The Sun.
London, England, 1854-02-28 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 185

As if sufficient time had not already been
wasted—as if any rational doubt could exist as
to the intention of the AUTOCRAT—and as if there
were not already amply sufficient grounds to
justify any hostile measures that might be adopted
by the combined forces of England and France, a
further attempt is to be made to bring the
Northern Despot to his senses. A formal sum-
mons has, it appears, been addressed to the
Emperor NicsoLas, calling on him within six
days from the receipt thereof to give a deliberate
undertaking that his troops shall be withdrawn
from the Danubian provinces before the 30th
April next. The messengers bearing these
imperative demands left Paris and London
yesterday morning, and it is said that they
will be accompanied to St. Petersburgh by other
messengers from Austiia and Prussia bearing
similar communications, so that the four mis-
sions may be simultaneously delivered. What
benefit can be anticipated from these additional
ultimata it is difficult to conceive. We have
surely had enough of these " last words," which
have been as repeatedly announced' as a series
of last appearances by the talented CRITILNILES'
family. The present would. seem to be " most
positively the last possible entertainment," the
several performers beingabout to undertake a series
of engagements in the Black Sea and the Baltic, in
the Danube, and in the Crimea." But it is impos-
sible not to perceive that the effect must be to cause
new delays, in addition to those which have already
brought " the Science of Diplomacy," as it is
termed, into contempt and disrepute. What
practical utility can follow from the contumelious
rejection of these demands, and the ignominious
expulsion of the Messengers ? Our Ambassador
has, it is said, been treated with but scant cour-
tesy ; and why we should place any other British
subject in an equally painful position, is a pro-
blem of which it would require an EDIFUS to offer
a satisfactory solution. The step has, however,
been taken, and we must only curb our impatience
for the three or four weeks which must elapse
before answers to these unnecessary applications
can be received by the French or English Cabinet.
A' We have already stated, there can be no
possible doubt as to the nature of these replies.
It " needs no ghost to come from the grave to tell
us" that ! Excessive pride, over-weening wrath,
and grasping cupidity have inflamed the passions
of the AuTocitAT to such a pitch that he can
listen to no reasonable councils, " Quern, Ras vult
perdere pries dementat.,,
The adage is stale, but
true; and if ever man Was driven to, aye and
beyond, the verge of sanity by his irresponsible
position,
it is the CZAR. An avenging Nemesis,
the offspring of Autocracy,': attends his foot
steps, turns him from the numerous paths by
which he might have avoided the consequences of
his
nefarious designs and unwarrantable pro-
ceedings, and stimulates him to fresh
outrages.
And fortunate it is for England, that such is the
case. We cannot conceive a greater calamity, not
only to England, but to the civilised world, than
the tardy submission of the AUTOCRAT even at the
eleventh hour. It would retard the arrangement
of the question which Lord CLARENDON unequi-
vocally adlinitted "ought to be settled once for
all !" and resuscitate the ;rave and important
question "so long foreseen, and long postponed,
by all the able and clear-sighted statesmen of
gun
Pe- The pride of NiciioliAG' ;$o deeply and

severely injured in its most tender point, would

prompt him to seize the earliest opportunity of
avenging his enforced submission, when, perchance,
we might be by no means so well prepared for the
encounter, or so certain of inflicting a severe chas-
tisement on the aggressor. A temporary arrange-
ment—and so long as NICHOLAS occupied the
throne of Russia, wielding despotic power, any
arrangement could but be temporary—would
leave a sword more keen, and with even a more
precarious support than that of DAMOCLES, sus-
pended over our heads. We could not tell the
moment at which the snapping of the thread would
involve us in " a war to the knife," in which we
would have to fight, not merely to prevent the
invasion and plunder of our ally, but pro aris et
focis, for the protection of our religion
and our families from the licentious Cossacks
—the barbarian hordes of the infuriated.
" Now, " we enter on the contest under
the most auspicious auguries, with every
one in favour of a speedy, signal, and decisive
triumph. " Then "we might be labouring under
every possible disadvantage, when those who now
profess to be faithful allies—we do not speak of
our immediate neighbourhood with whom we hope
to maintain amicable relations at all times —may
appear as open foes, or, still worse, as treacherous,
pretended friends. Circumstances have arisen
that enable us, at least, to "scotch," if not to° kill
the snake ; and we should, indeed, commit a
grievous and unpardonable mistake if we
neglected to avail ourselves of the opportunity.
But putting the question of future security, and
the guarantees for a permanent and lasting tran-
quillity aside, our commercial interests impera-
tively require that the Black Sea should no longer
be maintained as a mare elausum, or that the na-
vigation of the Danube should be impeded or
choked up. Never was there a more grievous
oversight than that which, by preventing the pas-
sage of the Bosphorus, transformed the Euxine
into a Russian lake ; or than that which placed
the mouths of the Danube under the control and
power of Russia. The untoward consequences of
these ill-advised measures are too notorious to
require further exposure. This, however, we
may say, that the principles of " Free Trade" can
never be fully or fairly developed while these
almost insurmountable obstacles are suffered to
exist, and that our Ministers would, indeed, be
inexcusable if they consented to any settlement
involving the renewal of the treaties which the
CZAR himself has abrogated by his wanton and
unprovoked aggression on his inoffensive neigh-
bour.

Those who are familiar with the controversy
between Free Trade and Protection will remember
how mischiefs, long unperceived but inherent in a
vicious principle, were successively brought to
light. As monopoly in each branch was dis-
cussed or abolished, its latent penalties became
too manifest to be denied. We confess, there-
fore, our surprise at finding such Free-traders as
RICHARD COBDEN and WILLIAM BROWN either
disinclined to, or openly opposing, Free Trade in
capital. Is it an unconscious prejudice in favour
of that kind of monopoly under which they and
their class have so long conducted their business ?
Have they been so accustomed to feel security in
a system which, by legal restrictions, gives
to the large capitalist an artificial advan-
tage over the small one, that like
their old antagonists, they, in the matter of part-
nership quake at the thought of unrestricted
competition What, we ask all Free-traders, is
the permission of limited liability in partnershiu
but their own chosen doctrine of unrestricted
competition in the investment of capital in trade?
We defy equally the acutest logician, or the most
practical debater, among them, to use a single
argument for Free Trade in commodities which
may not, in spirit or in the letter, be used in
favour of Free Trade in that by which commodi-
ties are represented. Nor can they produce
amongst all the artificial safeguards by which it
wasformerly sought to protect the interests of corn-
growers, sugar-planters, and shipowners, any one
more unnatural than the absurd safeguard for
merchants and large dealers, which forbidsa man to
invest as much as he pleases, and no more than he
pleases, in a given concern, or in twenty
concerns, if he thought good to do so—forbids
him, at least, under the penalty of being " liable
to his last shilling, or last acre," for the debts
of the concern in which he desires but a limited
interest, without actual participation in the ma-
nagement. Was the sliding-scale or any device
of Protection more artificial than a law saying to
a man—you may take, if you like, 51. per an-
num for every 1001. you put into a business ; you
may name your annual demand on the profits pro-
vided it be an unvarying one, but, if you think
it more reasonable, or think it will benefit you,
and perhaps the party you lend to in the long
run, to share with him the annual losses and profits,
you must do that at the hazard of beggary ? As
we remember a Judge in a Court of Bankruptcy
said to an honest man ruined by this un-
righteous law—" I would warn all sleeping part-
ners that they may wake up some morning and
find all their property but a dream."
Many of the absurdities and mischiefs of this
law for the millionnaire against the million are
palpable enough ; its shutting up the working
man to the modes most unnatural to him of in-
vesting his savings, instead of allowing him by
combination to employ them in the line with which
he is familiar, is one of the worst ; and Messrs.
NEWTON and CowELL would have done their class
no small real service by demanding its repeal.
A less-obserTed mischief is, however, owing to
the near advent of war of commanding interest
just now. Mr. WARNER,, the Member for Nor-
wich, in a recent pamphlet on " The Impolicy of
the Partnership Law," has strongly pointed out
how the gold of our capitalists and of persons
seeking investments, which might have been em-
ployed in extending our own trade, and in pro-
fitably improving our own country, has armed and
equipped Russia herself against us. The Danube,
Sinope, and the north of India may curse,- more
or less bitterly, our law of partnership. The
loans to foreign Power's, he affirms—and on this
subject Mr. WARNER must be at home—have de-
stroyed, beyond all calculation, more property,
and caused more suffering to individuals, than
the misery so much deplored which followed the

railway mania. In that case, the money mainly
changed hands in our own country, and we have

an immense valuable consideration in the works

accomplished ; but the gold wasted in Russian
loans has actually put us to vast expense for in-

creased armaments, necessitated by the very money
we have lent. Capital longs to irrigate the coun-
try through the countless channels of trade ; but
it is dammed up and compelled to flow
abroad through a few large houses, who

always continue to throw all the risk on their

unfortunate customers. And worst of all, but
for English gold, a Government so poor that it
is already driven to a forced loan, could never
have attempted that odious compound of the
meanest fraud and burglary which it calls " tak-
ing a material guarantee." It is really time to
invigorate ourselves by braving the frowns of NI-

cuoLks, instead of rendering ourselves effeminato
by basking in his smiles. Indeed he can afford
to smile ; while he can order our Admiralty to
repair the frigates whose broadsides he means to
turn against us ;--can blandly acknowledge with
one hand the complaisance of our Foreign-office,
while with the other he is butchering the subjects
of our ally ;--can draw his means of fighting
us from our own Exchange, and pick up cheaply
the capital which our partnership laws drive into
44116-.. what slioul4 be do but smile 4t our Ca.

DENS, our CLARENDONS, and our GRAHAMS ? We
fully hope, however, that he will smile at the last
two no longer, and that he will find that it is at
his peril to dupe English Ministers without hav-
ing first drawn the claws of the British Lion.
Worse than SHYLOCK, he has demanded perti-
naciously a pound of flesh, which was not in the
bond, and we sincerely hope he will meet worse than
a SHYLOCK'S judgment ; that he will, at least,
have to disgorge sufficient of his ill-gotten terri-
tories, to give Europe a " material guarantee"
against the low cunning and violence of such a
barbarian. It is but fair to Mr. WARNER to add,
that, although we have adverted to but one point
in his pamphlet, our readers will find it an exceed-
ingly well-written summary of the whole question;
and, we venture to say, an unanswerable refuta-
tion of the objections to freeing trade from its
chief unrepealed restriction.

HER MAJESTY'S VISIT TO THE
HA YMARKET.

This evening her Majesty Will attend the Haymarket
Theatre to witness the eighth representation of the very
successful comedy of Ranelagle, and afterwards the
amusing farce entitled A Pretty Piece of Business. These
are both most meritorious productions ; and being
spiritedly acted by the principals of Mr. Buckstone's
talented dramatic corps, and put upon the stage in the
most beautiful manner, they cannot but meet with the
approbation of royalty.