The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-29 00:00:00

THE LOCUS P.

Whatever may be the effect of the Austro-Prussian
Treaty of the 20th April, the terms of which are now
made public, we do not think there can be any doubt of
its intention, or of the object with which the new Pro-
tocol, signed last Tuesday at Vienna, has been framed to
bring within the scope of one and the same instrument
this Treaty of the German Powers and the Treaty of

England and France.
The gratifying spectacle is again exhibited to Europe,
by these makers of Vienna Protocols, of so-called
" accord" betwecn the Four Powers in regard to the
Eastern quarrel. France and England, at war with
Russia, are thus to tell the world that though they have
thought the resort to war necessary, they are still on the
best possible terms with Prussia and Austria who don't
think it necessary at all. Austria and Prussia, at peace
with everybody, are by this means to make their
friendly offices available between Russia and the powers
at war with Russia, on terms and conditions which they
hope to render agreeable to all parties.
What is the first thing manifest in this Treaty of Ber-
lin, for which it is understood that the diplomatic people
have been active, and the armies inactive for so long a
time ? Does it suggest any nearer approximation to an
honest alliance with England and France ? Is it, as we
were led to believe, a compact only for such mutual pro-
tection as might leave liberty of action to each ? No
such thing. What is more prominent and manifest upon
the face of it is, that we have no longer anything to hope
from Austria to set off the pusillanimity of Prussia. It
is an utter explosion of the hopes entertained in that
direction.
We are surprised that any other construction should
be drawn from it. Its express tenor is that what Prussia
does, Austria will do ; that, whatever their differences
in opinion may be, there l at least to be no difference in
act ; that one is not to think of making war without
the other. Each country guarantees to the other its
Germaa and non-German dominions. The Polish,
Rhenish, and Italian provinces, are to be secure under
this treaty. Any attack upon one is to be resented
by the other.paisy. Such is the agreement. Of course
nobody dreams that Austria can go to war with Russia,
or in any way provoke hostilities from the Czar, with-
out exposing some of her provinces to invasion ; and in
that case Prussia stipulates to march to her help. But
Prussia would make no such stipulation if it was not
fully understood that Austria was not only not to rush
into war without Prussian consent, but was not even
to risk it by independent policy or isolated acts to which
Prussia had not consented.
The inference inevitable from such a treaty is, that
neither Austria nor Prussia has least idea of going
to war with Russia. They both indeed complain of,
they both condemn the occupation of the Danubian
Principalities, and they both point with still greater dis-
like to any further advance of Russian troops beyond
the Danube. But that Austria and Prussia would have
committed themselves to even this declaration, if they
had not first been perfectly certain that Russia did not
wish to advance beyond the Danube, no one will be-
lieve. Had Austria and Prussia signed such a treaty,
and made known its contents, six or eight months ago,
Turkey and the Western Powers might have been obliged
to t'sem. But their affected adherence now is too obvi-
ously a trick to help Russia out of her scrape. It is an
attempt to paralyse the efforts of France and England to
bring the quarrel to so decisive a conclusion that it shall
never be able to break forth again.
In a word, however apparently directed against Russia,
however pleasantly foisted into a French and English
protocol, this treaty is really pointed against France and
England. It tells them plainly that. the aim of the Ger-
man Powers is solely and exclusively to get the Russians
out of the Principalities, and in nowise either to permit
or take other guarantees against them. Let General
Canrobert and Lord Raglan drive Paskiewitsch behind
the Pruth, and thenceforward Austria and Prussia, no
longer the negative antagonists of Russia, become its
active allies.
This, then, is what we have to guard against. The
danger now is that the war should terminate, after the
fashion of the diplomacy that preceded it, in a fiasco.
Such a result would recoil upon the Governments of the
West in a way to shake their strength and credit far
more than any loss of fleets or battles.
They have now, however, timely warning. The Ber-
lin treaty puts an end to all the fine hopes that were
built upon the Emperor of Austria's sudden levies of
95,000 men. To the command of those levies, it will be
remembered, it was made matter of much marvel that
Schlick and another general, both noted for their attach-
ment to Russia, should have been named. Of course,
as things turn out, they were the exact generals to take
such a command. In precisely the same spirit the
Prussian war minister was lately dismissed. The whole
thing is a mock defiance. Under pretence of a hostile
summons to force the Czar from the principalities, it is a
friendly artifice to help him out of them. Even in arm-
ing, these German Powers have no purpose but to de-
ceive. They have done nothing, from first to last, that
has not been a sham and a pretence.
But surely all confidence in them must come to an
end, now that their position is clearly defined. They
have come forward at last, but it is only to succour
Russia in her distress, it is only to pretend to impose
upon her a forbearance which they very well know it to
be now her policy and her necessity to adopt of her owa
accord. Let us hope that they may at last, also, be
made to feel how, fully France and England understand
their pusillanimity and dishonesty. Greatly should
we
regret if any assent has already been given to Austria's
proposal to occupy Montenegro and a portion of either
Bosnia or Albania. We might just as well allow the
King of Prussia to garrison Athens and hold it for the
interests of his imperial brother-in-law, the Czar. A
well-timed official statement has just issued from Servia,
fully exhibiting the duplicity of Austria, and expressing
a fixed resolve to resist any occupation by the troops of
that power.--Examiner,

PEACE AT WHAT PRICE?

The Times informed us the other day that a single
mistaken resolution of Sir Robert Peel's on railroads
had cost the country at least a hundred millions, and
what is even worse, that it has left the thing still to be
done which he shrunk from doing. We do not think
this an exaggerated view of the true state of the case.
We, however, blame the public far more than Sir
Robert ; and our posterity will blame us rather than any
minister, if such overtures for the conclusion of the war
should be accepted as it appears not improbable may be
now proposed.
If this were a war on our part and-that of France for
aggrandisement, or for necessary defence of our respec-
tive commercial or territorial interests, we should say,
abandon the former, and as soon as the latter are se-
cured, let the sword be sheathed. But such is not the
character of this war. This is a war against the Rus-
sian system- -a system propounded and developed in the
testament of Peter the Great, and which the Czars
his successors have, as he exhorted them, regularly
and without any deviation carried into action
ever since. As he proposes, t have leagued
with Austria and Prussia, and absorbehey d Poland; they
have connected themselves by so many alliances with the
petty German princes as to become almost their liege
lords ; they have sown divisions everywhere between
the European powers, great and small, and by the inven-
tion of the Holy Alliance have established and widened
divisions between princes and their subjects everywhere,
until Austria and Prussia have become little more than
their vassals ; they have mutilated Sweden ; and they
have done all this and more, not as they happened
Napoleon, or
vidually to be men of great ability, as
Cromwell, or Frederick, but as agents of a system which,
founded on the nature of society in Asiatic and Euro-
pean Russia, imperiously constrains them successively
to uniform action, whether they happen to be
clever or stupid. The function of the Czar is merely
to ,marshal and guide that general propensity of the
Tartar race to armed emigration which Peter points out
as having, at previous epochs, achieved such great results
in human affairs, though aiming at no definite object.
Peter defines what that object should be for the future,
and points out the means his successors should take for
compassing it.
No peace that this or any other Czar can or will make,
can or will involve a voluntary abandontnent of this
system. But France and England can now wrest out
of their hands the power to follow it up for the future in
the manner they have for the past. The question for
the French and English public therefore is, " Shall we
wrest this power from their hands now that we have
them at an immense disadvantage, or shall we leave
them enough of it to enable them in a few years to re-
new the struggle with us ?"
Such, at this moment, is the question on which the
French and English, now so happily united, have to de-
cide ; and if it is, as we entirely believe, the great go-
verning point, there can be no doubt that the only
possible security for future peace lies in their depriving
the Czars of the power to prosecute this system for the
future. Even the Prime Minister, we imagine, would
agree to this, but then he would doubt whether
it is the point—he would take a different view of the
reality or the tendency of this Russian system. Here
he stands on similar ground to that which Sir Robert
Peel occupied when he took his disastrous resolution on
the railroad question. Sir Robert stood on the threshold
of a future, and did not believe it would realise it-elf
into that present which we now deplore. Lord Aber-
deen stands similarly on the threshqld of a future, and
acts as if he believed no repression to be needed in order
to render it less dangerous than the past. He may be
right, but if he is wrong—how awfully momentous will
be the consequences to England, to France, to Europe,
to civilisation, to mankind, should he accept peace un-
accompanied by that security for its continuance which
the destruction of the power of Russia to do future harm
can alone afford.
We therefore hold that the paramount interests of the
country require this point to be cleared up at once.
The nation is entitled to have the means without fur-
ther delay of judging upon it. Our future prosperity
depends upon a right decision in regard to it, in a
higher degree than in regard to any other which has
occurred in our time. It our ministers are of opinion
that there is no future danger to England and to Europe
from a peace that shall leave Russia pretty much as she
is, let them say so. If they are of a contrary or differ-
ent opinion, let them announce it. In either case we