The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-10 00:00:00

(From the Ihorning Post.)
The long-deferred answer of the Czar to the Nor-
thern Courts has at length been delivered by Prince
Gortschakoff to the Emperor Francis Joseph. The
following, we have good reason to believe, are the
plain facts with respect to this important commu-
nication, divested of the errors and mis-statements
with which the subject has been crowded :—The
Russian Envoy arrived at Vienna on Thursday the
6th, at which date the Emperor was absent from
the city. The answer was forwarded on the follow-
ing day to his Imperial Majesty, but previously to
its despatch a copy appears to have been shown by
Count Buol Schauenstein to the British Minister ;
and from Lord Westmoreland we do not doubt that
such an outline of its contents as the telegraph is
capable of supplying will have been forwarded to
our Foreign-office. From that source alone must
we look for a trustworthy version of the conditions
and proposals of which fore-shadowings, so various
and so contradictory, have been made public. Por-
tions and instalments of the truth no doubt are con-
tained in the accounts circulated through the leading
channels of public intelligence; but they must be re-
ceived, to say the least, with much caution. The
point of the greatest importance, however, lies not in
the mere terms of the answer, but in its result and
effect. On the return of the Emperor Francis
Joseph to Vienna, Prince Gortschakoff was ad-
mitted to a special audience, after which, a courier
was despatched direct to St:Petersburg, the Prince
remaining at the Austrian Court. The obvious in-
ference from these facts is, that some fresh commu-
nication is now pending between the Courts of
Vienna and St. Petersburg, thus lengthening out
by another link the chain of negotiation which it
was supposed that the promised ultimatum would
have snapped. Such a fact will, no doubt, be
viewed in this country with the deep interest—nay,
with the anxiety, ,1 hich is warranted by the position
of Austria, and by the conflicting and weighty in-
fluences between which she is placed. In Vienna,
we learn that the effect on public opinion of the
immediate sequel of Prince Gortschakoff" interview
with the Emperor was a rise in the funds, under
the impression, no doubt, that, in lieu of decisive
a ng up once more
action being commenced, negotiations may be re-
sumed, with a chance of patching
the alliance so rudely shaken between the Northern
Courts and that of St. Petersburg. Both in Ger-
many and in England it is probable that a some-
what higher importance will be given to the hesita-
tion of the Austrian Emperor than the matter de-
serves. It is impossible to be surprised that the
desperate tenacity with which the Czar clings to his
last hope of breaking up an irresistible combination,
and defying a fatal sentence, should have met with
such a shadow of success as consists in a slight re-
prieve. But it does not follow that Austria should
be blinded to her own interests or warped from her
good faith because, in accordance with her course of
policy throughout, she has determined on exhaust-
ing every stage of the dispute diplomatically before
taking it up with an armed hand. Much may have
been represented by the Czar, through his envoy,
which may have induced the young Emperor to
ask for further explanation or to make additional
statements, but nothing short of an absolute
surrender of Russian pretensions can effect the
paramount considerations which the Cabinet of
Vienna has repeatedly admitted as binding it to
pursue the same objects as the Western Powers.
From those objects Austrian statesmen have given
every earnest that they will not swerve or turn
aside. Ultimately, they must not only aim at the
same end, but adopt the same means with the allies.
That they are not eager to step at once from discus-
sion to war we believe may be accounted for on
more grounds than one. The Austrian army, so
rapidly levied on the eastern frontier, is far from
being in a state for immediate action. The same
may be said of our own forces, which still await
their complement of cavalry and artillery at Varna.
An additional step in a negotiation may be disap-
pointing or useless, but so long as it does not divert
the course of a declared and recognised policy,
it will not change the catastrophe, or have any
effect more serious than a negative one. A far greater
danger would be the mistake of taking the field in-
sufficiently prepared. Ono fact with regard to the
proposals of the Czar we hold to be decisive of
their inevitable fate, and of their effect on the Go-
vernments of the Allied Powers. The Emperor
Nicholas, in answer to the demand of Austria, that
his armies should quit the Ottoman territory, con-
sents to do so on the evacution of Turkey by the
forces of the Allied Powers ; but insists on holding
his military position by a continued occupation of
Moldavia. To such a condition there is but one
answer possible to the Western Powers. Their
army will no doubt leave its present post, and quit
the Turkish soil at no very distant date ; but it
will be for the sake of changing the scene to a point
where a heavier blow will be struck than Russia,
shaken as she is, has yet had to encounter.