The Sun.
London, England, 1854-05-08 00:00:00

tenderness towards the unoffending civilians with-
out any parallel iu the annals of civilisation.
The policy of Russia, indeed, is fitly exemplified
by the infamy associated with the mas-
sacre of Sinope. While the policy of England
and France is becomingly displayed in the scrupu-
lous justice and the magnanimous bearing which
pointed the guns of their frigates on the occasion
of their memorable bombardment of Odessa. No
wonder, comparing the cause undertaken by the
formidablen belligerents respectively—no wonder,
ode r,
contrasting the entrance of the Muscovite soldiers
into Moldavia and Wallachia, with the pas-
sage of the combined fleets through the Dar-
danelles and the Bosphorus —no wonder,
bearing in mind the language used by the Czar
NICHOLAS, and that employed by QUEEN VIC-
TORIA and the Emperor NAPOLEON—no wonder,
with all this in his remembrance, that Prince
CZARTORYSKI should, an the 3d instant, at Paris
have pronounced a panegyric on the war of prin-
ciples adventured upon by France and England
in defence not only of the rights of Turkey, but of
the interests and the peace of Christendom.
Regarding the lofty and noble character of the
war undertaken against the Northern AUTOCRAT
by the Western Governments, it can scarcely be
surprising that the champion of Poland, that its
most venerable and illustrious representative,
should draw, from the rise of this dread struggle,
the most encouraging auguries of the possible re-
vival of its independence. Hope still survives
in the heart of the Prince CZARTORYSKI. It
is still cherished in the bosoms of his
heroio compatriots. It was by the Bard
of Hope that the wrongs of Poland were
lamented, long ago, the most touchingly amongst
ourselves. In the midst of all the woes of Poland
there is yet discoverable, in this manner and on all
sides, an aggregation of propitious circumstances.
It is thus how it has come to pass that Hope, as
we have seen, has not yet been extinguished in
the breasts of CZARTORYSKI and his scattered fel-
low-countrymen. May that divine Hope in the
end, with the blessing of GOD, be realised ! It is
the vision not only of Poland, but the day-dream
of every gallant race in Christendom.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer will require
all his acknowledged eloquence and ingenuity to
retrieve his damaged reputation as a financier—
to restore the prestige once attached to the name
of the favourite pupil of Sir ROBERT PEEL—the
" smartest chap " in the " Ministry of all the
Talents !" He comes this evening, for the third
time within little more than two calendar months,
to explain the financial position and prospects of
the country, and to require the assent of the
guardians of the public purse to the fiscal propo-
sitions which he considers indispensable for the
maintenance of the national credit, the national
honour, and the national safety in the just
and necessary war on which we have entered.
He does so while smarting under the mortification
of one of the most remarkable financial failures
ever encountered by a British Minister—a failure
which cast greater discredit on the parties con-
cerned than any recorded in the annals of the
United Kingdom. He comes to apologise
for past blunders, to ask for the continued con-
fidence of the country iu one by whom it has
been so grievously misled ; and, while doing so,
ho will have to bear the onslaught of men
of no ordinary powers, furnished with the mcst
formidable weapons, and, what is still more pro-
voking, weapons provided by himself.
It will, indeed, be difficult to reconcile the
statements of the 6th of March and 11th of
April with that which ho must offer for considera-
tion this evening. The Right Honourable Gen-
tleman is placed in a singularly unpleasant
dilemma, on either horn whereof he must submit
to be tossed. That he brought forward " a de-
luding estimate, and a deceptive budget," is too
palpable to admit of argument, and the only
question is, whether he did so through a gross
and unpardonable ignorance,..or with theinteution
of wilfully and deliberately deceiving the people.
and obtaining an increased Income Tax under false
and fraudulent pretences ! There is no other alter-
native, and it is indeed a painful and humiliating
position for a person to be placed in who was
once supposed to hold a permanent rank amongst
statesmen—and of whose Parliamentary career
the most sanguine anticipations had been formed
—that the most charitable conjecture that can be
fcrmed makes him guilty of a blunder for which
a schoolboy in the fourth form would merit serious
reproof, if not severe castigation.

" Non meus hic sermo !" The accusation is not
preferred by The &tn. It is merely taken from the
GLADSTONE organ ! extracted from a journal
which avowedly draws its inspiration from Down-
ing-street, if not from the Right Hon. Gentle-
man himself ; extracted, too, from an article
-intended apparently as an elaborate vindication of
the financial policy of the Coalition. "It is
freely admitted," says the Times in its first leader
of this day, "It is freely admitted that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer now wants the
cash which he disposed of last year in a financial
experiment ; it is admitted that some of the
indirect taxes lately repealed would come in
now very conveniently ; it is admitted that
our army is too much on the peace estab-
lishment ; that Free Trade and the repeal
of the navigation and shipping laws have enhanced
the price of labour, and thus increased the diffi-
culty of manning the navy and recruiting the
army ; it is admitted, moreover, that we have
not the proper description of vessels for warfare
in the shallows of the Baltic, or the proper means
of transporting men and horses four thousand
miles to the Black Sea. All this, and much more,
may be admitted without blame, for the simple
reason, that when we are at peace, and doing our
utmost to preserve peace, it is a contradiction to
be making preparations for war.
This is the confession—the damaging confession
—put forward on behalf of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and justified by the Scripture precept,
with which, according to the Times, " common
sense agrees," " to leave to-morrow to take care
of itself"—a rather novel principle, however, in
financial matters, and one which would find but
little favour in Portugal-street before a Commis-
sioner sitting in bankruptcy or insolvency when
adjudicating on a question of reasonable expecta-
tions of payment of debts contracted by a too san-
guine party. To what period does it apply ? Not
to the time when there could be any doubt as to
the intentions of the CZAR, but to the 6th of
March last, when the fleets of France and England
were floating in the Bosphorus, and the flags of the
maritime Powers were floating under the minarets
of the Moslem capital—when the Baltic Fleet was
ready for departure, and tickets had been issued
for the farewell banquet to the distinguished Ad-
miral to whose charge the honour and safety of
the most powerful naval armament ever engaged
on a single station was entrusted—a banquet
which was held on the very day when the fact
was published to the people and circulated "on
the wings of the Press," throughout the length
and breadth of the land. Would it have been
"needlessly ungracious toaßussia" if our Financial
Minister had then stated the probable outlay that
would be required, even before striking a single
blow, for the augmentation and transport of
our troops,
which were at the moment under
orders for the East, and for the necessary addi-
tions to the outlay in respect of our Naval, Mili-
tary, and Ordnance Establishments ? The Times
this day tells ns that,
" two months ago, when it
was all but war, when we
were making our last
unsuccessful appeal to the EMPEROR, we still con-
fined ourselves to mere preparations for the con-
tingency of tear, and Parliament carried out a
financial scheme which provided for the cost of
preparations, and no more!" That is what the
Times now states. On the Bth of March, in an
article written on the financial statement of the
6th March, it speaks of three millions sterling as
"the very sum he (the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer) asks for the prosecution of the war."
That certainly appears to be very different from
"the cost of preparations, andno more!" It is, there-
fore, quite evident that the leading journal was
itself as much deceived as the community in
general.
There were surely abundant grounds to justify