The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-03 00:00:00

Spirit of the Public Journals.

(From the Morning Herald of this day.)
In reply to an inquiry made by Lord Malmes-
bury, on Tuesday night as to the period when it
was probable that the Foreign Minister might be
present in his place in Parliament to answer in
person to the heavy charges outstanding against
him in reference to the betrayal of Kars, it was
stated by Lord Lansdowne that he could not tell
when the Foreign Minister might be expected to
appear, "as though the treaty had been signed,
there were certain arrangements in connection with
that treaty which must necessarily be completed
before the noble earl could return to his duties
here."

We believe that a fair translation of the noble
marquis's answer would simply amount to this—
that although the treaty has been signed, not one
single article of importance has as yet been defini-
tively arranged. Iu fact, that the much-vaunted
signature of the treaty of peace simply amounts to
a prolongation of the armistice in the interests of
Russia.

We shall take the great items seriatim.
No human being can venture to assert that any-
thing has as yet been done with reference to the
Asiatic frontier. Kars is, then, to remain in the
hands of the Russians for an indefinite period, to
say the least of it, and we know how Russia uses
her time.

With regard to eircassia, it is not even pre-
tended that any available guarantee has been
exacted from the Czar with regard to the future in-
dependence of that country, or its security from in-
vasion. On the other hand, the partisans of Russia
in the Western Cabinets have taken good care that
no attachment or respect should exist towards
England or France in the minds of the tribes,
whereby any obstacle of a moral or a physical na-
ture might be raised against the future machina-
tions of Russia.

Our own Correspondent from Anapa proved the
other day that the course adopted towards the
independent tribes—for be it observed they are not
subjects of the Porte—was one of practical alienation
from the West ; Sefer Bey was not supplied with
arms and ammunition ; he was left to do his best
with two old guns, and an offer made on his part
to support and provision 40,000 men as long as
they were employed either in the Caucasus or the
Crimea, was, if not peremptorily refused, at least
treated with such contempt as never to arrive at
any practical conclusion.
Upon this we wish to remark, that such a force
transported during the summer from Anapa to
Kertch, and supported by a French or English
division, would, of necessity, have forced the
Russians to give up the line of the Mackenzie
heights ; a matter of some little importance before
and even after the Bth of September.
The delusion with regard to Nicolaieff—whereby
that great arsenal is to be transformed into a mere
dock for building merchantmen—hardly requires a
comment. No men know so well as Englishmen
how easily vessels may be built for apparently
mercantile purposes, to be changed, as occasion
may render it necessary, into such war steamers as
the Vladimir, which, our readers will remember,
navigated the Back Sea in 1854 without making
any account of the monstrous British fleet in those
waters.

We come next to the proposed Bessarabian
frontier, and the transport dodge (there is no
other word so expressive of the fact) by which the
ultimate settlement of that important point en-
tered for an indefinite period into the limbo of
open questions. _

Surely no man in his senses can believe that the
two astute and wary diplomatists, Buol and the
Russian Plenieotentiary, could meet without
laughing in each other's faces at the recollection of
the now evanescent chain of mountaiur, which
they laid down with the stroke of a pen, from
Chotytn to Lake Sasik.

It is not to be supposed, although an English
Minister might try to make us imagine that
Schamyl was much to blame for neglecting to send,
through an impassible country, from his moun-
tains on the Caspian, 500 miles from the shores of
the Black Sea, for the arms and ammunition which
we said we were willing to furnish to him, although
we refused them to the Oircassians, who could re-
ceive them because they were on its coast—we say,
that though an English Minister might be so igno-
rant of geography as to make such a statement,
neither Austrian nor Russian diplomatists are so
dull as not to be perfectly aware that their so-called
range of mountains on the Bessarabian frontier—
raised for a special purpose—was nothing but a
swamp.

The object of this strange diplomatic change in
the physical geography of Bessarabia is now easily
fathomed. It was simply to allow Count Orloff to
rise, at the Conferences and point out, that as the
supposed conditions were in direct antagonism to
facts, it would be necessary to hold over the ulti-
mate arrangement of the frontier until a joint com-
mission, with all its paraphernalia of maps, sur-
veys, protocols, and statements, should finally de-
cide what really were the circumstances of the
country ; and that by these means the question
might be kept in abeyance, "it may be for years,
and it may be for ever ;" but at all events as long
as Bmasia wished it to remain undecided.

Alsst of these matters have been argued before,
but there remains a point referring more directly
to- the interests of Western Europe, about which
ominous discussions and differences have already
arisen.

It will be remembered that by means of one of
those extraordinary leakages (which Lord Malmes-
bury has assured us, on the authority of Sancho
Pauza, sometimes occur at the top as well as at the
bottom of the cask) it is now generally known that
Count flavour was most anxious to bring the state
of affairs in Italy, more especially its occupation
by foreign troops, under the notice of the Con-
ference : that Count Buol objected to the Sar-
dinian Minister speaking in the name of Italy, to
which it was retorted that the Piedmontese Mi-
nister had as much right to speak in the name of
Italy as the Austrian Envoy to assume the position
of representative of Germany.
The discussion, however, ended, as has been re-
ported, by a statement on the part of Count Buol
" that the Conference could scarcely be expected to
enter upon a discussion with reference to the occu-
pation of Italy by foreigners, when it was itself on
the point of authorising and ordering the occupa-
tion of Turkey- by the troops of the Western
Powers .perhaps of the Sardinian's' themselves."

We have recalled the circumstances of this rather
remarkable breach iu the unanimity of the assem-
bled diplomatists, in order to point out how little
their labours have as yet conduced to the seem ity
of a permanent and durable peaco.
Singularly enough the commentary upon this
transaction is furnished by the correspondent of the
Times at. Turin, who of course was ignorant, when
he wrote, of what-had taken place at Paris. That
commentary is contained in a report on the state
of public feeling in Turin and Genoa at the present
moment, with respect to the peace, wherein he re-
marks that the Sardinian nation was only induced
to take part in the Eastern war upon the implied
promise held out to their statesmen, on the faith of
both .Eogland and France, of some ♦ast advantage
to be derived to the consolidation of Italian na-
tionality, with the aid of the great powers, on the
conclusion of the war.

Such being the case, it is now represented that,
on the return of Count Cavour to Turin, a baffled
Minister, and obliged to acknowledge that he has
not been able to realise those advantages by the
promise of which he had obtained the assent of his
countrymen to a distant and expensive expedition,
it will be impossible for him to carry out any longer
the system of policy under which Piedment has so
largely advanced within the last few years.

So far the correspondent of the Timm.
Upon this we have merely to remark that the
cessation or failure of the Cavour policy is tanta-
mount to the rise of the revolutionary party, and
the throwing of the now prosperous kingdom of
Sardinia, in a great measure, into the hands of
Mazzini, which we need hardly remark is tanta-
mount to transferring Italy to Russia.
This is done by English statesmen. , •

(Proni the ,kerning Advertiser.)

A few weeks ago, a high financial authority in
Paris was reported to have made, use of the remark-
able expression, that the peace which is about to
be concluded can only be considered as " an inter-
lude intended for the negotiation of loans." It is
not a little carious that this dictum. should have so
soon received a species of confirmation. Scarcely,
indeed, have the last echoes died away of the guns
that announced the signature of. peace, when we
already hear of the efforts Count Orloff is making
at Paris to bring about " numerous and powerful
associations of French capitalists, with a view of
'creating vast enterprises, destined, to establish a
community of interests between Russia and
France 1"
Theeuterbperairseuspaollnudthede
constructionto of railways,
we are informed, will
principally
and canals in Rimian territory. During the "late
war," the greatest impediment the Czar has had to
contend with, has evidently been the difficulty of
communication between the many provinces of his
unwieldy empire. Through the want of railroads
the troops marching from Poland and the Baltic
coast, and even from the farthest. Siberian stations
on .the Altai, to the rescue of the points menaced,
could only be brought to their destination by diffi-
cult, harassing, and ruinous journeys. Had a
proper railway communication existed from Central
Russia to the southern dominions, but Jew, we
faney, of the Allied Invaders would have escaped
from the shores of the Taurio Cliersonese. The

boasts of Menschikoff, instead of provoking a
smile as idle braggsdocia, would have proved a
stern and tragic reality. Happily for us, Russia,
however prepared in hosts and materials, yet
lacked that which in strategy is of equal import-
ance, viz., the means of easy and rapid locomotion.
This defect she now applies herself to repair. The
" interlude " forcibly imposed upon her schemes of
aggression is to be employed in repairing her bat-
tered armour ; and the wounds that the swords of
England and France had inflicted upon her, are
now to be healed by the balm of their gold.
We wait with curiosity to learn what measures
the French Government will think fit to adopt
against these intended financial operations of Count
Orloff. But two or three weeks since, the Moni-
teur contained a much-commented-on article, in
which the capitalists of France were reprimanded
for the over-hasty zeal with which, at the approach
of peace, they seemed ready to throw themselves
into speculations and enterprises of all sorts and
countries. With the tone of peremptory authority,
the official organ of the French Court cautioned
financial men against embarking too readily in
foreign enterprises, lest France, in the course of
the present year, should feel herself unable to meet
her own pecuniary exigencies. Capitalists were
even warned by the Moniteur that Government,
despite the imminent probability of peace, would
decidedly refuse to charter French companies in-
vesting capital for foreign purposes. The Russian
Plenipotentiaries, do not appear, however, to have
taken the hint. They openly avow their intention
of inviting financial associations in France ; and
those organs of the French Press who are devoted
to Orleanist or Legitimist intereAs—and, through
them, to the Russian cause—already have put
out feelers to sound the public mind on behalf of
the " industrial" schemes of the Czar.

These schemes are unquestionably but the dis-
guised forerunners of deep designs. If, anything
characterises the present political situation, it is
the untiring exertions Russia makes to establish a
rapprochement between the Cabinet of the Tulle-
rise and herself. Russia is in haste to escape from
that state of isolation iu which she has found
heself during the last three years. She longs for
the moment when the coalition of Western and
Eastern Europe will be dissolved. She is eager to
create powerful alliances of her own. And with
the traditional perspecuity peculiar to her, she
forthwith selects the field most favourable for her
intrigues. Concealing, for the nonce, the senti
ments of revenge that animate her against the
French nation, Russia offers the Judas kiss to our
Ally, and babbles of friendship and brotherly union
to a people on whom, a moment before, her official
scribes had vented the vials of defamation.

The designs of Russia, in this sudden metamor-
phosis, are but too palpable. Were her intrigues
at Paris to succeed to the full extent of her desires
she would secure a threefold advantage. She would
set against each other the two greatest maritime
nations of Europe. She would force the German
dynasties to return unconditionally to Muscovite
protectorate—lest hemmed in by France and
Russia, they should be crushed. Last, bat not
least, she would play the same game with France,
of secret and confidential transactions, in which
she failed with England in 1853 1 En all this the
Government of Sc. Petersburgh acts but according
to section 13 of that famous Last Will which ever
seems the undeviating guide of the policy of Mus-
covite Monarchs.

Wo have spoken of the sham " industrial " ex-
ertions Count Orloff is in course of making in
France. We now come b some military facts that
have recently occurred in Russia, and are calcu-
lated to throw light upon the ulterior plans of our
"new friend," the old enemy of Europe.
It is, then, a remarkable circumstance, that
almost on the very day on which the treaty of
Peace was signed, in the French capital, a new
levy of troops was made throughout Russian
Poland ! Coupled with the incessant work of for-
tification and military road-making that continues
along the western frontier of Russia, this recent
levy goes far to prove that the spirit of encroach-
raeut is not yet defunct., the mania for commercial
enterprise not yet so deeply rooted in Old Mus-
covy, as the panegyrists of Alexander 11. would
fain us believe. Forced as Russia is to sheathe the
sword for a while, she throws herself with energy
upon the task of repairing her financial and mili-
tary losses. And she does so on a scare so profuse
as to rouse the suspicion that it is not reparation
for the past, but better preparation for the future
that actuates her efforts. At almost the same mo-
ment the Russian Government accepted the pro-
positions of Count Esterhazy, it issued ten new
series of paper money, each of three million silver
roubles; and also renewed eight series formerly
drawn—thus creating a fresh capital of fifty-four
million roubles ! Almo,t on the very day when
the Plenipotentiaries met at Paris, it became pub-
licly known that the creation of twelve new regi-
ments of !cavalry had been decreed by Russia
among the Biskirs and Khirgiz of Orenburg !
Now, when the treaty of Paris is signed, a fresh
levy is made throughout Poland ! By this rule of
coincidence, what are we to expect three weeks
hence, when the ratifications are to be exchanged ?
Meanwhile we caution the country not to be de-
ceived by the " industrial" and " commercial"
blandishments of Russia. Let the people always
recollect how suddenly this recent war came upon
us ; and let them well ponder on the words attri-
bUted to the first Napoleon—" To speak of Russia
is to speak of perfidy."