The Sun.
London, England, 1853-12-27 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1853.

Wearisome though the Russo-Turkish question
has become, it is nevertheless essential to observe
the latest phase in its complication. To do so
just now is one of the most irksome and disheart-
ening duties of the journalist. Irksome and dis-
heartening—it is, however, we repeat, absolutely
and imperatively requisite. It is requisite in
order to keep the public through the publicist au
courant with the affairs of the day, and in order
to acquaint the community with the relative situ-
ation of the interests of the various states of
Christendom. If, with this latter object especially
in view, we direct a cursory glance at this mo-
ment over the European continent, we shall dis-
cover, in the attitude assumed by England, and
France, and Austria, and Prussia, and Russia,
and Turkey, extraordinary cause indeed for dis-
quietude as to the ultimate consequence.

In Turkey we discover a Government com-
pelled to exhaust its resources and its ener-
gies by supporting an enormous army and
a considerable navy on a war footing for the pur-
pose of withstanding the hostile advance of a
neighbouring power, and in the hope of avenging
a series of execrable and sanguinary wrongs.
In Russia we observe a vast and unwieldy des-
potism gathering together from all sides—from
the shores of the Baltic and of the Caspian, Fins,
and Swedes, and Calmucks, and Persians—to
support a lawless and ambitious adventurer in the
perpetration of one of the most heinous political
crimes ever attempted since the dawn of civilisa-
tion.

In Prussia we perceive the least of the princi-
pal powers of Europe maintaining a balance of
policy that may at any instant be allowed to pre-
ponderate on either side, according as events may
render advisable the close, to the right or to the
left, of this prolonged equilibrium.
In Austria we remark that suspicious tacitur-
nity as to the rights involved in this protracted
discussion, which renders it doubtful whether
gratitude for aid in the Hungarian war, or a ter-
ritorial greed for tidbits like the province of
Montenegro, may lead, sooner or later, to the
identification of the views entertained in the
Cabinets of Vienna and St. Petersburg.
In France we discover a powerful and generous
race pledged by its thrice-elected ruler to a pacific
line of policy—pledged by that noble and mag-
nanimous declaration of NAPOLEON 111., at Bor-
den; " 'Empire c'est la paix," that assurance,
the sincerity of which the EMPEROR has since then
an gloriously vindicated : in France, we see a
Nwerful and generous race thus pledged by its
Sovrart.
'llnll--eager to redeem that pledge by its
concessions, and yet burning to rebel the audacity
of the Russian. AUTOCRAT, and to vindicate the
outraged rights of Turkish independence.
In England, last and most remarkable
we behold one of the mightiest, if
spectacle of all,
not the mightiest, of the powers on the globe, acting
political Marplot of chri,tend as the Christendom justify-
ing the indecision of Prussia, Pandering to the
sinister designs of Austria, hanging like a clog
on the energy and magnanimity of France, desert-
ing Turkey, and truckling to Russia,
assuming the
boastful pride of a sham protector towards
the
SULTAN, and all the while trembling before the
ambition and audacity of the AUTOCRAT. And
all these ills, the fruits of an unprincipled Coali-
tion ! We have sown the storm and We are reap-
ing the whirlwind. We have sown Aberdeenism
and we are reaping Disgrace. It is the natural
consequence of our temerity in consenting a
year since to the committal of the destinies of
the country to the keeping of a hybrid
Whig-Tory-Radical-Conservative Government.

Eleven months have elapsed, or nearly elapsed

since the beginning of that R usso-Turkish ques-
tion, which is still in the slow agony of a pro-
gressive development. And what, let us ask, is
the latest change in the kaleidoscopic variations of
this deplorable subject of contention ? Why, it
is a fitting sequel to our long series of melancholy
and craven negotiations. It is this—it is
actually as follows this latest information
received by way of Vienna, from Constan-
tinople. That the Austrian Internuncio at the
Sublime Porte, communicated to the British,
French, and Prussian Ambassadors a despatch,
informing them that the SULTAN has consented
graciously to send a Plenipotentiary to the Con-
ferences, provided the Russians evacuate Moldavia
and Wallachia—BUT, acids the news, " the Am-
bassadors of the three Powers have been instructed
to urge the SULTAN not to insist on this condition,
and to assure him that the integrity of the
Turkish empire is to be maintained, and that the
Principalities shall be restored as soon
as the dispute with Russia shall have been
settled !" Was there ever such wretched folly,
such despicable timidity, such perverse violation
of logic, or such odious disregard to all the nobler
dictates of magnanimity ? The SULTAN is urged
not to insist upon the Russians evacuating the
Principalities, and yet he is to credit the assertion
of the Powers that the integrity of the Turkish
Empire is to be maintained ! Why, than
this, England has lately heard of nothing
more contemptible or more preposterous—
excepting that miserable little incident of Lord
PALMERSTON'S huff with the Cabinet, followed by
his withdrawal of his resignation—an incident,
the closing absurdity of which, by the way, it is
not surprising to find caused a fall in the funds at
the Paris Bourse yesterday. No—glose over these
events, as we may, through a fear of wounding
our national self-esteem, it is impossible to deny
that the Russo-Turkish Question from first to
last has reflected only infamy upon England
—that the passage of the Pruth has been a
disgrace to our statesmanship and the Vienna
Note a disgrace to our diplomacy—that the mas-
sacre at Sinope has imprinted a stain upon our
banners such as cannot be very readily obliterated,
and that for all this lamentable past the people of
these islands have reason to be grateful to the
imbecility and pusillanimity of the ABERDEEN
Government.

Considerable alarm has been occasioned among
commercial men by the extraordinary facts brought
to light during the investigation of the case of
Mr. S. L. OPPENHEIM, before Mr. Commissioner
FANE, at the Court of Bankruptcy, on Monday
last—facts, too, that may exercise a very preju-
dicial influence on our foreign trade, unless ade-
quate means be forthwith adopted to redress a
serious grievance, for which at present there is
not only no sufficient remedy, but where the law
itself inflicts the injury on innocent parties. In
the case of OPPENHEIM, it appeared that a bill of
exchange for 3001. sterling had been discounted
by the London and Westminster Bank in the or-
dinary course of business. This bill purported to
have been drawn at Natal in the month of De-
cember, 1852, and was accepted by him in duo
course. It would, if bona fide, which it purported
to be, have been, as a foreign bill of exchange,
exempted from the operation of the Stamp Laws ;
it was therefore drawn on blank paper. During
the course of the inquiry, however, it turned out
that the bill was not merely accepted, but also
drawn, in London, and that, though dated at
Natal in December, 1852, it was actually alto-
gether concocted in Broad-street-buildings, in the
City of London, in May, 1853. That there was
a flagrant breach of the law none could deny.
That there was a gross fraud upon the national
revenue was equally palpable. But who were the
sufferers ? Not the parties by whom the evasion
of duty was planned and carried into execution ;
not those who profited by the false pretence, who
put in their pockets the duty of which the Inland
Revenue had been defrauded. Far from it ! It
was the innocent holders, who had given the full
and fair value for the security, who had every
reason to suppose it genuine and what it was re-
presented to be. This was unquestionably wrong,
but what follows is still more monstrous. Who
was the gainer ? The person who, if not the
concoctor of the fraud, was at least particeps
criminis, and who was permitted not merely to
gain Bs. 6d. at the expense of the national ex-
chequer, but 3001. at the expense of the London
and Westminster Bank ! The assertion is
startling, but it is true nevertheless. It
was at the counting-house of Mr. OPPENHEIM
that the bill was drawn and accepted, with his
full and perfect knowledge and concurrence. It
was through him that it was sent into circulaiton,
and it was his estate that profited by the proof of
the debt being expunged. There is no principle
more generally recognised than that " a man shall
not profit by his own wrong," that he shall " be
estopped from setting up any unrighteous de-
fence," or " denying the truth of what he had
himself asserted in reference to the transaction."
This is a straightforward, honest doctrine, which no
Judge would suffer to be even controverted. But
in the present instance, although on the face of
the document it was stated to have been drawn
at Natal, and though the bankrupt, by accepting
it, virtually admitted the fact in the most solemn
and deliberate manner, he is permitted to deny it
subsequently ; and be it recollected, not for the
purpose of enabling the Government to recover
the unpaid stamp duty, but to enable the acceptor
of the bill to exonerate his estate from a just and
righteous demand. Can this be right ? Most
decidedly not. But it is not merely the injustice
Of the law that has excited such serious appre-
hensions—it is its impolicy ; for its practical
operation must be to render all unstamped bills
unnegotiable, to prevent the ordinary banking
facilities from being afforded to foreign merchants,
and thus, by
cutting off credit, to inflict a heavy
blow and great discouragement on the trade and
commerce of the country.
The advocates of the present system—for,
monstrous and indefensible as it is, it still has
advocates among red-tapists, who with a pert
sneer tell us that it is ,c necessary
for the protec-
tion of the revenue—may tell us that it is analo-
gous to a case of forgery, where an innocent
holder may be mulcted of his property. The
cases are, however, by no means similar. Under
a forgery, the holder cannot, of course, recover
against the alleged acceptor, but he can against
every bona fide party to the bill, or at least
against every person cognisant of the fraud. The
bona fide endorser, who had received actual
value, or who by his endorsement had given the
world to understand that such had been the
case, could not set up as a defence that the
name of the acceptor, drawer, or of any previous
endorser, had been forged. By
his signature he
had recognised the validity of the document, and
would not subsequently be permitted to impeach
it. A forgery, in fact, is not by any means so
mischievous a transaction, in a legal point of
view, as the fictitious statement that a bill has
been drawn abroad, for the forgery only would
partially, while the enormous statement of the
place of drawing would totally, vitiate the docu-
ment. In a case of forgery, the estate of forger
or utterer would be liable, in that of misdescrip-
tion it would be exonerated. And yet, the wilful
and deliberate forger is not merely transported for
life, but sent to a penal settlement, while the
drawer or acceptor of a fictitious foreign bill may
receive—a first-class certificate !I !

But it is not merely a solitary instance of the
kind that was brought under notice. The bankrupt
merely acknowleged that, during the two years he
was in business, he had been a party to similar
bills, to the amount of no less than 4,0001., but
also deliberately stated—and there is no reason to
doubt the truth of the assertion—that it is " a
common custom with many London houses !"
This is, indeed, alarming ! This may well create
a profound sensation t Measures should at once