The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-05 00:00:00

IHE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY, DECEMBER 187 C .

MR. FROUDE ON THE EASTERN
QUESTION.

RUSSIA AND THE TREATIES OF
1856.

The following is a full report of the speech delivered by
Mr. J. A: Froude, at Birmingham, on Friday :—He did
not suppose that there ever was any real danger of Eng-
land being flung into the war. He could not but think
that, in the hands of the Cabinet of which the member
for Birmingham holds so distinguished a part, they Were
perfectly safe ; but he confessed that he had been some-
what frightened by the tone of the London press. A cer-
tain number of irresponsible gentlemen who, if we had to
fight, would not have had to do it, talked about sending a
fleet to the Black Sea, of curbing Prussia, of sending
an ultimatum to Russia—knocking down America
with one hand and Russia with the other—and who spoke
wildly, like men who dreaded being thought afraid, which
was the worst form of cowardice, more than with sound,
sober, English good sense, in the presence of a complicated
difficulty. That feeling, however, had cooled down, and,
among the other conveniences, was that he would only be
obliged to trouble them for a very short time that night.
There were, however, one or two points on which some mis-
apprehension existed, and, on which, he would like to say a
few words. What was it that Russia had specially done ?
After the Crimean War Russia was bound down by a
treaty very disagreeable to herself : and. by a certain
part of that treaty she now said that she could no longer
hold herself bound. He considered that Earl Granville
had given Prince Gortschakoff the proper and only
answer beconfing a great nation under such circum-
stances to give. We could not recognise the right of
Russia to withdraw of her own free will from the pro-
mises into which she had entered. Russia had com-
mitted an offence, but between an offence which we were
entitled to resent, and an offence for which we were
instantly to go to war, there seemed such an •enOrmons
difference that he could not understand how people could
have overlooked it. They were told that their honour
had been affronted, and that we must be immediately
avenged. It was not very long ago that when some
people quarrelled over a dinner-table, honour required
them to go out the next morning and stand at twelve
paces, and fire at one another. We had long ago given
up that kind of thing ; but it still seemed to be under-
stood that nations were to do something of the same sort,
and that being so, it appeared to him a very curious
commentary on what was called progress. Honour,
in that case, must be an extremely misleading spirit.
For his part, he thought that nothing was honourable
except that which was just and right, and every
other kind of honour he conceived to be a mere
will-of-the-Wisp, But Russia having raised that diffi-
culty—that difficulty about the Treaty of Paris—they
should understand what the word "treaty " meant.
There were ordinary treaties between equal parties for
mutual convenience, and from which either side could
retire when' it no longer happened to suit their con-
venience to abide by the treaty. There were also treaties
like the Geneva Convention for mitigating the horrors of
war, for preventing the firing upon ambulances, and doing
the little that could be done to reduce the sufferings of the
wounded in war. That treaty represented the enlightened
part of humanity, and from it no nation worthy of the
name of civilised could retire without disgrace. There
were also treaties into which nations entered when
they borrowed money. These engagements were
protected by the ordinary laws of common honesty,
and no nation could throw them off ; and if a nation
went to war to throw them off, and they were unable to
force her to pay her debts and behave like a civilized nation,
still her success would be her dishonour. Treaties of that
kind were of perpetual obligation, and no war could
relieve a country which had once undertaken them.
But the clause of the Treaty of Paris now under debate
was of a totally different kind. That clause limited
what was called the sovereign rights of Russia within
her own dominions. It was as if England bad been
bound not to fortify Portsmouth and Plymouth, and to
limit her Channel Fleet to five or six small masters. If
that was done we should immediately feel it to be an
evidence of defeat, and a badge of disgrace. Innumerable
treaties of that kind had been forced Upon the different
countries of Europe, and invariably they had never
lasted beyond the time the nations in which they were
imposed had found themselves strong enough to throw
them off. They never had and never could, in the
nature of things, endure. They were either over-
thrown by force, or were evaded, or were outgrown by the
nation in which they were imposed, or somehow
or other they came to an end. There was the Treaty of
1815, by which France was not to allow a Bonaparte to
sit upon the throne of France ; but France elected
Napoleon 111., and all Europe agreed—not a word was
said of the broken treaty. The Great Napoleon, after
having overrun Germany, cast upon the German States
just the same kind of bonds. In the day of humiliation
these States agreed to and promised certain things of the
same kind, but immediately on the reverses of the great
Napoleon these treaties were cut in pieces by the sword,
and flung away amidst the approbation of the whole of
mankind. So it always would be. These treaties
could not in the nature of things last, and when a nation
could get rid of such treaties it repudiated them, and it
was only an assertion of her own natural rights. How
that should be done was another point. He was told
that according to the law of nations Russia would have
been perfectly in order if she had said—" I will not be
bound by this trial any longer ; I declare war." There
would have been nothing immoral in that. She gave
notice, however, that she did not intend to be bound by
the treaty in order that there might be time to consider
it, and her doing so was said not to be in order. Not-
withstanding what was said, that seemed to him to be an
offence very considerably less than if she had declared
war. People said that she should have gone to the lead-
ing Powers which imposed these obligations upon her,
and said, " Release me." Well, that would have been
the noble heroic course ; but he said that there was nc
experience of any country
-in Europe ever having had
recourse to that ; and one of the pleas for the Russian
War was that Russia was a half-barbarous people. It,
therefore, seemed to him to be going too • far to
require of a half-barbarous nation to set an example
of heroic civilisation. Russia's position appeared
to him to be this. She said, " I cannot keep the
respect of my own subjects any longer if I submit to
this clause. The purposes for which it was inflicted are
worn out. The circumstances of Europe and Asia are
not now the same. There is no longer any fear of any
aggression upon Turkey on my part; I have no such
thought. I only say I must not carry this
dishonouring badge of defeat any longer ; and if
you drive me, I shall go to war sooner than
bear it; but I am earnestly and intensely anxious to
escape from that extreme necessity, and I will not go to
war unless you should force me." Earl Granville, on the
other hand, says—" Your request is reasonable, but the
way in which you have made it is one which cannot be
tolerated." Was that a position on which they should
have recourse to arms ? He could only say that if the
diplomatists of England and Russia were unable to settle
such a question without flinging the whole world into
war, he for one said that diplomacy was not worth its
salt, and that the English taxpayer should not longer be
burdened with the necessity of keeping up a useless pro-
fession.

MOVEMENTS OF RUSSIAN TROOPS.

There are no Russian troops within fifteen miles of the
frontier ; but further inland, says a writer from Vienna.
something strikes the traveller as unusual, this is the, pre-
sence 'of small garrisons, sometimes mere squads of
soldiers, in innumerable small towns, which at ordinary
times had to manage without such blessings.
" This dissemination of troops over a large area
has been indeed unusual ever since the time
when Czar Nicholas was slowly gathering in
forces for his calamitous war. For the truth of
another fact I am in possession of sufficient vouchers,
namely, the sudden completion of regiments in Poland,
where, until lately, each company, owing to furloughs
largely granted, had been reduced to little more than
thirty men. This figure has suddenly recovered to a full
hundred and more, but is still below the war standard,
which is 211. As to the calling in of the reserves, nothing
has been done, for the simple reason that Russia has no
reserves, not even on paper."