The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-09 00:00:00

THE WAR AND ITS CAUSES.

Napoleon and Bismarck could not agree as to the
division of the countries along the Rhine—how much
should be seized and incorporated into France, and how
much should be seized and absorbed by Prussia. This
comes out in two ways—first, by the publication in the
London Times of what purports to be a sketch of a
secret treaty proposed by France to Prussia for a
division of the Rhenish country between them ; and,
second, by the disclosure of the substance of a conversation
said to have been held recently between the French Em-
peror and the Paris correspondent of the Lon-
don Telegraph, in which Prussia is charged
with asking • " too much and too soon." The
alleged Secret Treaty is put forth as a proposition of
France to Prussia, in which the former agrees to recog-
nise
the reeent acquisitions of Prussia, and to acquiesce
in. the consolidation of the States of South Germany with
the North German Union, whilst Prussia is to agree to
the acquisition of Luxembourg by France, and to lend her
assistance to France in the absorption of Belgium.
Another article of this alleged secret proposition is an
alliance, offensive and defensive, between France and
Prussia. This, although it comes before the eyes of the
world through the leading English journal, is
probably the Berlin version of what occurred
in these negotiations. The French version, which
is that given by the London Telegraph, admits that
Napoleon demanded Luxembourg in 1866 as an equivalent
for French neutrality in the war between Prussia and
Austria, but that Bismarck demanded Holland as a
further equivalent for Prussia. This the French Emperor
according to the Telegraph's correspondent, refused, with
the declaration that he would consider any attack upon
the independence of Holland by Prussia as a declaration
of war. The fact of this interview by the Telegraph's
correspondent seems to be as well vouched as
the " Secret Treaty " is by the London Times.
Here, then, we have the two ablest, most
crafty, and most powerful schemers of Europe,
charged wirh secret negotiations looking to an agreement
to plunder and annihilate two unoffending neighbouring
nations, and the sharing of their territory between them ;
and each of them, after the plot failed, taking the high
moral ground of having rejected the scheme. The truth
is mbst likely to be found midway between these two
statements. No one who is familiar with the French
Emperor, the ambition and traditions of his family, and
the ancient and constant claim of the French people for
the Rhine as their north-eastern frontier—and no one who
understands the grand and far-sweeping policy marked
out for Prussia by Bismarck, and who remembers
how remorselessly it has thus far been carried out in prac-
dee, by the absorption and annihilation of the feeble
States that stood in the way of his policy—can be deceived
by the protestations on either side, that these secret
negotiations fell through because Napoleon felt outraged,
by the threat against the independence of Holland, or
because Bismarck refused on account of regard for
Belgium. That such negotiations were on foot, and that
there was a great deal of consideration of them, is more
than likely ; and it is equally probable that they fell
through, because " the high contracting parties "'could not
agree upon a mutually satisfactory division of the spoils.
Under the light of these disclosures, what wretched stuff
was all the fuss and indignation and virtue and national
dignity affected on both sides as growing out of the candi-
dature of the poor little Hohenzollern Prince, and the
slight offered to Count Bendetti in the garden at Ems,
and the nice distinctions drawn by King William between
his duty to disavow the Hohenzollern affair as head of the
family, and his refusal to do it as King of Prussia ! Mat
miserably petty pretexts for the gigantic war they knew
they were about to wage on other grounds ! One of them,
in pursuance of long-cherished ambition .and tradition
going back far beyond the time of the Bonapartes,
desired to move its frontier to the Rhine by
the seizure of the territory of at least three friendly
nations, and the other, in the promotion of a new and
aggrandizing policy, desired to absorb all the territory of
another friendly power lying between its present frontier
and the North'•Sea. Holland and Belgium were to be
the two principal victims. Whilst they were quietly
pursuing their usual course, devoted to industry, com-
merce, and the civilizing influences of our day, abstaining
from any meddlesome interference with their neighbours,
content to be peaceful and useful, with no improper am-
bitions, two eminently useful, worthy and inoffensive
nations, those two master intriguers, Napoleon and Bis-
marck, were plotting their annihilation as nations, and
their reduction to mere make-weights in " the balance
of power."—Philadelphia Ledger.

Mr. W. John Ewins Bennett, Mr. J. Stratford
Dugdale, and Mr. Charles Hamilton Bromley have been
appointed by the Lord Chief Baron the new revising
barristers for the Midland Circuit. Mr. Henry
Fiederick Gibbons has been appointed assistant revising
'barrister. One assistantship still remains to be filled.

•
The Archbishop of York has again refused to eon- •
secrate a new church which has been built at Thixendale- "
on-the-Wolds, East Riding, at the sole cost of Sir Tatton
Sykes. The 'edifice has been ready for consecration for
fully six nioiiths. His Grace objects to a "super altar"
which has been erected in the chancel, and which Sir
Tatton declines to remove.

M. ChevaldrOme, the French Minister of the
Interior, has received hundredi4 of applications already
for the post of prefect of the new French province of Saar-
brucken—a circumstance which proves that all the place-
hunters have not gone off to the army, and that they
believe the Emperor intends to round off his frontier, as
roundly as Count Bismarck has rounded the Prussian
territory,

General the Fenian leader in the late
raid, has finally been indicted at Windsor, •Vt., and will
be tried there. In view of the ridicule that was cast upon
the doughty General fur his inglorious capture, his long
nfinement and the statement that he makes that he is
'reduced-to poverty,, me. would cminsel ...modeiation in.the
„punishment-to: be 'pronounced • against- hiri.• We feel
pretty certain he will never invade Canada again. —Hew
York Herald.

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