The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-09 00:00:00

THE AIM OF THE PRUSSIANS.

The Standard thinks it is necessary that the world
should clearly understand the aim with which Prussia
is now prosecuting the war, and remarks that content
with a maintenance of the old limits before they had led
French armies into captivity, satisfied after Sedan
with a rectification of frontier, which would have
had for them little more than a sentimental benefit,
they now, after utterly destroying all the regular
armies of France, after devastating a third of the country,
after inflicting losses which it will take twenty years of
undisturbed peace to repair, and after making it humanly
impossible that any Frenchmen will, in this
century, talk seriously about a Rhine frontier,
demand Metz and French Lorraine, as well as
the whole of Alsace, in order to protect themselves
against French lust of conquest in the future. It is,
we are told by Count Bismarck and his organs, by
newspapers which publish no news which has not
received an official imprimatur, essential in the neces-
sary regard for the defence of Germany, and in con-
sequence of the insistance of Count von Moltke and
his colleagues, that Lorraine, inclusive of Met;
should be ceded to Germany. How grossly untruthful
this assertion—put forward to supply the defects
of the nationality argument, which would leave
Metz to France—is, appears from the fact that in the
beginning of September the Prussian Government was
quite content to do without any such securities. It knew
very well that it did not need Metz and Sedan, and to put
forward the argument that their possession is essential
to the defence of peace-loving Germany now,
when France is ready to accept any, terms it
can accept in good faith, is really a clumsy
subterfuge which will deceive no one. To have
insisted upon the necessity of the cession or the
capitulation of Metz before the war began ; to have
declared, after the first victories, that to be the
aim of their policy, would have been au intelligible
and, in' many respects, justifiable course on the
part of the Prussians. But to claim it now because Ger-
many would otherwise be open to invasion, is about the
most impudent attempt to cover a project of aggran-
disement, generated by unbroken success, with a plea of
self-preservation, that has been ever made.

The Northern Daily Express stak e that the River
Wear Commissioners have got the loan of £24,000 on easy
terms from the Government for the deepening of the river;
and the commissioners intend to spend £lO,OOO more on
the same work.

BAALBAIL—Mrs. Burton has written a letter to a
contemporary describing her visit to Baalbak. In the midst
of the temples, which are the main attraction there, she
op ant five day under canvas. Sheis convinced that excava-
n would produce valuable results. Alluding to one of
b r excursions in that neighbourhood, Mrs. Burton writes:
Iu fine weather nothing 'can be more delightful. The
clear, crisp, pure air at an klevation of 3,000 feet above
sea level; the abundance of water more splendid than
glass ; ' the variety, the novelty, and the glorious asso-
ciations of the view ; the sublime aspect of the ruins
crowning the fertile valley, and backed by the Eternal
Mountains ; the manifold contrasts of stony brown
range, barren yellow flat, luxuriant verdure of irrigated
field and orchard, and last, not least, the ermined
shoulder of Hermon, Sannon, and Arz Lebnau (the
Cedar Ridge) thrown out into such relief by the diapha-
nous blue sky, that they seem to be within cannon shot—
if these things will not satisfy a traveller's taste, I don't
know what will."