The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-28 00:00:00

OUR COTEMPORARIF.S—This Morning

ever

The Broad Arrow says :—The iron armour-plated ship
Hercules, under the command of Lord Gilford, at Ports-
mouth, will be ready for sea this week.—The Adventure,
troopship, is ordered to be paid off on the China
Station, and her officers and crew to return to
England on board the first ship leaving the
station.—The new Flying Squadron, under Rear-
Admiral F. B. P. Seymour, C. 8., will rendezvous in
Plymouth Sound early in the ensuing month, and unless
unforeseen circumstances occur, will leave for Barbadoes
about the 12th proximo.—Consequent on information
received from the Government of India, it has
been determined not to hold an examination in
February, 1871, for admission to the Indian medical service.
Mr. Cardwell has abandoned his intention of reorganising
the Yeomanry, owing, it is said, to the strong opposition
of the Colonels to the measures proposed. M.
Valentin, who was appointed Prefect of Strasburg by
the Government at Paris, and who so valiantly succeeded in
entering the beleaguered city, turns out to have bcen
French master in the Royal Academy at Woolwich. He
was not shot at by the Prussians as reported, but remains
a prisoner at Ehrenbreitstein, opposite Coblentz.

The London correspondent of the Edinburgh Courant
telegraphs that in the event of Prince Gortschakoff's
reply to Earl Granville's dispatch being unsatisfactory
to the Government, it is intended to at once recruit all
the battalions on home service up to their full strength.
Arrangements have already been made for this at the War
Office and the Horse Guards.
On application from the Turkish Government, the War
Department has sanctioned the engagement of twenty
artisans now employed in the Small Arms Factory at En-
field for the Turkish service, and they were to have left
England on Saturday for the Tophant (gun factory) at
Constantinople. They are engaged for two years, at £25
per month each, with £2O allowed for the passage out,
and the like sum for the return home, and the work in
which they will be employed is the conversion and manu-
facture of rifles on the Snider principle. There are
already many English mechanics employed in the service
of the Sultan, and some months ago one of them, Mr.
Wyatt, and Said Bey, a Turkish officer, were sent from
Constantinople to America, where they purchased the
whole plant, including four hundred machines of various
kinds, of the Springfield Small Arms Company, Massa-
chusetts. This machinery has been erected at the Con-
stantinople Tophane, under the superintendence of Mr.
Wyatt and other Englishmen, who are devoting the skill
they acquired at Enfield and Woolwich to the service of
the Ottoman Empire, and have been promoted to high
honours and emoluments by the Sultan.

THE EASTERN QUESTION.
The Times, in discussing the question, says : Ths
position Lord Granville assumed was very simple, and
though we may have to say the same thing over again, he
will not, we trust, be beguiled into quitting it. Not that
our attitude is misunderstood in RusS'ia. The reply of
Prince Gortschakoff shews that he comprehends it per-
fectly, and his expostulations, apologies, and pro-
tests on other heads are simply attempts to shift
the debate to points not so clearly impregnable. The
semi-official Golos puts the truth in words that may be
accepted as foreshadowing the yet unpublished language
of the Chancellor :—" The British Ministry, and with it, '
we must admit, nearly the whole 'of the European press,
look upon the step taken by our Cabinet from the
abstract stand-point of international law, and therefore
energetically protest against the method we have
adopted for modifying one of its clauses. Exclusively
emphasizing the question of international law, and sacri-
ficing, it would seem, the Treaty itself, Lord Granville
informs us that he would not, perhaps, have objected to
remodel the agreement in question had we only taken the
trouble to address the Powers who were parties to it
on the expediency of a change." This is for practical
purposes perfectly accurate. We have not attributed
to the Czar the design of conquering Constantinople, sub-
jecting. the Mediterranean to his rule, and dictating laws
to the West. We have not been careful to calculate
whether hostilities with Russia would benefit Prussia
or France, though the French people, differing from
the (lobos, evidently believe they would be for their ad-
vantage. We have -not attempted to ascertain how
many years must be passed before Sebastopol could be
restored, or the Russian fleet of 20 years since be re-
placed in the Black Sea- It has been enough for us that
Russia, having consented to a settlement of the Crimean
War, which was devised in a spirit of moderation, that it
might not offend her susceptibilities and provoke a
speedy recurrence of hostilities, has seized a time
when two of the pArties to a treaty are engaged in a
deadly struggle to declare—what ?—that she repudiates
the obligations to which she consented. This is the claim
we must resist. To it we can give no countenance what-
Any attempt to embody it in action would
necessitate action on our side. The stability of all inter-
national relations is at stake. The maintenance of the
sanctity of law rests upon our decision ; and we fear we
must add that the Russian Court saw this, and calculated
that we should shrink from a duty so onerous. If this
was the belief at St. Petersburg, we trust that the
delusion has by this time been scattered, and
that a better acquaintance with the reality of our respect
for the obligations of Treaties will be a powerful element •
in promoting such a change of attitude as shall permit
peace to be unbroken.
To-day, says the Daily News, the Cabinet will meet,
and, in Parliamentary phrase, will real Prince Grorts-
shakoff's despatch a second time. In their deliberations
an Friday, Ministers, it is said, were able to do little more
than acquaint themselves with the terms, and to disen-
tangle from them the precise meaning of the missive which,
though it had been long expected, was suddenly submitted
to them. Unless the Chancellor of Russia has cultivated
an obscurity which is foreign to his usual style, there
aught to be little difficulty in coming to an understanding
of it and about it. There should be as little delay as
possible in announcing a decision. Every hour of uncet,
Ainty is fraught with loss and peril. The question
which Ministers have to examine is whether the sub-
stance of Prince Gortschakoff's despatch admits of being
Pdconciled with the position assumed by Lord Granville
n his reply to the Russian Circular. If this harmony
gas not yet been attained, does the tone of the
Imperial Chancellor afford reasonable ground for
coping that further correspondence will lead to a
satisfactory result ? The substance of Lord Gran-
second letter must be contained in his first.
No honourable retreat is possible from the position which
was then taken up ; and a dishonourable one is, if such
In expression may be allowed, yet snore impossible.
the attitude of England is free from all ambiguity,
and • she will pursue the course which a sense
)f duty dictates without doubt or misgiving. The Treaty
sf 1856 may be revised, but it.must not be broken. We
shall be faithful at any cost to our pledges, though
Russia withdraw from hers. This is the real issue, how-
ver dexterously sophistry and special pleading may strive
o confuse it.
The Telegraph says : Pending the careful and deliberate
liscussion which Prince Gortschakoff's rejoinder will re-
:sive in the Cabinet Council to-day, the exact termsof the-
:ommunication are for a time withheld; but there need be
so hesitation in dealing with the general character and
surpose of the Russian note. That document is, to use
slain language, neither honourable to the Government
f the Emperor, nor worthy of a nation claiming to
rank among those which sustain the laws of civilised
norality. We snake the remark without implying that
he answer of the Muscovite statesman to Lord Granville
slakes peace at all impossible. On the contrary, there
would be a certain mournful satisfaction if the official
Pokesman for Russia used honest and clear diction,
vhether in the direction of excuse or of avowed irrita-
ion ; whether towards mutual explanations and rational
arrangements, or towards firm defiance and sudden war.
There is nothing straightforward in the position of Prince
i'ortschalcoff. He neither looks the moral questions
onestly in the face, nor yet boldly avows a policy of dis-
.egard for such niceties of conscience ; although he may
thstain fro,. tone of menace, he does not disavow the
ntentiiiii of acting upon the lawless notice which has
seen given. In a. word, the general bearing of the
aussian Government is at once aggressive and tempo-
ising ; yet it would be going too far to say that it affords
so ground for further intercourse, or that it closes that
?ostern gate of rational agreement which the supplemeu-
--ary acts of the Imperial Chancellor so studiously left
ejar. When the public has perused the communication
arhich engages the attention of our Government to-day, •
ire believe disapprobation in regard to its lack of
candour and probity will be the first feeling, while
;he second will be a conviction that the position
stands very much as it did, complicated only by the
lisappointment which must be felt in seeing the
'ar from honourable line still taken by the Em-
)eror's representative. It will, we fear, have to be
sccepted as a broad fact . that the communications
sf the Prince are of a piece from first to last, and that in
!uture the Russian definition of national rectitude must
oe held to mean something quite different from the view
entertained by Europe in general. We shall be only
too glad if our remarks prove strong in their accent
A condemnation ; but we have too much reason
so apprehend that the English nation will agree with us
in denouncing Prince Gortschakoff's reply as disinge-
nuous, and little calculated to establish any faith in the
professiohs of Russia, if we should allow her to abolish
without rearrangement those securities which UQW bind
her action.

We regret to announce the death of the Hon.
James Stuart-Wortley, which took place yesterday a
Wharncliffe House, Curzon-street.
PRINCE AND PRINCESS CHRISTIAN. Their
Royal Highnesses Prince and Princess Christian of
Schleswig-Holstein, attended by Colonel and Mrs. Gordon,
returned to Frogmore House on Saturday afternoon from
visiting the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland at Trent-
ham Hall.

The following is the correct list of the brides
maids chosen for the mareale of the Princess Louise
Lady Constance Seymour, daughter of the Mar
quis of Hertford ; Lady Elizabeth Campbell
daughter of the Duke of Argyll ; Lady Florenc
Lennox, daughter of the Duke of Richmond
Lady Mary Butler, daughter of the Marchioness o
Ormonde ; Lady Alice Fitzgerald, (laughter of the slat
quis of Kildare ; Lady Grace Gordon, daughter of th
Dowager Marchioness of lltuitly ; Lady Moreno
Montagu, daughter of the Earl of Sandwich ; and Lad
Acatha Russell, daughter of Earl Russell.

Thq Morning Advertiser reports that on Friday
morning the first of a series of meetings, promoted by the
Evangelical Alliance for prayer for the restoration of
peace, was held at Freemasons' Hall. Sympathetic com-
munications were read from the Bishop of London, the
Eail of Shaftesbury, the Earl of Chichester, and other
English gentlemen ; and similar letters coming from
abroad were read. Count A. Bernstorff was present, and
offered up a prayer, his subject being, " That the grace of
the Divine Comforter may be given abundantly to those
who have been bereaved in the war ; that all who suffered
loss in their property may have patience and, strength to
endure the taking or spoiling of their goods !"
MEETING OF THE LEICESTER CHAMBER OF
AGRICULTURE.—A meeting of the Leicester Chamber of
Agriculture was held on Saturday, under the presidency
of Mr. William U. Heygate, M.P. The subjects under dis-
cussion were, the causes now in operation which discourage
the application of capital to agriculture. It was unanimously
resolved that these causes are, first, the comparatively
unremunerative character of the occupation secondly,
the want of sufficient
urs
yeerieciutyuiaaactn to bectyrea
occasioned
foralsoctioaoomnon
ac( :Ipdeeprsn iebyt as
sya haphazard
eoaiimovpnnei consideredrteao:sztpf
tthar
herevdedys
over-preservation
ltherein,wumruvtaaagatntotittioieeni
oNNd
tr.
Tof,and,hhgceyiott
also
uhaani it dprl
game.oyer
rge,
esuteghi
nree required
rse
iserreea.ravagesml
y
g
tenant. He quite agreed as to fartniug occupation being
unremunerative, and thought the immense number of
profitable trades prevented a large amount of capital
being laid out in agriculture. As to being 'cut out of the
market by import or foreign cereal, he did not take a
gloomy view, but believed we should be ablC to produce
our own.