The Sun.
London, England, 1856-05-01 00:00:00

- •
A Etsropean,Pengress llas,othrr uses, it seems, than these
tot nittking peace•or egetifying boundaries. It may serve occa-
sionally the porposestf&clebating society, in which the Minis-
ters of States happily curt from the thraldom of delibe-
rative assemblies may hold a little Parliament of their own,
and, without the fear of stopping the supplies, impeachment,
or any of the other uupleasant incid6its which' wait on popu-
lar hotbls, Ventilate such *les as seem to them most to re-
quirt .the impress of high station and authority to give thesis
currency. The 22d Protocol gives an instance of suclean
extempore interchange of feelings and opinions. Greece," Italy,
above all Naples, receive their share of admonition and rebuke,
and are lectured according to tlieir several demerits, Bat per-
haps the severest lesson was reserved for a State which for
the. lash five and twenty years has given very little trouble to
European diplomacy, but has made a most gratifying advance
in all the arts of peacci, and internal improvement. - When
'people speak of the-future condition of the Danubian Princi-
palities they call them by way of auspicious anticipation the
" Belgium 'of Eastern Europe."' Possessed of a moderate an
-I
tempered freedom, lying in a po4ition which makes her use-
ful to every Power and forhtidable to none, Belgium has claims
on our respect and forbearance which the possession of nuttier
ous armies and large territories does not always extort. But
Belgium enjoys freedom of the press, and therefore Belgium is
the object of fierce derninciation and menace. Its newspapers'
contain doctrines distasteful fo'reign Governments,, especi-
ally.to.Franoe, and the writings which appear under the s,bel-
ter of her free constltutiOn; arq treated by Count Walewski I
as little. less than scosos, .which nothing but
the magnanimity or his'' Government pi-events her, from
pushing to the uttermost..
„This the never ending
cenfliet betweenClov4mments' which absorb the State into
themselves and Governments which,aalthough at the head,aro
`not the whole of their country. We had always supposed
tat,' as= betvieen nations, t& Government of -one eauntry
could know nothing and recognise nothing beyond the Go-
vernment of another, and we hear now for the first time of a
AietinetteitikUlootao.a.istrdlill 4st*sien fievritak.
and his people. With the Government of i;elgium count
Walewski says he has no ground of complaint whatever. It
has striven to mitigate the excesses of a press which the law
does not permit it to control. But to Belgium herself Count
Walewski employs very different language. "We should
regret," he says, " to. be obliged to make Belgium com-
prehend • the strict necessity for' •'modifying a legis-
lation which does not allow its Government to fulfil
the first of international duties—that 'of not assailing or
allowing to be assailed the internal tranquillity of neighbour-
ing States." This is indeed new and startling language. What
is it, in fact, but saying that no Government can be tolerated
by his own except one which leaves to its subjects no freedom
of action, and thus, by the only possible means, precludes
them from compromising the internal tranquillity of neighbour-
ing States We have happily got rid of the Holy
but Count Walewski seems disposed to revive the absolutist
Propaganda of
.1815, and to insist- that the neighbours of
France shall adopt au absolute Government, as the only gua-
rantee they can give that they will not interfere, by writ,
ing, by speech, or by action, with the existing. institu-
tions of France. If the great POwers will only join Count
Walewski in his, denunciations, they will, he thinks,
so strengthen the hands of the Belgian Government,
that it will be able to exercise the required influence over the
press. In other words, the French Minister solicits the mem-
bers of the Conference to enter into a crusade against a free
press and liberal institutions, and thus to give in Belgium the
victory to the friends of reaction and priestly domination.
The war is over, but Count Walewski invites us to a new cru-
sade, to hunt down and root out whatever has been left on
the Continent of individual liberty and public freedom, and
to avail ourselves of the reunion of monarchs to curtail the
rights and privileges of peoples.
As we happen to live in a land which has not yet been sub-
jected to this corrective discipline, where the nation still
counts for something, and the Government, though strong,
is neither omniscient nor übiquitous ; where man is neither
trained to submit to degrading compliances nor to measure
his speech and writings by the pattern prescribed to him from
above, we venture respectfully to dissent from the doctrine
bid down by Count Walewski as to the duty of sovereigns to
coerce the Belgian nation, in order that by snob coercion they
may silence the Belgian press. There is but little' liberty
anywhere ; let us, at any rate, respect that remnant of a
stormy past—that hope of a happier future ! If the Belgian
press exceed the bounds of legitimate criticism the tribunals
of the country are as oeen to the Emperor of the French as
to the meanest subject; and, if that justice cannot from any
cause be obtained, it is far better that some inconvenience
should be felt than that the sword should be drawn against
a feeble State, unable to resist, and yet ashamed to submit to
the
.dictation of its powerful neighbour. Moreover, when
Count Walewski protests so strongly against the anti-Inape-
rial tone of the Belgian press he ought to remember that a
portion of it, with equal impartiality, adopted the cause of
the Emperor of Russia, and that there would not have been
the least difficultY in setting up another newspaper in Brus-
sels to support the cause of the dynasty of Napoleon. Two
centuries ago the immortal author of the Provincial Letters,
in one of the noblest passages ever penned by the hand of
man, pointed out the absolute incompatibility between
violence and truth. " Argument," he says, " may be
overcome by stronger argument, and force by greater
force, but truth • and force have no relation—nothing
in common, nothing 'by which the one can act
upon the other. They dwell apart, and will continue to do so
till the end of time." When will the continent of Europe pro-
ducestatesmen wise enough to comprehend these maxims,
wise enough to know and feel that reason must be combated
with reason, and force with force ; that the empire of truth
over the human mind must depend upon its feelings and con-
victions, which the sword can neither make nor unmake ?
A government founded on public opinion needsno such means
to support it ; a government founded on violence should seek
as soon as possible to emancipate itself from the odious neces-
sity of supporting one 'violent act by another.. We have ter-
minated one crusade against a Power full of ambition and
violence ; let us not commence another against men whose
offence is that they are too free for the repose of their neigh-
bours, and too much devoted to. law to submit to its arbitrary
curtailment.—Times.

THE TREATY OF PEACE.

(From the Morning Herald of this day.)

Disgraceful and dangerous as are the terms of peace con-
tained in the body of the treaty, yet we postpone for the pre-
sent the continuation of our analysis of them, for many of
them sink into insignificance in comparison of the subject
which we treated yesterday—that of the surrender of the
right of search.

mb eaerni t
ipmr os toe
code,o l ebdy form a
itnhtes sntg tiwmhei
eihn her
she his
uanddthhaats
gal
toiE.
be-
came the mistress of the seas, has been coolly signed away
by Lord Clarendon, in direct violation of the laws and consti-
tution of Great Britain.
ti We resume the subject by giving some further corrobora-
ous of the law of the case, and some additional historical
details.
We yesterday recalled the two " armed neutralities" of
1780 and 1800, when Russia vainly entered into a •
conspiracy
with otbe • •• • mai itime nations to deprive England of this most
ancient right of seizure of enemies' property on beardof
neu-
tral vessels. We shall now •
more particularly speak as to the
conduct of the neutral states shortly after those occasions.
In 1788 France proposed to the
youngA •
American Republic
a treaty, in accordance with the doct • lanes of the armed neu-
trality, which the United States signed. But in 1794 they
signed a treaty with England in which they
stipulated for the
old law, that of the right of search and•
property on board of neutrals. They were,sei therefore,zureofenemies' in the
predicament of having signed in one seise with one power,
and in another sense with another.
When war broke out between England
and France, the
Americans, being neutrals, allowed the British to seize
French property in their vessels, but refused to allow France
to seize British property.
Franco was indignant, and protested,
not against the in.
terpretation of the treaties permitting
England and forbid-
ding France to search neutral vessels, but on the ground that
she had a treaty with the United States which
ua
her the rights of the most favoured nation, and that
tEngland
was thus more favoured than herself. The following are per
tions of the American no :o of 1798, addressed to France on
that occasion :
Before the treaty with Great Britain, the treaty with
France existed. It follows, then, that the
rights of Great
Britain, being neither diminished nor increased by compact,
remain precisely in their natural state, which is tos
ene-
mies' goods. .. . The complaints of the F had seize
rench re-
ference, amongst other things, to the abandonment by the
Americans of their natural rights in not maintaining the
pre-
tended principle of the modern law of nations, that free s
make free goods, and that timber and naval stores are ships
contraband of war. The necessity, however, for the strong
and express stipulations of the armed neutrality itself, byall
these ma
the various powers that joined it, showed that
xims
were not in themselves law, but merely the stipulations of
compact; that by the real law, belligerents had a right to
seize the property of enemies as against friends."
After the first armed neutrality had been put down b
England, Russia, herself becoming a belligerent, enforced aye
right 4.search against Denmark. The following is
o,
claration :
"Denmark, with its accustomed weokuess and prefer.
ring even an ideal gain to the considerations of sound policy,
has refused to consent to our just demands; therefore, all
ships are to be stopped and searched, even those under
convoy."
This law, however, dates back front the very earliest period.
In the " Consolato del Mare," compiled in the 12th century,
in chapter 273, the maxim is laid down:
" If the captured vessel is neutral property and the cargo
the property of enemies, the captor may compel the mer-
chant vessel to carry the enemy's cargo to a place of safety,
where the prize may be secure from danger of recapture."
It appears in our earliest treaties. We find it in the treaty
of 1561, between England and Sweden, in Cromwell's time,
and it is repeated in that of 1670, between England and Den-
mark In both it is stipulated that—
" If the goods of an enemy are found in such'ship of the
confederate, that part only which belongs to the enemy shall
be made prize."
As to the law, we once more quote from Sir William Scott
(case of the Maria) :
" The right of search is clear in practice, which is uniform
and universal on the subject. The many European treaties
which refer to this subject refer to it as pro-existing, and
merely regulate the exercise of it. All writers upon the law
of nations unanimously acknowledge it, without the excep-
tion of Hubner himself, the great champion of neutral privi-
leges. In short, no man in the least conversant in subjects of
this' kind has ever, that I know, breathed a doubt of it."
As to the policy, we repeat the words of Lord Whitworth,
quoted yesterday :
" If this principle (the cession of the right of search) is
once admitted, protection is extended over all the enemy's
commerce. All that is required is to find some one neutral
state, however insignificant, sufficiently friendly to our ene-
mies to be willing to lend her flag to cover their commerce."
War would necessarily be rendered interminable, and fleets
as useless for the future as for the two last years.
This parting with our maritime power, however, shocking
as it is, sinks into insignificance in comparison of the man-
ner in which it has been effected, and of the precedent thereby
established.
It is not merely that we have parted with a right on which
our power depended—that we may now break up the Spit-
head fleet for firewood, and take down Nelson from his
column—it is that an ambassador has dared of his own autho-
rity, and without the consent of Queen, Lords, and Commons,
to sign away the integral laws of England at the dictation of
an enemy.