The Sun.
London, England, 1831-07-26 00:00:00

truetion of certain fortresses was not to take place
ell after the recognition of the King of the Belgians
by all the Great Powers. Lord Stormont asked
whether a day could be set apart next week for a
general discussion of our foreign policy ? Lord
Althorp replied that so early a discussion would be
inconvenient, as negotiations were still pending.
The Marquis of Chandos afterwards asked
whether there was any foundation for the asser-
tion in the same speech that the tri-colour was
floating on the walls of Lisbon ? Lord Althorp
said he understood the meaning to be, that
it was before, or under, the walls of that capi-
tal. Lord Palmerston (who had just entered
the House) next stated, in reply to inquiry from
Mr. Gordon (Lord Aberdeen's brother) as to the
alleged forcing of the Tagus, that, from telegraphic
communications,such was understood to be the fact ;
And that on arriving before Lisbon its Governor
had forwarded to the Commander of the French
fleet compliance with the demands of France. The
House then resolved itself into a Committee of
Supply—the further preceedine with " Schedule
A" standing adjourned till this day. Mr. S. Wee
brought forward the Miscellaneous Estimates, &c.
The first one, that for upwards of 112,000/. on ac-
count of our Consular establishments, called forth a
good deal of desultory conversation—though Mr.
Hume was not in the House. It was complained
that there are too many Consuls, some being in
places where they are useless ; that the salaries and
expenses of them are too great; and that it would
be well to revert to the old system—(with better
modification)—that of paying Consuls partly with
salaries and partly with fees, the said fees to be
fixed by the Foreign Office. It was replied, that
savings had already been effected—that some of the
Consulships would be reduced (Washington, &c.)
—and that the Government hoped next Session to
he prepared with a completely revised system re-
garding the employment of Consuls, arid which
would embody the part payment of them by means
of regulated fees. Several other resolutions on the
Estimates were proposed, and the desultory discus-
sions on them occasioned them to occupy nearly the
remainder of the evening. On the grant respecting,
Sierra Leone, Lord Howick stated, that the pro-
jected establishment at Fernando Po, to supersede
that of Sierra Leone, had been abandoned in conse-
quence of Spain having claimed it ; and, had there
not been that. difficulty, it was found to be nearly as
unhealthy us Sierra Leone. On the grant for
Western Australia, &c., his Lordship mentioned
that the last accounts from " Swan River" were
more favourable.—Morning Herald.
One announcement in the speech of the King of
France will excite surprise, and occasion dissatisfac-
tion in a neighbouring state. His Majesty Louis
Philippe declares to his people, that the fortresses
erected on the Belgic frontier, in consequence of the
treaties of 1814 and 1815, are to be demolished, and
that the independence of Belgium is henceforward
to be protected and guaranteed, not by walls and
bulwarks, but by the friendship of France, and the
recognition of its neutrality by Europe. His Ma-
jesty does not state whence the order to dismantle
the Belgic frontier has been obtained, nor does he
pretend that it has received the sanction of the party
chiefly interested. Being a resolution, however,
which could not be taken singly by any one foreign
Power, it must have proceeded from the conferences
of the Frye Powers in London, which lately acted
as self-constituted arbiters between the contending
states in the Netherlands. The French King
boasts of the measure as an advantage to France,
and produces it as an evidence of the recovery
of that influence in Europe by the late revo-
lution which France had lost by the treaties
of 1815, which erected the formidable barrier
of the Netherlands now to be dismantled. For the
same reason the troops of the German Confederation
are to be withdrawn from tire Netherlands, and the
King of Belgium is no longer to derive aid I': om the
possession of a German garrison in the Grand Duchy
of Luxemburg. Both the erection of fortresses on
the Belgic frontier, and the enchainment of Belgium
to Germany, by the representation of the Grand
Duchy in the Diet, were, no doubt, intended to se-
cure the Netherlands against a French invasion or
from French conquest. They were, therefore, an
expression of distrust in French honour, and a mo-
nument of the humiliation of French power. Had,
therefore, a new war arisen, and had the Nether-
lands been again over-run by the flood of French
armies, we might naturally have expected that these
old land-marks of fear and hatred would have been
effaced, and that the King of Belgium would be
enabled to meet his brother Sovereigns on the
frontier without seeing a walled town, or to stretch
out the hand of friendship, not from behind a port-
cullis or a drawbridge, but in the undefended habi-
tations of their peaceful subjects. But no reason can
be given why, in full peace, and without the acqui-
sition of any new rights, France should require
the demolition of these fortresses, or any re-
versal of the decrees of 1815, so far as third par-
ties are concerned. Had the Revolution of Brus-
sels not occurred so immediately after that of Paris,
—had the King of Holland still reigned over thy
united kingdom of the Netherlands,—had, in fact,
the northern frontier of France been pressed upon by
the force of 7,000,000 of people instead of 4,000,000,
the French Government would not at this moment,
have thought of requiring the demolition of the for-
tresses, or the abandonment of the alliances which
are announced as a conquest in the speech from the
French throne. What has occurred to render a
measure advisable in the one case which would never
have been suggested as possible in the other ? Is
the frontier of the Netherlands to be deprived of its
defensive positions in proportion as the kingdom be-
comes less able to defend itself by arms r Are the
fortresaez to become less useful to the country as its
population becomes less powerful, or are they to be
more menacing to foreigners as its garrisons become
lees effective ? If France incurred no danger of inva-
sion when in the neighbourhood of a considerable
state, what clanger can she apprehend now from half
its numbers ? if France bore the humiliation of the
political arrangements of 1.815 for fifteen years, and
would still have borne it longer had the Belgic re-
volution not occurred, what reason is there for ex-
pressing any feeling of it now, when the power
of her Belgic neighbours is so much diminished
as neither to offer an offence to her pride, nor to
threaten an iriterruption to her security ? We know
of nothing that has occurred in the relative position
of France and the Nethetiaeds calculated to give
the former any justification of the view demand, arid
we are quite sure, that if the proposed demolition is
less necessary than ever for the honour and security
of France, it will be more galling than ever to the
pride and patriorisi4 of the belgians. They have
been lately accustomed to view with suspicion and
jeelousv every order or recommendation which has
emaciated from the conferences of London. They
refused to tistes; to the plenipotentiaries of the Five
Powers when they offese4. their mediation to fix the
limits of their territory, or seteise the amount of
their debt. What will they say when tLy see the
French bernie ;noire entering Mons, Tourney, ieth,
or Nieuport, accompareed with their sappers arid
miners, and exhibiting an orciee from the Holy Alli-
mice to blowup thewalls of these magnificent fortresses?
About a fortnight ago the friends of the Dutch cause
spread a report that the Conference had agreed to
the proposition which the King of France has now
announced. The statement wag; transmitted to the
Orange reed Republican Journals in ltelgium, for the
purpose of extitioe- the Belgic people to reject the
preliminaries of peace, acd of destroying the popu-
larity of their future Sovereign. The fact was un-
doubted ; but it appeared so unreasoitable, that
nobody believed ;t, reed the sensible portion of die
Belgians imagined it a fable, invented by the ene-
mies of order to defeat their best hopes. We en-
tertain some apprehension, therefore, that its an-
nouncement in the Speech from the throne of
France may be injurious to the popularity of the
new King of Belgium, and prolong that state of
political agitation which his accession was expected
;o terminate. The justification pleaded by the
Conferences of London for adopting this measure,

son

nr rather for yielding to the representations of the
French Government ►n permitting it, is that the
neutrality of Belg um being decreed and guarauted
by Europe, that kingdom can stand ►n nu need of
rortresses to protect its frontiers from French aggres-
. But would those frontiers have been less
secure by possessing the double protection of a Eu-
ropean guarantee and undemolished ramparts ? The
immense expence of maintaining garrisons in so long
a range of fortresses may be an excellent reason for
dismantling them or allowing them to fall into de-
cay; but the proper judge of such economical ques-
tions is not a European Congress, but a Belgian
Legislative Chamber. We mention these objec-
tions to the decision announced by Louis Philippe,
actuated with no apprehension that Belgium will be
less secure against French invasion by being de-
prived of its fortresses, or that the London Confe-
rences have committed any act of injustice in COE.
senting to their demolition. Garrisoned as such an
extensive line of frontier must have been by so
small a population, the new kingdom could never,
unassisted, have resisted the arms of a nation like
France, whatever might be the number and strength
of its fortifications. But we think that the matter
might have been left to the Belgians themselves,
—that France had no right to interfere,—that the
enormous expences of garrisons would have done
the work of diplomacy without producing its irri-
tation,—that in the case of a general disarming the
Belgic strong places would have fallen into decry of
their own accord, like the walls of Montreuil, Grave-
lines, or any of the neglected fortresses of France;
and that the era of the new reign, when the great
body of the Belgic people are under arms—jealous
of their independence and prepared to assert their
rights—is peculiarly unfitted for announcing an order
to a gallant nation to raze the ramparts and fill up
the ditches of their fortifications. We had made
these observations before we were aware that the
subject had attracted the notice of Parliament; but
we see no reason, in what was said, to retract or to
modify our expression. Lord Althorp is right in
stating that Belgium, with its diminished resources,
could trot maintain► such a line of fortresses, and that
it is not less secure under the protection of Europe
without fortresses than with them. His Lordship
admits all that we have stated on the unseasonable
time of discussing the question, or announcing the
fact, as has been done on the other side of the
water, by telling us that the decision of the Con-
ference was announced sooner than was expected,
and that it had still to receive the sanction of the
King of Belgium.—Times.
It was to be expected that some passages in the
speech of the King of the French would lead to
some discussion among ourselves. That part in
particular which relates to Belgium, could hardly
fail to draw forth animadversion from the friends of
the Duke of Wellington ;—" The King of the Bel-
glens will not be a Member of the German Confe-
deration. The fortresses erected to threaten France,
and not to protect Belgium, will be dismantled."—
In the House of Lords, the Earl of Aberdeen was
only prevented by the absence of Earl Grey from
entering on the subject. But in the House of Com-
mons a question was put by the Marquis of Chandos
to Lord Althorp, whether the Government of this
country had been a party to the negociation for the
destruction of the fortresses, or whether the de-
clarations contained in that speech were to be taken
as from an accredited source ? Lord Althorp
stated, what is unquestionable, that rimless the
extensive fortifications erected as barriers against
the attacks of the French on the side of Bel-
gium were properly garrisoned, they would be use-
less; and in the present state of Belgium it could
not be expected that the Belgians would be at the
expense of garrisoning these fortresses, and it was
impossible to suppose that the stipulations of the
Treaty of 1815, by which the fortresses were to be
still garrisoned by the troops of the different Powers
interested in their maintenance, could now be main-
tained. The whole policy of 1815 was founded on
the assumption that Europe was interested in the
humiliation of France. One part of the policy was
to commit the resources of the nation to a family in
a state of hostility to its best interests; and another
was to open an easy passage for what Lord Castle-
reagh termed the great military monarchies into
France. But this policy carried with it the seeds
of its own rapid dissolution. The family seated on
the throne could acquire no hold of a people to
whom its presence spoke of conquest and humilia-
tion. The nation was too strong to be kept
in fetters, and the expulsion of the anti-na.
tional dynasty enabled the energies of the
people to be employed in vindication of their inde-
pendence. To attempt to retain advantages over
France by fortresses along her frontier, is as absurd
as fur a pigmy to attempt, by placing his foot on
the neck of a sleeping g►ant, to think he can keep
him down. As Lord Althorp truly observed, the
best security for peace is the interest of the nations
in peace. The fortresses cannot be maintained
against France in a war, and they only excite feel-
ings that tend to war. It is a pity that England
should have wasted so much treasure on these
fortresses ; but if they are useless, and even mis-
chievous, the cost can be no good reason for retain.
ing them. It appears, however, that the King of
the French has been a little over-hasty in communi-
cating the demolition of the fortresses to the
Chambers. Lord Althorp observed, that " though
the result had been disclosed a little more suddenly
than usual on such occasions, still he had no hesita-
tion in stating at once, that the communication was
fully authorised, and that a part of these frontier
fortresses were to be demolished." Lord John
Russell afterwards observed that " the dismantling
was to be consequent on the recognition of the new
King of the Belgians by all the great Powers of
Europe, and to be effected through the means of
negociations with the King of Belgium and his
Government." However, it was not so convenient
for the King of the French, as for his Majesty's
Ministers to keep this secret.—Morning Chronicle.
The Speech of the King of the French, besides
throwing a considerable light upon transactions
unknown through any other medium, is remarkable
for the decisive language (brief, but full of mean-
ing) in which it denounces the Republicans as ene-
mies to the existing order of thinge. From the re-
ports which were previously circulated in Paris, and
which had made their way into this country through
the journals and other sources, many persons were
led to expect that the speech would have assumed a
very different tone from that which the result exhi-
bits. Though the elections were generally consi-
dered to be in favour of Ministers, they were sup-
posed to have assumed that character in consequence
of co►►cession; which compromised the principles of
Ministers. This, it must be confessed would have
been no great triumph unless it could be considered
triumphant to have retained place upon any tame
—even upon die degrading ones of sacrificing their
own judgment to the opinons of those by whom
they had been most strenuously opposed. But
we trace no such timid policy in the Speech of
the King. On the contrary, we find him grappling
at once with the republican party, chose efforts, he
tells them plainly, "will be disconcerted or punished.
By the way, lie pays no great compliment either to
the intellectual vigour or the pobtical importance of
the Republicans when he classes them under the
same head of nuisance with the miserable imbeciles
of the late dynasty, This is not the language of
compromise, but of confidence ; and whether well
or ill founded—whether thrown out as an experi-
ment, or used advisedly as a threat—intimates in a
manner not to be mistaken the course which the
Government have determined to follow, so far as
the state of public opinion will allow them. The
,ray in which the important question of the Peer-
age is alluded to in the Speech appears to us to be
rather obscure, for, though his Majery talks of a
desire " to put the institutions in harmony with
the interests and wishes of the nation,•" he does riot
state his impres,ion as to what those interests and
wishes are. If we couple his declaration with
his previous denouncement of the Republican
party, ►t would seem to mean any thing rather
than a surrender of the disputed point, But it