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London, England, 1853-09-01 00:00:00

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dt"i~so'4lS'e

LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1853,

Everything, we were told, was brought to a sa
tisfactory settlement in regard to those unfortunate
differences between the Cabinets of St. Petersburg
and Constantinople. The country, in fact, was
warmly and loudly congratulated on that happy
conclusion of long-sustained, acrimonious, and
complicated negotiations. It was asserted again
and again that the problem had been solved by
diplomacy—that Russia had been satisfied—that
Turkey had been successfully defended against the
Possibility of aggression through the Danubian
Prfr,cipalities that Moldavia and Wallachia
were at once to be evacuated—that British in-
fluence had been effectually re-established on
to Bosphorus—that France had been admitted
by us to an alliance already fruitful in good con-
sequences—that even Prussia, far removed as she
'.Pas from the scene of anxiety, had participated
with the rest of the great Powers of Europe in
supporting Austria in her mediation between the
SULTAN and the AUTOCRAT. All these flattering
assurances were uttered noisily enough through all
sorts of mouthpieces. The community was stunned
'with pceans of joy repeated on all hands with
" damnable iteration." As we have before ob-
served, we were not only informed that matters
had been conducted to a happy issue by the Four
Powers, but we were fervently congratulated
into the bargain upon the sagacity with
which they had crowned the peril and
tb.e solicitude of their interference. The
i'doniteur announced that nothing whatever in
this matter now remained to be accomplished.
The Post exulted in the skilful manner in which,
according to its assertion, the Eastern Question
had been definitively and satisfactorily answered
loy the Coalition Government. The Leader of
the House of Commons averred as plainly as
language could express it, that no further cause
remained in this affair for doubt or hesitation.
Home Secretary endorsed this official state-
tent, so to speak, by words yet more explicit,
au. tending to
the confirm the public mind in
reasonableness of that pleasant convic-
tion. Nap,
iMinisters went so far as to intro-
duce in the
expressive,
of the Royal Speech
a paragraph
JESTY, of a confidence' on the part of her MA-
negotiations. As
sif
toin.llthe happy close of past
sincerity ustrate yet more mark-
ed.l-y the force and
accep bole f those unquestion-
al-Ay delightful and
TAmperor of the FaExen, declarations, the
t oY Dieppe,
accompanied b his I
perial spouse, hastened from
while the Queen of ENGLAND, parrstogether with her
eorge's
Royal Consort, proceeded across St
.
Channel to the capital of Ireland immediatelyG
after the prorogation of the Houses of Parliament.
Everything appeared to combine in establishing
the truth of the Ministerial statements, that the
Four Powers had actually reconciled the diffe-
rences which had suddenly estranged from each
'other the hitherto friendly Cabinets of St. Peters-
burg and Constantinople.
Nevertheless, it will be remembered by our
readers, from the first we ventured to call in
question the accuracy of the assertion to which
our rulers had so vociferously and repeatedly
given utterance, to the effect that the Eastern
problem had been solved by the genius of Western
diplomacy. We presumed at once to avow our
conviction that in this matter the community was
being rather prematurely congratulated. And,
in so doing, let us ask even now, have we not
already received from events the most ample and
deplorable justification ? Examine the intelligence
received from Constantinople, and answer if we
have reason to count positively upon this boasted
pacification. Naturally enough doubts are be-
ginning to spring up at last iu the minds of those
heretofore most sanguine as to the reality of this
satisfactory settlement. People are less to accept as Gospel the delecAtaubdlenpromises of the ABER-
DEEN Administratio
wonder, after those
Constantinople, o startling advices from
le. Why, ac-
Tording to the information receivedl
are m the Sub-
lime Porte, the diplomatic negotiato
any-
thing but brought to a definitive settl:msent. The
CZAR may have accepted the proposal of the
Four

Powers, transmitted to him from Vienna by their
representatives. But such is by no means the
case with the Divan, as might at the first blush
have been confidently anticipated. Instead of
receiving gladly and eagerly, as we were assured
it would, the terms vouchsafed by the Four
Powers with a view to the conciliation of the
AUTOCRAT—the Divan has expressed its willing-
ness to yield to the suggestion of its allies as
embodied in the Viennese proposition only in the
event of that document being altered in five dif-
ferent points thereupon plainly particularised.
It is eagerly insisted by those who were lately

;he loudest in offering their congratulations to

the public upon what they declared to be the
satisfactory conclusion of the Eastern difficulty—
that the changes required by the Divan are in
all essential respects unimportant. Important or
unimportant in themselves, those changes are five in
number, and must consequently be regarded by
every man of common sense as rather formidable
in the aggregate. It must be remembered that
certain proposals are offered in the first in-
stance to the CZAR, and that those proposals
are by him forthwith accepted—accepted, too,
frankly and unconditionally. It must then
be borne in recollection that the same pro-
posals are proferred to the Sublime Porte, and
that the Divan then intimates, after due reflection
and deliberation, its readiness to accept the docu-
ment upon certain conditions those condi-
tions being no less than five separate changes
or modifications. Therefore, of course, a fresh
communication with the CZAR becomes at once
inevitable, and a new opportunity is thereby
presented to him of withdrawing from his
present pacific position on the plea of be-
ing trifled with in the conduct of these fresh
negotiations. Instead, therefore, of matters
having been satisfactorily arranged, as we have
been told over and over again in language at once
exultant and congratulatory—nothing, absolutely
nothing, has yet been accomplished ; and the al-
ternative of peace or war remains up to this mo-
ment in a state of alarming uncertainty.
Apart from every other consideration, the dif-
ferent conduct of Russia and Turkey in reference
to the proposal of the Four Powers, must, we con-
ceive, be regarded as tolerably significant of its gene-
ral tendencyand character. It has amused us to ob-
serve the mingled surprise and indig,nation expressed
by some of the more infatuated admirers of the
ABERDEEN Coalition, at the totally opposite man-
ner in which that proposal has been received at St.
Petersburg and Constantinople. The CZAR has
been eulogised for its ready acceptance, while the
SULTAN has been condemned for his acceptance of
it, being only, as we have seen, conditional. The
latter has been called shuffling, and the former,
magnanimous. Why, of course, the reception of
this wretched proposal has been precisely of this
diametrically opposite character at St. Petersburg
and at Constantinople. Why, of course, the AUTO-
CRAT is all eagerness to aid in bringing matters to a
conlusion in a manner to him so eminently con-
venient and satisfactory. And, of course, on the
other hand, the Divan hesitates to welcome at
once terms so detrimental to the interests, and
degrading to the dignity, and injurious to the
rights of the Turkish Sovereign. In this,
also, we have been only too lamentably
justified. For events have already proved
as we long ago maintained they must inevitably,
that the pacification of which we were assured was
very far from having been effected, and that the
Proposal sent by the Four Powers from Vienna
to St. Petersburg and Constantinople was (whether
accepted or refused) in the highest degree unsatis-
factory. Meanwhile the troops of the ATJTOCRAT
continue to hold undisputed possession of the
Danubian Principalities.

Whatever may be the future prospects of the
Sister Kingdom—whatever may be the results of
the great social experiment now in operation in
that unhappy land—there can be no question as
to the amount of suffering that has been endured
by all classes, from the peer to the peasant, during
the state of transition. The owners and occupiers
of the soil have found their burdens materially
enhanced, while their resources have been dimi-
nished in an inverse ratio, if not altogether anni-
hilated ; and, as a matter of course, the cottiers
and labourers have fully participated in the priva-
tions thereby occasioned. Even before the mys-
terious visitation that blasted the chief, if not the
only food of the great majority of her people, the
condition of Ireland was sufficiently alaiming.
Her landed proprietors were slumbering at the
edge of a volcano, and it required but a slight con-
vulsion to seal their fate. They were suffering
deeply for the follies of their progenitors. The
profuse hospitality, the open-hearted liberality,
the thoughtless generosity of preceding genera-
tions, had entailed a heavy load of debt on their
successors. Even when the former owner had
lived within his income, a rare instance of prudence,
as those acquainted with Ireland towards the close
of the last and the beginning of the present cen-
tury can testify there were family charges,
jointures for widows, and portions for younger
children to be provided, which crippled the inheritor,
and prevented him from acting fairly towards his
tenantry. Many a young man whose lot was envied
by the thoughtless multitude, found himself but the
nominal owner of the wide-spread domains. Besides
the provisions for past and future generations, he
found himself unable to maintain the position he
was expected to assume. Jointures and interest
devoured his present means, while a stringent en-
tail prevented him from affording any encourage-
ment to the occupiers of the soil, or from making
any adequate efforts for the permanent and lasting
improvement of his inheritance. The difficulties of
his situation rendered him reckless, and his own
exigencies made him blind and indifferent to the
wants of his tenantry. In place of the interests
of owners and occupiers being one and indivisible,
as they ought to be, each endeavoured to extract
the utmost farthing from the pockets of his op-
ponent. The landlord would not improve, the
tenant would not pay ; the one relied on bailiffs
and drivers, the other on his natural cunning
and the assistance of his neighbours, who, being
similarly circumstanced, naturally sympathised
with the opponent of legal process. The attempt
to distrain was met by the lifting of the crops, and
the removal of the stock—a successful capture
by a rescue—a declaration in ejectment by agra-
rian outrages, and the progress of Ribbonism. An
eviction, too often resorted to on a wholesale scale,
by the murder of landlord, or agent, or incoming
tenant, and the execution or expatriation of the
outgoing tenants, or of those selected by the autho-
rities of the " Black-sheep office"—the Irish
" Vehmgericht"—as the avengers of the grave in-
fraction of some of the leading provisions of the
Agrarian Code.

The numerous and complicated limitations and
reversions prevented the inheritor from raising
money by the sale or mortgage of any portion of
his property for the improvement of the re-
mainder ; and even if he was so favourably cir-
cumstanced as to
ofsupporthin.t_
means of insurancevelydoenstihtiustleifeeh-iinldtreerneswt--hohwisedreuteyduto-
be able to borrow anything by
e notions, but left without the means
eated
elusive benefit
for the outlay.
of eltibose scanty funds to the ex-
claimpensati'olleir'
him from
appillyipnosition, of gentlemen—prevented
we:sill-the less
ca pae i nt
yo whom h
The
h could
idnd-
:e
inasmuch, as the name gerfet,ted by the occupiers,
few instances in which it w,`improvemene in the
too frequently associated wi:hattiternpted, was but
heartless evictions, carried on under most cruel and
" clearing the estate," and " enlar il
the pretext of
Even the profuse reckless spegzothe fanns.,,
while oblivious of his "duties" was not ift who,
too strin-
gent in enforcing his " rights," was, ,O.
enerany
speaking, preferred to the cold-blooded " iveg„r”
who closed his ears against the complaints and
steeled his heart against the sufferings of those
about to be sacrificed on the altar of his
cupidity. There were as many impediments in the
way of anyimprovement by the tenant. The power
of effecting any great change was wanting—but
even what little could be achieved was wilfully
neglected. And wherefore ? Because a well-cul-
tivated and carefully-attended farm was regarded
as conclusive evidence that the tenant had a great
I bargain, and could afford to pay a higher rent. A