The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-20 00:00:00

The obsequious collaborateur _of M. GurzoT
The personal friend for - forty years of
the Czar NICHOLAS-the English senator with
who& the latter personage declared very recently
that he (they AUTOCRAT) could in ten minutes
arrange the long-vexed question of the Eastern
difficulty entirely to his Imperial MAJESTY'S satis-
faction ! A significant declaration, for our cog-
nisance of which we are indebted to the opportune
revelations of the Secret and Confidential Corre-
spondence.
The Earl of ABERDEEN continuing to be the
First Lord of the Treasury—it cannot possibly be
matter of surprise that no energetic measures
should yet have been adopted for the due prose-
cution of the war upon which we have adventured.
No wonder, with Lord ABERDEEN Prime Minister
of England—that the troops sent ont by us to aid
the Turks in withstanding the onslaught of the
armies of the AUTOCRAT, should be restricted to
what MONTAGUE TIGG might have aptly termed
the " ridiculously small amount" of 25,000 men.
No wonder that even these were sent out in drib-
lets, that these driblets are delayed in their pro-
gress towards the seat of war, and that
when they at last reach the frontiers of
the Ottoman empire, they should be landed
at about as remote a point as possible from the
scene of action in the Principalities, namely, at
Gallipoli in the Dardanelles ! Neither can it be
matter of surprise, so long as the Earl of
ABERDEEN, with his hankering after -peace
at any price, with his friendship for the AUTOCRAT
and his sympathies with the Northern Courts, and
his especial predilection for the Court of St.
Petersburg, remains at the head of the British
Government—neither can it be matter of surprise,
we say, so long as the Earl of ABERDEEN continues
to be Prime Minister of England, that we should
I hear even now, towards the close of the April of
1854, after all that has occurred that
Lord RAGLAN is only now en route from
Paris to Marseilles—that the Duke of CAMBRIDGE
has scarcely fixed the date of his departure from
the French capital—that the Earl of LUCAN only
left London last night for Dover, on the way to
Paris, thence to proceed to Marseilles, and so on
to Gallipoli ! Statements like these even now
cannot be viewed with anything like astonish-
ment by those who correctly appreciate the
fact of Lord ABERDEEN continuing to be
the Chief of her Britannic MAJESTY'S Go-
vernment. Can be no more regarded with
surprise, indeed, than that other equally
noteworthy circumstance that the combined fleets
were still at anchor between Baltchik and Kavarna,
according to our latest advices (dating up to the
10th instant inclusively) from Constantintple.
So much for the glorious results as yet obtained
by a war carried on against Russia, while the Earl
of ABERDEEN, the forty years' friend of Russia and
of the AUTOCRAT, continues to preside over the
Councils of her Britannic MAJESTY'S Administra-
tion.

We have repeatedly alluded to the decided op-
position offered by the Directors of the Bank of
England to the financial scheme for the conver-
sion of certain portions of the public debt, and
the vexation which its author must naturally have
felt at the unequivocal and humiliating failure of
his pet project: At the last half-yearly general
meeting of the partners, a wealthy and influential
proprietor made the successful result of that op-
position a subject far complimenting the Direc-
tors and congratulating his brethren. We then
hinted that these joyous pceans were rather pre-
mature, and that before suck exultations were
indulged in it might be as well to wait a little,
until it was seen how Mr. GLADSTONE would re-
gard the operations of the favoured establish-
ment to defeat the objects of those from whom
they had obtained so many valuable privileges,
and on whose favour they were dependent for
their continuance. The Directors, however, went
on like the convivial toper, who, while indulging,
in his over-night potations, was thoroughly oblivi-
ous of the heavy reckoning he would have to
satisfy in the morning. The momentary triumph
was all they looked to, but now- that they are
awakening from the fond delusion, that they are
enabled to count the cost, to discover the price
that they will have "to pay for their whistle,"
they find that they have gone a leetle too far in
their self-gratulations, and that they may exclaim,
like the celebrated King of EPIRUS, "Another
such victory, and we are lost."
It was, certainly, a dangerous experiment on
which they adventured. They " inflicted a heavy
blofr and great discouragement" on the amour
propre of a young and dashing financier. Not one
of the mere red tapists who would take his snub-
bing in good part—pocket the affront—and be pre-
pared to resume amicable relations the moment
that the magnates of Threadneedle-street, in the
plenitude of their triumph, were prepared to
send assurances of their magnanimous forgive-
ness for his daring to bring forward any project
without having first obtained their sanction.
Such conduct might have answered very well with
a Wood-en-headed Chancellor of the Exchequer ;
but it was, to use the mildest term, rather im-
prudent when practised towards a, man of vigor-
ous intellect and great determination—one not
afraid of deviating from the beaten track—but
prepared to think and act for himself without re-
ference to the probable sayings of the civic. Mrs.
GRUNDYS, or the consternation that might be ex-
cited among the elderly dames, who, thanks to
well-stocked purses, inflexible obstinacy, and
lagging behind the spirit of the age, are "thought
well of on 'Change."
Mr GLADSTONE has, however, to use the
language of the P. R., " countered severely."
He has found " a Downing-street ROLAND for the
Threadneedle-street OLIVER," and administered a
" Stock dollcager" that has elongated the counte-
nances of " the wise men Of the East."
In place of borrowing forthwith the sum to be
liquidated, and placing the loss on the transaction
to the wrong side of the national ledger, he has
paid off the dissentients to the amount of nearly
8,000,000/. sterling, or about 80 per cent. of
the entire amount dealt with, and he has trans-
ferred a large proportion—more than a moiety--
Of the loss to the account of his chuckling oppo-
nents. This has`been effected by paying off the
dissentients out of the Government balances, and
claiming, in pursuance of the partnership articles
between the Government and the Bank, advances
sufficient to liquidate all the demands on the
Exchequer ont of the assets of the " Old Lady."
Nor has this 'been done in a geiteel or liberal
manner ! In place of borrowing the entire
amount required on deficiency bills, and paying
interest for more than double what he required,
Mr. GLADSTONE will only do so on the exact
amount required, so that the practical result is
that the Bank and the Government have changed
places, and that it is theExlcecaheq:
fcetrhewßahic
Barak is using
the balances of the Bank, in p
and using the balances of the Exchequer! In place of
having some five or six millions deposited in their
hands gratuitously to use as they think proper,
the Directors are obliged to provide from two to
three millions sterling out of resources mate-
rially curtailed and restricted by. the operations of
the Bank Charter Act of 1844.

It is needless to say that this has been a
very formidable and unexpected movement on
the part of the Exchequer, and that it
is strenuously resisted on the part of the
Bank. We cannot say what has been the ex-
, tent of that resistance--whether the Bank has
threatened to dishonour the cheques of the Ex-
chequer, or to leave the dividends on the debt or
the salaries of the public servants unliquiclated
We can only judge of the magnitude of the breach
from the tone assumed by the ABERDEEN-GLAD-
STONE organ, and the threats fulminated against
its quondam, protegee by the Times. From the
article to which the Leviathan gave insertion in
its impression of Saturday, to which we have already
directed public attention, it was manifest that " it
was a pretty quarrel as it stood." From the
pertinent interrogatories there exhibited it could
easily be seen that there was something more than

met the eye. When the inquiry was seriously made
why Government should make a present to any
corporation of the profits derived from the issue of

;wady or thirty millions of paper money, when it

would be just as easy to appropriate the sum thus