The Sun.
London, England, 1854-01-26 00:00:00

MR. COBDEN ON TIIE EASTERN QUESTIO .

( From the Times.)
It is strange that Mr. Cobden should speak on the
subject of peace and war, more especially of war in the
East, and that we should feel ourselves constrained,
in very many respects, to agree with him. The change
however, is none of ours ; it is purely and entirely M r
Cobden's own.. Whether he has discarded altogether the
doctrines of the Peace Society we do not know, but h
certainly discourses of war in a more rational tone than
we ever remember to have heard him before, and with
a practical common sense, the absence of which we
have had too frequently to regret in his speeches
on this exciting subject. Mr. Cobden seems at last
convinced that a man may be sincerely desirous of
peace without attending meetings to declaim on its ab-
stract merits, and that a Government composed mainly
of the aristocracy of this country may be earnestly de-
sirous of encountering everything except dishonour,
rather than inflict upon us the greatest of human cala-
mities. The tribute which Mr. Cobden pays to the
exertions of the Ministry in this matter is honourable
to his candour, and the remarks he makes on the fickle-
ness of popular opinion, and the probability that
those most earnest in desiring war will soon be the
foremost in deprecating it, are eminently just, though
scarcely consistent in a speech commencing with an
argument, however intentionally feeble and inade-
quate' in favour of a large extension of the suffrage.
Nay, Mr. Cobden goes further, and admits that, on the
principles which Lord Aberdeen and every member or
his Government have always professed, they are bound
to make war, and that nothing but the will of a enajority
of the inhabitants of Turkey could release them from
that obligation. Still, as might have been anticipated,
Mr. Cobden cannot brine his mind to consent to the im-
pending hostilities, and he is driven, in order to find a
reasonable ground of dissent, to advance the monstrous
proposition that this country has no interest in pre-
venting Russia from conquering Turkey in Europe, and
making herself mistress of Constantinople. We admit
to Mr. Cobden that the mere fact of the insolence and
arrogance of the Emperor of Russia, although (a con-
siderable ingredient in the question, would not alone be
sufficient to determine us to take up arms, and we may
further grant that the preservation of the integrity of the
Ottoman empire would not, abstractedly considered, with-
out reference to the character, strength, and geographical
position and intentions of its assailant, be an adequate mo-
tive for war. But, though not in themselves sufficient, it is
idle to treat these motives as of no weight or importance,
or to suppose that we are to argue the question as
if the claims of Russia were just and reasonable,
and her power one which, though sufficient to crush
Turkey, had never threatened with danger neighbouring
kingdoms, nor sought to disturb the balance of European
politics. Having utterly put aside these two very im-
portant considerations, as having no bearing on the mat-
ter, because they are not singly decisive :of its merits,
and having discarded, with equally summary logic,
the consideration that Turkey opens her ports to our
manufactures, whilst Russia encounters us in time of
peace with the half warfare of a hostile tariff, Mr. Cob-
den proceeds to prove his great proposition, that we have
nothing to fear from the presence of Russia at Constanti-
nople, and this conclusion he demonstrates after the fol-
lowing singular fashion :-.—The only danger, according to
him, which we have to dread from the occupation of
Constantinople by Russia is, that by virtue of such occu-
pation Russia shall become a great maritime Power, and
dispute with us the dominion of the Levant, the Medi-
terranean, and, ultimately the ocean. But if Russia,
argues Mr. Cobden, is to become a great maritime
Power, she must become so through the same means by
which Venice, Holland, England, and America have
gained their sway over the seas ; she must carry on ex-
tensive foreign commerce, and bring up her seamen in
the perils and trials of mercantile enterprise. But this
very foreign commerce will, in proportion as it increases
the strength, diminish the ambition of Russia, and de-
prive her of the desire of foreign aggression, while it
puts it in her power to gratify it. Such is Mr. Cob-
den's argument.
Now, in the first place, we entirely deny that it is
solely, or even principally, on account of any dread that
Russia should become a great maritime power that we
deem it expedient to prevent her overrunning European
Turkey, and possessing herself of the Dardanelles and
the Bosphorus ; nor should we deem it a sufficient ground
for going to war that by such means we could prevent
another country from rivalling us on the sea—a laudable
ambition which is open to all the nations of the earth.
But Russia seated in Constantinople is full of the most
portentous dangers, not to England only, but to Europe,
and, indeed, to the destinies of the whole human race.
Drawing her strength from the resources, not of civili-
sation, but of barbarism ; possessing among her 'higher
classes just as much knowledge of European arts and
civilisation as is necessary to destroy them, and in her
lower orders a state of ignorance so dense, and of opin-
ions so degraded, as to find in a single man their law-
giver, their sovereign, and almost their God, this nation
is peculiarly calculated to debase whatever it conquers,
and to demolish a civilisation which it can neither ap-
preciate nor receive. Manchester may view with in-
difference the accession to the dominion of such a
Power of some of the finest provinces in the world—
of 15,000,000 subjects, and of their ancient capi-
tal—the key of Europe and of Asia ; and may
hope that, when the barbarous Turk has been ex-
pelled by hordes scarcely less barbarous and infinitely
more dangerous, things will go on as before, and the
European system, relieved of its Mahomedan element,
enjoy a renewed vigour. But is this expectation rea-
sonable ? We give to the most anti-commercial country
of Europe hundreds of miles of the navigation of her
finest river, and we must expect that by that change the
Danube will be as effectually closed to commerce as the
Dnieper, the Dniester, or the Volga. Of course, with
Russia in possession of the Dardanelles, the rising
commerce with Asia by way of Trebizond is at an
end, the Circassians must fall in their isolation, and
Asia Minor be open to invasion at once from the
west and the east. 11as it ever occurred to Mr.
Cutden to consider what, in the case supposed, would
be the inevitable destiny of the Austrian Empire ? Cut
off from her communication with the Black Sea--her
natural outlet—with Russia as her neighbour in the
Adriatic, it would not be difficult to dispossess her of
her ports in that sea, and to reduce her to a position
of dependence on the will of the Czar. It is needless
to trace, step by step, the inevitable course by
which a Power, which has already absorbed Po-
land, Finland, Bessarabia, Georgia, and so many
other provinces, would proceed to deal with the
smaller principalities and kingdoms of Germany. With-
out supposing Russia to possess any considerable mari-
time power, but merely to carry on her advances by
land, it is obvious that from the conquest of European
Turkey and the occupation of Constantinople would fol-
low necessarily a chain of events which would leave
England and France the only States capable of opposing
her onward course towards the foundation of an empire
based on universal fear and universal barbarism. To
this condition it must come at last ; and, if it must
come, were it not wiser to meet this Power in
its first onset, befere it is strengthened by the
arms and tributes of so many conquered provinces,
than to suffer the cockatrice's egg to hatch, in order
that we may see if we have strength to crush the full-
grown monster t It is not a question of maritime supre-
macy, any more than the invasion of the Goths and
Vandals, the Romans, or the Macedonians, who con-
quered the sea by the land. It is a question of self-
preservation, and of the assertion of that law of Europe
—the only defence of the weak against the strong, of
the trampled against the oppressor—the only guarantee
of future peace. We cannot isolate ourselves from the
great commonwealth of nations, and continue to be the
nation we are. It is the penalty we pay for our high
destiny, our glorious mission, and we will pay it with-
out repining.