The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-11 00:00:00

AUSTRIAN DUPLICITY.

The State Secret is leaking out. When Austria and
Prussia called upon Russia to evacuate the Principali-
ties, it would.appear that the demand was accompanied
by indications that such evacuation would be "made
pleasant" to the Autocrat by his seeming opponents but
secret allies, Francis Joseph and Frederick William.
,The reply of Czar, borne to Vienna by Prince Gorts-
chakoff—a brother of the general of that name—was
anxiously received by the Emperor. An audience with
the messenger followed, and then another imperial note
was sent in hot haste to St. Petersburg, whereupon Vi-
ennese prices rose one per cent. The keen men of the
bourse knew what was meant, and acted accordingly.
Their view of the real identity of interest between the
two despotisms is backed in a very significant way by
recent events. Austria having bargained with the Porte
to enter Wallachia and put the Russians out of that pro.
wince, the Turks refrained from crossing the Danube in
pursuit of their retreating enemy ;—whereupon the Rus-
sians, knowing the Austrians to be no foes of theirs, slacken
their retreat almost to a halt. Austria guards them from
the victorious Turks—why then should they fly And
accordingly Paskewitch is taking things very quietly in
Wallachia instead of fleeing from it to make room for
the Austrians. Whilst this is the aspect. of affairs on
the Danube—whilst Admiral Dundas takes no steps
againstSebastopol, and Admiral Napier seems ordered not
to risk a general attack pu Cronstadt, the time is ap-
proaching which every true citizen anticipates with un-
easiness and dread,—the recess, which leaves the nation
virtually powerless for several months as to the admi-
nistration of its most important affairs. Nobody has yet
lost the impression of those painful months of last year,
when, between our practice of secret diplomacy and '
the absence of Parliament, we were, as a nation, at the
mercy of a Cabinet whose leader we distrusted, and in
whose measures the national honour and morality were
bound up. For months were the people of England
kept chafing under the apprehension that a sot of men
who had certainly never taken their pleasure on matters
which had risen into the very first importance were, by
delay and hankering in favour of Russia, betraying the
Ottoman cause, which lay warmly at the people's heart.
• We are now about to enter on another such period, and
we find that still the Turks have fought their own battle,
and saved their own nationality, while British principle,
• feeling, and good faith are in peril, somewhat in the
same way as last year, but with regard to a different
• power. No man among us now attempts to advocate
• the Russian cause ; and very few venture to serve it, ex-
cept in the most covert manner; but the-danger is very
pressing, of an alliance with`Austria "so confirmed that
it may be no less fatal to Turkey,Poland, Hungary,-and
Italy, than' if we permitted the Czar and his Court to
make Constantinople their summer Ivratering-pla,ce.
While all history calls out to us froth 'behind, and the
whole Continent front abroad, and political morality
from above,-and ail our sympathies from within, to ab-
stain from active alliance with a power which is in every
possible way pledged to despotism, and d,sgraced by
ever-renewed treachery towaids every:free nation—(and
the Turks in particular)—while inextricably bound to
Russia; we are about to be shut out from political action
.as a nation for a length of time quite- sufficient for the
forfeiture of the national honour, the disappointment of
the popular mind, and the wounding of the popular
'heart. We have declared repeatedly that an actife
alli-
ance with Austria can hardly fail to involve us in wars
of which no man can see the end ; to defer the settle-
ment of the Eastern question;to implicate u 4 on the

wrong side in the conflicts which must soon arise out 01
the existing war ; and to expose us to all the shame, sor-
row, and loss of having begun wrong, and being obliged
to get right again at an infinite sacrifice. We now de-
clare, and take the people of Great Britain to witness,
that if the wrong is accomplished, the people of Great
Britain are not responsible for the consequences.- It is
not they who will have made the alliance with the old
enemy of the Porte and Poland, and the oppressor of
Hungary and Italy, The deed will have been done
without their assent, and sorely against their will. A
set of men,' some of whom alone they can trust, led by
one who understands the people of England no more
than they sympathise with the views of dynastic zealots,
'will manage the whole business in secrecy and irrespon-
sibility—real irresponsibility, because the deed will be
'accomplished before the doers will render their reasons.
"Is this possible V foreigners will and do ask. Is
England living under representative institutions, and
can this yet be true ? It is true. We know it, not only
by the painful experience of last autumn and winter, but
by a recent communication from a meinher of the Govern-
ment which, if it tells be nothing that we ought tot to
have beeh aware of before, awakens us to a sense of our
,need of a change in our methods, and an enlargement of

our popular powers. The people of Notticiham, like
those of several others- of our large towns, recently met
,to declare their views with regard to the restoration of
Poland, and their reprobation of an active allianee with
/Austria. They embodied their views in a petition to
,Parliament, which was confided to the hands of the
Duke of Newcastle for presentation. The Duke of New-

castle replies that ouch a petition is inadmissible—the
power of making and conducting war being exclusively
a royal affair—a matter of prerogative—and that the
functions of Parliament are in no way concerned with
that power, till arcomplished facts are brought before it
in the account to be rendered by Ministers.
In such a state of affairs, it behoves every citizen to
consider' first, what power he actually holde-dnring such
A period of exclusion from political life as that of the
eomingautumn :• and next, how we must set about re-
forming such a state of fatal inability ; a powerlessneFs
which is a relic of the old than when there was no po-
pular participation in Government at all. There was a
time when.Sovereigus governed according to their own
will and. pleasure : we amended that, and now en-
gage theux by their coronation oath to govern ac-
cording to law.• There was a time when our Sings
raised money by their own devices, and spent it
as they pleased : but we amended that, and gave to
the Commons alone the right of proposing the taxes,
and.of receiving and pronouncing on the accounts of the
Exchequer. The present is a time when the Sovereign
has the power of making vair and peace, subject to no
other restriction than the inability of acting without the
Sanction of the Cabinet ; the Ministers being responsible
to Parlienient
when, but only when, the acts are done.
We , mast deal.with them as our fathers dealt with the

other mischievous points of our system, and bring the
mighty business of making war and peace—the mighty
power of practically espousing the right in international
affairs—within the control of the national will. It is
now only in our power by voting or not voting the sup-
plies. That power is not enough. However long it
may take to procure this necessary extension of our
liberties, not a day should be lost in setting about it ;
for it is a thing which must be done.
Wars were once the personal quarrels of sovereigns.
Nations could then have no quarrelse_because they had
no rights and interests apart from those of the Pc)ve-
reigns. Then came, with lapse of time and increase of
business, the institutions which became by expansion
our present apparatus of executive government.
}Kings required a secretary ; and, ere long more se-
cretaries than one. A rank and place must be assigned
to such confidential officers ; and hence our Secretary-
ships of State—susceptible of increase, as the experience
or this session has shown. At nearly the same time
with the Ministerial, the Ambassadorial function arose.
The kings' messengers to other courts became em-
po.wered, as the need arose, to speak and ant for their
respective sovereigns, and even to tender their counsel,
founded on their peculiar means of kneveledge. This
method of management was precisely what was wanted
while all international affairs lay between courts--a state
or things which Lords Aberdeen and Westmoreland seem
to suppose to be still existing. Very eff:ctually aro we
now made to feel that the state of things has chareed,
while the apparatus of international action (in a political
sense) remains unimproved. The question how to im-
prove it is the very first which requires popular consi-
deration. The nation should demand for themselves
and their children that liberty of participation in inter-
national affairs which their fathers won for them in re-
gard to political action at home.
Meantime, while the permanent object is steadily pur-
sued, we must see what can be done by the diligent use
of every Opportunity we can at present command. The
popular voice should be heard on all possible occasions,
in reprobation of the secrecy of diplomacy being extended
a hair'sbreadth beyond
consultations. We must what is necessary in all unfinished
cannot be disclosed, and reprobate all agreements which_
committed to the notice of Par-
liament, as soon as the
diplomatic agreements ayre
haveu taken form. If any
can be only those which involvecl'endered impossible, it
must bring opinion_ (till we can birinna4stic interests. We
m
bear on important diplomatic- appointments,eethin g s
o else)as t o
s
to
have no Westmorela.nds at such a court as that of
Vienna. We must obtain a more frequent assemblage
declaration
of Parliament, through a greater
po libertyleaA of s
iau•hat really
and decision on the part of the
3 ufister sure-
are, in their opinion, political criselS).
mcned Parliament in autumn, in the day
laws, when he found it necessary to open the the corn
Minister thinks it necessary to summon Pa!)lliartrnse.nti'l.tO
hear of a now Austrian alliance. But, if the nation at
large happens to think this last the more important
matter of the two—the most important perhaps that
a
could possibly take place, it ought to have the power Of
speech by representation at its own time. If the Mi-
nisters persist, as they did last year, in silence, and dis-
regard of the popular demand of an account of what is
done in the name of the nation, they must be made to
hearjwhat the nation wishes and requires by means of
those "Meetings " of which the Czar's ambassadors
write to him with a curious mixture of amazement, scorn,-
and apprehensiveness. Let all who disapprove of any
entangling alliance with Austria say so perseveringly_
in Parliament while they can ; in public meetings, and
by every mode of legal address afterwards ; and with
such plainness and constancy that, if our own Govern-
ment does not take warning• that the nation sanctions no
such alliance, Austria may. Turkey must hear it, and
be encouraged. Russia and Prussia must hear it, and
be donfounded. The crushed nationalities must hear it,
and take heart, and renew their patience, and not rush
into premature action, as is only too likely if they sup-
pose England to have united herself with their oppressor.
England has not done so, and must take care that here-
after her name shall be no more so taken in vain.—
Daily News.
Annrv,

'AL ov THE CHAMPION OP THE SEAS.—On Mon-
day the new mammoth clipper, Champion of the Seas,
built by Mr. Donald 2.11(ay, of Boston, for :Messrs.
James Baines and Co.'s Black Ball line.of-packets, from
this part to Australia, arrived in the Mersey from New
York, with a very large cargo of breadstuffs. The
Champion of the Seas cleared at New York on the 14th
ult.,. but owing to the difficulty of procuring seamen, she
was detained for a considerable period in the stream, and
at Sandy Hook. Notwithstanding that she had un-
favourable and baffling winds during the entire length
of the voyage, her performances have been regarded as
exceedingly satisfactory ; several of the first class liners
for this and other ports which left a considerable time
inforo hor not haTing yet made their appearance,

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