The Sun.
London, England, 1870-09-13 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1870.

LORD GRANVILLE acted with admirable tact
and aliened: consummate discretion throughout the
whole of the diplomatic negotiations, which imme-
diately preceded the actual commencement of this
appalling war. Of this fact the already published
official correspondence affords conclusive attestation.
That correspondence, it should be remembered, had
been necessitated by an astounding surprise. Never
was Minister of State more manifestly startled into
an abrupt display of all his sagacity. As
we very ,well remember intimating in these columns
when the first telegram was flashed to this country
announcing that something was on foot threatening
a rupture of European tranquillity—the suddenness
of the surprise was as the falling of a thunderbolt
out of a blue sky. Earl GRANVILLE had only just
then exchanged the portfolio of the Colonies for the
portfolio of Foreign Affairs, consequent upon the
lamented death of the Earl of CLARENDON. Im-
mediately upon the new Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs crossing from one door in the cul-de-
sac of Downing-street to the other, he received the
emphatic assurance of the permanent Under-Secre-
tary that never had the European courts been in
greater harmony, that all round the political horizon
there was fair weather, that everywhere there
was :profound tranquillity. Scarcely was. that
assurance given, scarcely had Lord GRANVILLE
assumed his new position, than out of the blue sky
fell the thunderbolt. Abruptly put upon his mettle
to show what was in him, the Earl GRANVILLE in
that supreme emergency, as we all know, acquitted
himself to very general admiration.
Is he doing so now—now when after eight
weeks of the sharpest agony of the war, there is again
visible opportunity for the interposition of
our diplomacy ? The opportunity just now is golden.
Is Lord GRANVILLE availing himself of it as
befits the Minister of England ? Russi a
manifestly is. So also is the Government of the
United States. Even Austria manifests a disposition
to:act in like manner ; but, for the time being, is ham-
pered. Austria, Russia,:the United States so acting or
preparing to act—how is it with England now, as
one of the great neutral Powers whose voice might
be potentially raised in the interests of peace
between the two frightfully maimed and
infuriated belligerents ? At once, let us
say, we believe it to be well with England
in the interests of peace. We have every
confidence ino the humane vigilance of Lord
GRANVILLE. His timely interposition we
are secure of, for two reasons : because he has the
keen intelligence of a diplomatist, and because he
has also the large heart of a philanthropist. In a
nobler sense than that detestable cynic ever thought
of who first uttered the phrase—the anguish
of France is England's opportunity ! It is her
opportunity for justifying, and sealing, and conse-
secreting the intimate alliance that has for years now
subsisted between the two countries, and an oppor-
tunity also for taking the initiative in organising a
peaceful solidaritd among the nations of Chris-
tendom.

IT is difficult to say whether _the Government are
to be congratulated or condoled with upon the fact that
Parliament is not now sitting. If this were the
session instead of the long vacation, Ministers would
be perpetually worried with questions respecting
foreign affairs. Sir GEORGE JENKINSON WOUld be
giving Her Majesty's Ministers no rest, and
would every evening be putting to them a series
of questions as long as the Assembly's Catechism.
On the other hand, in the anseswee of
the Legislature Ministers have no opportunity
of explaining what they have done, and their
reasons for doiug or not doing, and they are thus ex-
posed to severe criticism. At the present moment
the Paris journals and the PariS correspondents of
most of the London journals are complaining some-
what strongly of the apathy of our Government with
respect to initiating negotiations of peace. The
conduct of Austria and Russia is contrasted
with that of England, very unfavourably
to the latter Power. It is pointed out
that the United States has mediated vigorously
in behalf of unhappy France, though European
politics are not matters in which the Washington
Government has any particular call to interfere,
and though so far as it has any sympathies at all it
might, in consequence of its large German popula-
tion, be supposed to sympathise with the successful
combatant. All this while, it is complained, England
is standing by " cold, very cold," and in the extremity
of her selfishness is now afraid to hazard a good
word for her ally of twenty years and more lest
she herself should get a rebuff.
Unquestionably it does read rather strangely when
we are told that this Minister is in Belgium, and
that Minister is dancing at the house of a millionaire
brewer. It may even appear remarkable that no
Cabinet Council has been summoned at the
present crisis. But it must be remembered
that in the Cabine:. there is always an imperiunz
in imperio, that a select three or four direct affairs
from day to day, and that the. advice of the other
Ministers is sought only when some decisive step