The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-18 00:00:00

PROSPECTS OF PEACE.

(From the Times of this day.)

Over the sounds of warlike preparation but yesterday
resounding from one end of this laborious island to the
other has fallen a sudden lull, and the haniiner of the
an:not-11.es in uplifted and the hand of the ship carpenter is
stayed, while they listen with wonder and surprise to the
unexpected tidings of peace- We have become indurated
to a state of war, and it seems now almost as impossible
for England to fall back into the old pacifl routine of the
last forty years as it appeared two years ago for her to
shake off the peaceful habits and associations which those
forty years hail created. Nor would it, we suspect, be
perfectly true to say that the country hails the prospect
so suddenly offered of a return to peace with unmixed and
unalloyed satisfaction. No one is so inhuman as to argue
for war in the abstract, but there are a great many, we
suspeet, who think that its continuance for another year
would have more of good than of evil. Our preparations
are so vast, our army and Navy are assuming so much
more promising an aspect than before, and the power of
Russia is so visibly reduced and shaken, that we might
reasonably hope at the end of another campaign not only
to dictate terms much more favourable, but to have for
them the best of all possible guarantees—the utter exhaus-
tion and prostration of our adversary. In such cases, how-
ever, it is wise to propitiate that Nemesis which is so apt
to wait on those whose overweening expectations of future
good fortune render them blind to the opportunities of the
present, and to close our hand upon that certain success
which is within its grasp, rather than open it to snatch at
some fortune more alluring, but also snore doubtful and
dangerous. To be delivered from the continually recur-
ring catalogues of slaughter, from the rapid increase of our
n ational debt, from the prospect of a ten per cent. income
tax, and a constant derangement cf our monetary system ;
to curb effectually the insolence and aggression of a Power
which two years ago would only condescend to answer our
earnest remonstrating by a haughty and expressive silence,
treating them, to use the metaphor of the Empress Cathe-
rine, " as the moon does the wolves that bay at her,"—
these aro advantages so solid and substantial that we would
not change them for the most brilliant future that ever
allus eel and deluded the visionary or the enthusiast. Let
us only bo sure that we have got what we ask for, and we
shall bear with much philosophy the loss of all the fine
thins that another year of war might bring its.
We would, however, caution the public against the per-
suasion that the telegraphic messages of our correspondents
at Vienna and Berlin, and that poste 1 by the French Go-
vernment on the Paris Bourse, necessarily imply what
their words certainly, taken in their literal souse, would
fairly comprehend—that all the propositions upon which
the Allies insist have been unconditionally accepted by
Russia. The terms of the fifth proposition are general,
and do not necessarily include the undertaking not to for-
tify the Aland Isles, any more than any other the Allies
might think fit to make. We do not believe that this re-
quisition has yet been specifically submitted to Russia,
end, whatever may be the probabilities of the case, we are
certainly not justified in saying that she has uncondition-
ally accepted it. Two other terms on which we must pe-
remptorily insist—the disarming of the eastern coast of the
Black Sea, and the allowing Consuls of the Western Powers
to reside in the Russian ports on its waters—have been
only slightly and ambiguously mentioned. Why this is so
we do not know. That is the concern of Austria. We are
not principals in the negotiation, but have employed the
mediation of a third Power, whose duty it is to see that
Russia be brought to an unconditional acceptance of our
terms, with all their stipulations, before we enter into ne-
gotiation. We do not believe for a moment that these
things are likely to offer permanent obstacles to the con-
clusion of peace, but our readers must remember that the
announcement is that of an Austrian, not of an English
diplomatist, and that he speaks from a point of view not
always identical with our own.
again, what does Russia mean by an unconditional ac-
ceptance ? Wo have held an acceptance of hers before, and
have some experience how coolly she can dishonour it.
Other despatches from Vienna speak of the terms being
accepted as the bases of negotiation. Logically, there is no
distinction between the two, for the foundation on which
a negotiation rests must be accepted unconditionally, or
they are no foundations at all. We must begin somewhere,
and that with which we begin must be unconditional ; but
we have some experience how Russia understands these
things when wo remember that last year she undertook to
do away with her preponderance in the Black Sea, and
could be brought to assent to no means of carrying out this
condition which did not tend directly to defeat it. We do
not believe, as we have said, that any of these difficulties
will really be allowed to interfere with that peace which
the Court of St. Petersburg seems to have determined to
be necessary to its interest, but merely wish to cool the
ardour of those oversanguine spirits who may infer that
everything is already done, and that nothing remains for
England and France but to ring their bells, light their
bonfires, and pay the bill.
Nothing should induce us to relax for a single moment in
our preparations until all the stipulations we have men-
tioned have been clearly and unequivocally put by Aus-
tria, and as clearly and unequivocally conceded. e must
remember that by the pressure we have put upon Russia,
and not by the mediation of Austria, has the present
happy alteration in our circumstances been brought about,
and that, if we would preserve the advantages of our posi-
tion, it can only be done by a constant adhesion to the
very means by which that change has been produced. Let
Russia once see reason to believe that we have allowed the
hopes of ease and tranquillity to unnerve our vigilance and
disarm our courage, and the whole work must be done over
again, for she will assuredly find means to wriggle out of
the concessions she has made, and to resume her o/d atti-
tude of haughtiness and defiance. The way to obtain peace
is to make our adversary feel thoron,ghly:—What is, indeed,
no more than the truth—how much more necessary that
peace is to her than it is to us. We have tried reason and
remonstrance with no effect, have tried vigour and action
with the most encouraging results. By energetic action
we have compelled the enemy to negotiate ; by a continu-
ance of that energy and that action we shall bring those
negotiations to a happy result. It is the common error of
historians to attribute in these matters too much to the
talents of plenipotentiaries, and too little to the relative
force of the contracting States. No negotiator was more
successful than Charles XII., before the battle of Pultawa,
or Napoleon before the expedition to Moscow, for their
arguments
were backed by their bayonets, and faults in
their logic passed unnoticed amid the thunder of their
cannon. After these signal reverses they negotiated with
equal talent but entirely different success, for the power
that gave force to their propositions was gone. Now, then,
if ever in the course of the war, it is necessary to push on
those preparations which are required for the efficiency of
our sea and land forces in the next campaign. Never be-
fore was that necessity so urgent, never would the effects
of any relaxation or remissness be so immediately felt.
We have the goal in sight, and that ought to induce us
rather to double than remit our exertions. By obsorving
this line of conduct we shall either have gained the noblest
victory—a solid and lasting peace, or be in a position to
inspire those who shall have withheld it from us with a
still more durable repentance.

(From the Morning Post of this day.)
We have now reached a most important stage in the
highway to peace ; and, if we persevere in the same steady
and resolute course that we hail hitherto followed with