with Austria, and
Austria proceeded without any further delay to
complete her treaty with the. Western Powers. It
is evident therefore that the German States them-
selves regarded this qualified adoption of the four
articles as an insincere or insufficient concession,
which was intended merely to disar m and 'divide
them, without any substantial compliance with the
just demands of the belligerent Powers.
The question, however, 'is not yet irrevocably
decided ; and it is undoubtedly still open to the
Emperor of Russia to declare in the course of the
present month that he does absolutely, and
without equivocation or reserve, accept the Four
Points as they are understood by the three
Allied Powers. There is, of course, no war—
unless it be a war waged in a spirit of vin-
dictiveness or of conquest—which may not be
terminated at any given moment by the sub-
mission of one of the contending parties to terms
imposed by the other. , It is within the range of
possibility, though not of probability, that the
Emperor of Russia may conceive the moment of
submission to be come, since any further delay
must load to the conclusion of an offensive and de-
fensive alliance between Austria and the Western
Powers, and augment the perils which surround his
e spire. We may therefore reasonably inquire what
is the extent of the terms now demanded by the
Allied Courts, and what is the probability that the
Emperor of Russia will yield to them ?
The four conditions contained in the Notes of
the Bth of August were necessarily and intention-
ally expressed in language which left room for great
latitude of interpretation, and their precise effect
remained to be settled by further discussion and
negotiation. At the present time, however, no
such vagueness of expression can be allowed to
subsist, and we have no doubt that the Allied
Governments have clearly and decidedly stated to
each other their whole intentions. Holding in the
first place, that all the former treaties between
Russia and the Porte are abrogated by the state of
war, their first object must be that no such separate
conventions or treaties should be renewed, inas-
much as the stronger Power always had the means
of interpreting them to the disadvantage of the
weaker State. As long as those treaties were in
existence Russia had an exceptional position to-
wards the Ottoman empire, and the Sultan 'As
not included in those ,general provisions which
embrace and protect the family of European
States. On this point, then, the axe is laid to
the root of the tree, for the ascendancy of Rus-
sia over Turkey bad been obtained by these
treaties, the growth of 80 years of encroach-
ment and intrigue. Prince Menschikoff was sent
to crown the work by his demands, but he over-
threw the whole fabric. Together with the treaties
between Russia and the Porte, thq separate acts
and conventions establishing the influence of
Russia in the Danubian Principalities must be
held to be extinct, and the future condition of
those fertile provinces is open to deliberation.
Russia declares that she is ready to adopt the
principle of a joint guarantee of the civil and re-
ligous right of the Christian populations of the
Ottoman empire, to be given by the five great
Powers, on the faith of the assurance repeatedly
proclaimed by the Western Powers in the course of
this struggle, that they are resolved to secure the
amelioration of the condition of the Sultan's Chris-
tian subjects. We have always regarded, and we
still regard, the improvement of the condition of
the Christian populations as one of the grand ob-
jects of the interference of the Christian Powers in
this quarrel, for the only practicable mode of aug-
menting the resources and of reforming the institu-
tions of the Ottoman empire is to make its Chris-
tian inhabitants contented instead of disaffected
subjects. Lord Clarendon has repeatedly stated,
both in Parliament and in his despatches, the para-
mount importance this country attaches to that
just and necessary change ; but there is a broad
distinction between this general principle recog-
nized by all the Powers, and the exclusive protec-
torate claimed by Russia over the great branch of
the Christian Church in the East, which she
affected to identify with the Russian Uhurch. On
this point, then, her change of language is remark-
able, and her defeat would be total. It is not a
little curious that the exclusive protectorate of the
Greek Church, which she made the pretext of this
whole dispute, is now the first thing she professes
to abandon.
The right of free navigation in the Danube has
never been disputed by the Russian Government
in principle, but it has been destroyed or obstructed
in practice by the occupation of the delta under
the Treaty of Adrianople, by the silting up of the
Salina mouth, and by the establishment of batteries
and quarantine stations on the right bank of the
river. To secure the exercise of this right, there-
fore, the terms of the third article of the Treaty of
Adrianople must be altogether changed ; the whole
right bank of the stream, down to the Salina
mouth, must be restored to Turkey, and effectual
measures taken to keep the passage open.
The fourth proposition, which is in truth the
most important and the most difficult to enforce,
imperfectly expressed by the Allied
Pwoaslvers very
when hen they stated that they demanded a
revision of the Convention of the Straits. " Rus-
sia," says Count Ntsselrode, " would not oppose
the complete abolition of that convention, pros idle
the Sultan consents ;" and by such a procer4s of r
vision Russia would be the real gainer, for th (3;
same law which shuts the rest of Europe out of th e
Black Sea in time of peace shuts her up within it.
To open the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus is to
place the Sultan iu his palace at the mercy of every
ship-of-war that passes before his windows ; and
the fleets of Russia would find their way to the
Mediterranean quite as easily as our vessels would
reach the Euxine. The matter is, however, not so
easily settled. The real meaning of this proposi-
tion was and is, as M. Drouyu de Lhuys expressed
it, the limitation of the power of Russia in the
Black Sea, and subsequent events have shown
that the Allies contemplate not only entire free-
dom of access to those waters, but also the de-
struction of that huge fleet and fortress against
which our forces by sea and land are at this
time arrayed. If Sebastopol was an object of
jealousy and alarm to Europe and to Turkey be-
, fore we knew its extent, its enormous magazines