The Sun.
London, England, 1840-10-19 00:00:00

VVENTING BDITIOW,";

THS EASTERN QUESTION.

(From the Examiner.)
The Chronicle insists' strongly on the independence of
the Porte, and.argues against interference in one direc-
tion, forgetting how much interference of dangerous ex-
ample there is in another direction.
(After quoting an extract from that paper the writer
proceeds.)
We adopt the very words of the Chronicle, with the
alteration of one term, and hold that the claim to inter-
ference on the plea of peace preservation, from the
danger of the spreading of disturbances, produces evils
of greater magnitude than those on account of which
the interference is justified.
And we see the worst example, the most dan-
gerous precedent in the Four Powers lending
their forces to enable a Monarch to establish
an authority by foreign intervention which he could
not establish by his own resources. The Chroni-
vie observes, that France might with as much justice
declare in favour of Mr. O'Connell's plan of repeal, as
necessary for the preservation of the balance of power in
Europe, as dictate the choice of his officers to the Sultan.
But we will take the case the other way, and suppose an
Ernest on the throne of Great Brita'n, and an alliance
of three Powers to establish the authority of his Majesty
Ernest the First in that part of his dominions called Ire-
land, on the plea that the balance of power was in danger
of disturbance from the difficulties which the British
Monarch experienced in the government of Ireland ac-
crrding to the principles which seemed to him expedient
and wise in the refractory state of that country. In this
case we should hear a vast deal about supporting legiti-
mate authority against rebellious subjects, and we should
be told what the Chronicle now asserts, that
" The European commonwealth cannot fail to look
with great jealousy on the advancement of any doctrines
calculated to undermine sovereign authority in any
part of the world."

- With far greater jealousy, and far more imminent
cause of alarm, should the European commonwealth
look on the advancement of any doctrines calculated to
introduce foreign face in the disputes between sove-
reigns and subjects.
M. Thiele, in his reply to Lord Pelmerston's state-
ment, complains that " no last explanation " was made
to France," no last attempt to come to some agree-
ment," before the decisive step of the alliance of the
Four Powers, and he asks—
" Let us admit, however, for the moment, that the
views of the British Cabinet are better understood than
those of the French Cabinet, is not the alliance of
France worth more for the integrity of the Ottoman
Empire, and for the peace of the world, than this or that
boundary of Syria? "
Wa wish we could say that this question admits
but of one answer—it will have more than one, for
the Tories rejoice at the breach with France, and •
would have as readily espoused the quarrel for a
straw as for Syria. They are delighted to see Eng-
land allied with the Three Despotic Powers, and upon
the principle of an interference to maintain sovereign
authority. They know full well that if England gets
into a war with France they will get into the gove -c-
-ment and the conduct of the war. They know that in
so calamitous an event the progress of reform, which
they so dread and hate, will be arrested, and the very
name of it lost amidst the din of arms. The advances of
civilization, the improvement of the people everywhere,
would come to the same stop, and all the progress that
has been made in a quarter of a century of peace would
dwindle away and vanish under the baneful influences f
war. Our manufactures, teeming with life, which have
brought thousands into the existence they support,
would suffer a shock which would utterly and hopelessly
ruin whole populations, our commerce would be sud.
denly paralysed, our finances and monetary system dis-
ordered, and tampered with in new experiments. And
all this, and a thousand more evils, we should suffer, for
what ? That the Sultan may possess Syria!
It may be said that the Tories, who would rejoice in
a war wtith France for that or any other cause, would be
equal Afferers in the consequent calamities ; but be it
remembered that the Tories are generally, as they boast
themselves, the wealthier classes, and chiefly agricu!tu•
ral, and that all they would have to pay in increased
taxation is a price they would at any time give to buy
off reform and secure their bread-tax ; besides which,
they would indemnify themselves both by the increased
prices of the produce of the land, and the infinite field
for aristocratic jobbing which is opened by a war.
We may be told that the great organ of the Tories,
the Times, professes an earnest desire for peace ; but
be it observed that while it professes the desire for
peace, it gives its complete adhesion to a line of policy
tending to produce war ; and of excellent convenience
to the Tories it would be to coma into the inheritance
of a war administration without any of the responsibi-
lity for having brought it about. The mere circum-
stance of the adhesion of the Times to the Eastern po-
licy of Lord Palmerston should of itself excite the alarm
of Liberals, and raise a suspicion of the tendency of that
policy,*
In viewin; the present question, the great alterna-
tives of peace or war must be kept steadily in the per-
spective, and by their respective standards of weal or
woe we must measure the importance of all the inter-
mediate objects, and elect them or rijedf. them as they
may seem worth the one or the other great result.
In this view happy it is that neither a particle of the
interestka of the honour of this country can be found
concerad. If we plunge into a war, the origin will
have been nothing more substantial than an hypothesis
—the hypothesis, that V Mehemet Ali should cross the
Taurus to attack Turkey, Russian interference would
involve Europe in war. Never were such momentous
results made to hang on such an air-drawn contingency.
Never before was so much put to the hazard on no
more substantial ground than an apprehension ; and be it
observed, that the slighter the cause of war, the more
difficult the termination, for a war without a reason
for a beginning is also a war without a reason for an end.
It. is for every man who knows how much his own
condition would be deteriorated by a war, to ask him-
self whether he is content to welcome ruin that the
Sultan may possess Syria ? Will he be reconciled to
a faiiing trade, increased prices, and augmented taxes,
because, filrsooth, the Sultan has recovered Syria ?
Syria may be the Cleopatra of our Antony, but will
John Bud, with the bill of the war and its prices in his
hand, be disposed to applaud the new tragedy of The
World well Lost, or All jor Syria !
France, (whose folly, in putting all to risk for Me-
hemet Ali, would he the counterpart of our folly in
hazarding all for the restoration of the Su!tan's bar-
ren sceptre in Syria) has to make all the same reflec-
tions as England on the cui bond. It is true that her
stake in peace is not so great as ours ; but, on the other
hand, her hazards of war would be far greater.

It is understood that she has made a conciliatory
overture, and heavy will be the responsibility of our
Government if it fail to meet her advances, or, yet more,
to smooth difficulties in her path. France has put her-
salt iu ato sa position, but it is not our part to fix her
there ; we should build a golden bridge for her reunion
with us. The danger is that we shall stale-mate France,
for she cannot make a move without moving into check.
The Four Powers have evinced resolution in their mi.
lit fry pperations for carrying the Treaty of July into
eff.tet ; but there is another display of resolution, which
is now of inestimable value, and that is the resolution to
be right, or to get right, if they are (as we believe) in
some degree wrong. Any fault of obstinacy or obdu-
racy on the part of our Government would be more in•
excusable than the same fault on the part of the French,
because our Government has the advantage of having
the public miud of Englard in the best temper and dis-
position.
M. Thiers has to cope with the unwholesome
stimulus he has given to the minds of the French. If we
may compare great things to small, his case is like that
of the unhappy Mandarin in a great passion, who was
scourged to death by his own pigtail, put in motion by
the violent action of his own head. In the press of
Paris we see in vehement agitation the pig-tail of
the Mandarin Thiers. The unfortunate Minister is
flogged by his own queue, and the stimulus which he
suffers is the stimulus which he imparts ; it is from
himself to himself, and promises to end in his being
fairly barbecued.

Nations,
let us dismiss persons, and the faults of persons.
and the interests of nations, the interests of
humanity, the interests of liberty, and
the interests of
civilization, are what we have to keep steadily in view.
The most sensible remark that we find in the State
Papers on both sides is that of the Emperor of Rus-
sia
" The Emperor," said M. de Nesselrode, ,on the 6th
of ugust,
" in no way despairs of the safety of
A
to Porte, provided that the Powers of Europe do but
leave it in repose, and
tranquillity
by their untimely agita-
tion compromtst! ins in their desire to secure
it." B,sides," M. eNesselrode to the French
Ambassador at the commencement
August, 1839,
°given to or taken
" a little more;or a little less of
from the Porte affects us but little:'
And for this " little more or little less" question the
Swifts
word's peace has been hazarded. Is
tire to be realised by a broader full broad sa-
tire
little endian war in sad earnest ? -311—; r pal_
merston is the little endian, tbe original author -0-;
the big and little endian dispute, resolved to brave eve
evil that war can bring with it rather than suffer th%
Syrian egg to be-sbroken at the big end by Mehemet
Ali. France, on the other hand, is a big endian a l'ou-
trance, and is arming three hundred thousand men to
conquer or die in the big endian cause.
" 0 enras hominurn ! quantum in rebus inane I"

" The cloven foot has since appeared, and the Times of
Friday endeay.urs to enlist fal3e pride against an accom•
tandation

Having observed the movements of Lord Pa
presslmersi foon,
of the .drench faction in the Cabinet, and ofthe
bah Parties throughiut, it is obvious to us that preparations
have been in progress within the last two days to back out
bodily from those demands which had before been insisted
on as esseatial to a peace attended either with honour or
security, or which Should be in any reasonable manner
coasisbent with the stipulations of the treaty. It was on I
Tuesday night that a paper, a notorious tool of one depart-
ti of the Ministry, gave the public coolly to understand
th t half of Syria, or the Whole of Syria, was not worth
C.(' expense of a or
e., that the French democracy
uld have everything its own way..
$

Austrian from the first was a little endian. lam for
the counsels, said she, that will give Mehemet the least
end of the egg ; but why did Russia, which once had
the good sense to hold it indifferent at which end the
egg was broken, why did she become a convert to
the little endian cause ? Because she saw that the
way to the nest would be opened to her if France and
England could be plunged into war about this wretched
difference.
Russia declined the overture of France to an alliance
against the views of England, for she knew that her ob-
ject would not be advanced by it, as England would
have too much sober sense to become irritated to the
pitch of a war fever and war delirium, because she found
herself isolated. The Autocratknew the temper of France
better, and that she would be the more likely to forget
her true permanent interests in the irritation of the mo-
ment, , and to push things to an extremity likely to
terminatein war. He reckoned that England would
be calm and circumspect in her jealousies, but that
France would be furious and aggressive. In this he
has calculated but too well, but it is for us to supply
by our prudence the absence of our neighbours' pru-
dence, and to frustrate the game for our mutual injury,
which would end in Russia's carrying off the prize,
while England and France carried only the wounds and
burdens of a mutually destructive war. ,

We had concluded the preceding article when M.
Thiers' last note appeared, extracts from which will be
found elsewhere. This paper seems to offer an open-
ing for a pacific arrangement. It protests against the
deposal of Mehemet from the Government of Egypt,
which was a threat either utterly impracticable or ut-
terly unprincipled, and it leaves the Syria❑ part of the
question open to " the fortunes of war." No casus belli
is shadowed out. The question is how the excited
part of the French people will take so pacific a remon-
strance.