The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-05 00:00:00

previously warned to disperse. With every wish to
make due allowance for the fact that this was not the
first time that the Minister's residence had been visited
by a mob,`, we are bound to say that the case, as it etsnds,
is one calling for the fullest and moat searching inquiry
—and that it must be presented to the public in a very
different shape from what it at present wears, befOre Mr.
Lafontaine cm be completely exonerated from the charge
of an almost criminal eagernsss to take extreme measures.
It must at least be allowed that this Minister's extraor-
dinary promptitude and decision in the defence of his
private abode strangely contrast with the tardiness and
nonchalance evinced by the Governor-General in main-
taining the public peace and the authority of the Queen
and the law. Where the Parliament-house and archives
of two provinces were concerned, Lord Elgin could see
nothing but " grave objections" to a preventive exer-
tion of force, and he made a merit of having passively
waited for "overt acts" until the mischief was done.
When it comes, however, to something like a personal
question between authority and turbulence, Lard Elgin's
advisers at once rise superior to their principal's ner-
vous horrors of measures having " a tendency to pro-
duce a collision." Some of our readers, by the way,
may be innocent enough to wonder that they hear
nothing, in all this deplorable business, about a Gover-
nor-General—that thers is, in fact, nothing to show that
the vice-regal office was not abolished at the same time
with the Parliament-house. This is really the most
disgraceful part of the affair. While the public peace
is openly violated, and the most flagrant outrages are
hourly committed in his capital, Lord Elgin
keeps himself safely stowed away, " with
guards doubled," at his favourite retreat of
Alonklands—cultivating, we suppose, cabbages and
" dignified neutrality,"—and leaving the tranquillity
of the province, the authority of the laws, and the ho-
nour and dignity of the British crown to be taken care
of by deputy. Now, we do not presume to say that he
is not 'best where he is; nor do we stop to consider
whether it is his " misfortune" or his " Sault" that he
cannot show his face outside his own doors without the
.
imminent risk of making bad worse; but certainly, .
this is " governing" Canada, there is nothing to be said
except that the British North American Viceroyalty is
about the snuggest berth for privileged incompetence
and laziness ever devised by the genius of sinecurism.
And actually this is the monent, of all others, which her
Majesty's Ministers have selected (vide last night's Ga-
zette) for showering new hereditary honours on this
faniiant representative of the Crown, who runs away
from riot and arson, and leaves law, order, and " seat
of Government" to shift for themselves. Not-
withstanding our very high opinion of our Co-
lonial Secretary's audacity and obstinacy, we are
much inclined to risk the predic.ion, that the
newly-created " Baron of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland" wilt at no distant date enter on the
personal enjoyment of his dignity as a member of the
Upper House of Parliament. We take it to be quite
impossible that Earl Grey's colleagues can be satisfied
to go on much longer with the experiment of " govern-
ing" Canada through a Viceroy who finds it necessary
to hide himself from all the world for four months toge-
ther—and who, at a time when seditious and anarchical
turbulence is rife and rampant in the capital of his pro-
vince, thinks (perhaps correctly) that the best thing he
can do is to keep very quiet. This is a case that is
plainly past mending. When a Government has once
brought things to such a pass that it has hopelessly lost
mural weight, dignity, and authority—that its vigour
only exasperates, while its leniency cannot conciliate and
soothe—there is buy one way out of the difficulty. No
pertinacity of Earl Grey's will ever make Lord Elgin
more than a nominal Governor-General of Canada; and
if that high office is meant to be a reality, it cannot too
soon pass into other hands.
HERALD.—That ever wise, ever plausible, and most
consummately self-satisfied and contemptible class of
politicians, which judges everything by the event, has
recently raised a loud shout of praise at the successes of
the Russian armies over the Hungarians, and has, ac-
cording to its wont, chaunted forth article after article
on the power, the glory, and the greatness of Russia.
But the successes of the united Austrian and Russian
armies over the Hungarians, after a campaign of three
months, in which the latter almost always exhibited
science, skill, and military talent of the highest order,
and in which the former rarely exhibited any of these
qualities, so far from proving the invincibility of Russia,
only proves how much Russian power and Muscovite
military strength have been exaggerated by those living
remote and far removed from the scene of action.
Whether in reference to certain scenery or to men, ma-
terial, and those things which are called empire, "dis-
tance lends enchantment to the view," in as great a
ratio as to the Swiss chalet or to the Windermere
cottage. Omtte ignotum pro mayni fico is the common
rule, and when it is considered how freely Russian
orders, rings, and rubles are bestowed fur any modi-
cum of praise, however small, in the Russian system,
there is no reason why the Emperor, his generals, and
his army, should not come in for an extravagant portion
of laudation. Yet t this praise the Ruicsian army or
military system is in no degree entitled. Evi r since the
French revolution of February, 1848, the Emperor of
liussia has been Idling his tune, and making his prepa-
rations quietly and effectually. He has had no Parlia
ment to control—no finance committee to fetter him.
his Cabinet is nut a constitutional Cabinet, bound to
the country as well as to the S Piereign. and accountable
o the nation at large, but a set of head clerks, civil and
military, sitting to register the decrees of a Ca tr, whom
they worship next to God himself: his senate is not a
senate elected by the people, but a College of Senators
named by the despotical di•penser of all patronage, civil,
military, naval, and ecclesiastical. Nicholas is a man
prone to do what he will with his own, and the life and
f irtunes of every man, woman, and child in Russia
being at his disposal, he can command as he listeth,
end is over his great empire obeyed accordingly.
When, therefore, he determined, in February,
1848, to pour immense bodies of troops and
soundless munitions of war into Poland, he had but
to wilt it, and the thing was done. For eighteen months
These contingents of men and of warlike material have
been daily increasing. Bodies of troops were ordered
•rom the Caucasus, from the military colonies, and from
Circassia, to Poland and the parts adjacent—to the
Austrian and Hungarian frontiers; while the armies of
Generals Luders and Duhamel in Moldavia and Wal-
lachia were greatly increased. All the resources, ma-
terial, moral, and financial, of the Russian empire, were,
for a period of fifteen months, brought to bear on one
given point. When, at the latter end of April or the
beginning of May, the Russian forces received orders to
march into the Magyar country, there were assembled
an the various points from which they diverged into
Hungary, the hoarded fruits of fifteen months' prepara-
tion—in Imm—in horses—in chosen generals—in artil-
lery. Nut content with such generals as Roth, Rosen,
Kreutz, and De Witt, the Emperor put into requisition
his most famous general and only field-marshal, Prince
l'a*kewitch Erivansky, whole equivocal laurels
were won in Poland and in Persia; and with this veteran
Lithuanian ho associated the German Rudiger. But
although these Russian officers were aided by Luders
and others of high repute in Russia—though a son of
the Czar accompanied the expedition—and though
llaynau, Czerich, Walden, and all the Austrian generals
and staff contributed such science and skill as they pos-
sessed to the combined allied stock—and the Austrian
artillery, be it noted, has always been considered among
the first in the world—yet three months elapsed before
the united armies of Russia and Austria gained the
slightest advantage over the brave but undisciplined
Hungarians. Nor were such advantages even then
gained till dissension and jealousy had spread
in the Hungarian ranks—till Georgey had become
jealous of Bem and Dembinski, and insubordinate
to Kossuth and the Hungarian Central Go-
vernment. Unaware of the reasons that induced
Georgey to surrender, we will not pronounce on
his motives nor censure his acts. He may have bad
good reasons and patriotic motives for pursuing the
course which he has lately pursued. But considering
that his corps d'armee was the mostnum!rotis and the
best provided among all the Hungarian divisions—con-
sidering also that he was the most seasoned and the best
disciplined—considering that he was the first Hungarian
general to adopt such a course, and to give such an
example of yielding, it is not going too far to state that
his conduct requires explanation—explanation which,
sooner or later, ought to be and must be given before he
is acquitted in the eyes of posterity. No men are more
penetrated with the truth of the proverb, that
an ass laden with gold can enter the gates of the
strongest city, than the Russian generals. The
victories of Russian troops in Turkey, in Persia, in
Poland, and in Circassia, have been greatly more
owing to gold than to gunpowder, and though we are
far from saying that Georgey was ever corruptible or
ever corrupted, yet it is plain that Kossuth in that in-
tercepted letter to Bem, dated August 14th, not merely
intimates, but roundly expresses an opinion that there
was treason in his own camp. " The edifice of my
country's freedom, and the sanctuary of European liberty
is destroyed," says Kossuth, " not by our enemies, but
by our brethren." These brethren were not the Poles
Bern or Dembinski, or the Irishman Guyon. These
brethren were Magyars—were Hungarians. Who aro
they? Who are the traitors, if they be many—or
who is the individual traitor, if he but one? It is
curious and significant that Ilaynah and Paskewitch,
in their reports to their respective Governments,
both pronounce panegyrics on Georgey, and none on
any other Magyar General, though there were half a-
dozen other bred and burn Hungarians with the rank of
generals of division. How is this? To praise a van-
quished enemy is good taste and geiserou•; but Georgey
was not vanquished. He might have held out for some
time longer, but instead of pursuing that course he
surrendered to the Russian Field-Marshal, calling for
the intercession of Nicholas with Francis Joseph. The I
first use Paskewitch Erivansky wade of this surrender
was to lay Hungary tat the feet of the Czar. The promp-
titude and the ostentation with which this was done—
the great cry that has been raised about it—sufficiently
indicate the desire of the Russians to have a submission
at any cost. A million or two millions of silver ruble.s,
say in round numbers 150,000 i. of our money, w?uid
not, it is plain, have been deemed too great a pecuniary
sacrifice to obtain a submission, on which.thhet Russian
commander lays such great stress.. A fortnig or thr.ee
70(11.1 totter
weeks before the submissidoinsp, counselsaßtuchsseidanfor.
at fault; couriers were G. e were
ael
and Woronzoffs--sicknesa and disorgantzation were be-
ginning to show themselves—the R U6llllll army was as