The Sun.
London, England, 1834-01-11 00:00:00

Russia. France and England are strong, be-
cause the peaceably disposed people of Europe
must see that they can have no sinister objects
in view. They wish nothing from Turkey,
they have no claims to enforce on Italy, and, in
claiming the performance of treaties for the
oppressed Poles, they seek not to wrest anything
from Russia or Prussia for themselves. They
are strong, not only in themselves, but in the
goodness of their cause. This the three other
Powers are well aware of; and they will not
provoke the hostility of France and England at
a time when they are unable to encounter it.
Russia must always be desirous of securing the
passage into the Mediterranean. Whether it
will be possible to raise up a stable power in
Constantinople to oppose her, is a point involved
in difficulty ; but she never can occupy Con-
stantinople if England and France prove true
to European civilization and to themselves.—
Morning Chronicle.

The speech of M. Bignon in the French
Chamber of Deputies, in explanation and de-
fence of the proposed address in reply to the
speech from the Throne, has excited a degree
of attention to be accounted for only by the
position of the Speaker, and by the circum-
stance that the Foreign Minister of the juste
milieu lent, or seemed to lend, it the weight of
his official sanction, and to he accounted for,
somewhat imperfectly, even by these extrinsic
considerations. It has seldom been our lot to
hear or read a speech more replete with verbiage
and nonsense, or presenting evidence more dis-
tinct and conclusive that the Speaker was insin-
cere in much of what he said, and was only embol-
dened to say it by the conviction that he had an
audience as insincere as himself. What can be
imagined more ridiculous than a French
statesman, or a statesman of any other
country, referring to the debate on Poland
in the British House of Commons, which
Mr. Fergusson's motion produced ; and
referring particularly to the empty speech of
Lord Palmerston upon that occasion, after
the debate and the speech- had fulfilled in
England the single purpose for which they were
got up—that of amusing for a day the coffee-
house and tap-room politicians of Great Britain,
and had long been totally forgotten ? Who, at
this moment, believes that either the debate of
our wise and grave Senators, or the speech of
our Foreign Secretary, were intended for any
thing but display ? It was a mere phantasma-
goria ; and M. Bignon and the Foreign Minister
of the juste milieu have presented to France,
as the most solid of their materials, the shadow
of a shade. Russia will understand this shallow
favrarronade if France does not. It amounts,
indeed, to a proof that the French Ministers
resemble Lord Palmerston in their disposition
to talk flimsy and flashy flippancies, and to do
nothing. Lord Palmerston had refused to
sanction and had protested against the conduct of
Russia towards Poland ; but Poland is still what
she was, without an effort having been made
on her behalf. Russia still disposes of the
fate of Poland, without regarding the flimsy
and flashy flippancies of Lord Palmerston, any
more than she will regard those of Bignon and
the foreign Minister of France. The Govern-
ments of England and France are still polluted
by the disgrace of having first instigated Poland
to rebellion and then ignominiously deserted
her. The debate on Mr. Fergusson's motion
made England the laughing-stock of Europe ;
and M. Bignon and the Foreign Minister of
France have now generously determined that
England shall not be laughed at alone. The
Emperor of Russia can well afford to treat
such Statesmen with contempt. He and his
subjects know that their appeal to the
treaties of 1815 for the settlement of Europe is
merely ridiculous, after they have themselves can-
celled those treaties by their conduct towards
the King of Holland. They know that the new
position of the West of Europe has created new
rights and new necessities of the North and the
East. They know that all the Liberals of Western
Europe, in and out of office,affectcd to consider the
Polish struggle as a national war, and that, if it
were a national war, former treaties were merged
in the newly-acquired rights of the conqueror.
But, what is of much greater practical import-
ance, they know that the liberal Statesmen of
England and France are capable of urging a
nation like Poland to its ruin, for the advance-
ment of their own schemes, but utterly incapable
of any generous or disinterested effort for its
preservation. Several of the most effective parts
of M. l3lgnon's speech in relation to Russia
would be still more effective had they been
applied to France and Great Britain. Let us
for instance parody a single passage :—" It then
follows that, after the unrepealed Treaties of
1815, the present state of Belgium is nothing
more than a material fact, bearing no sanctio❑
of international law, and not recognised by that
Power which holds the solemn guarantees of
all the principal European States. If Belgium
be wrested from Holland it is so in contempt of
Treaties of which the Cabinets of London
and Paris are guarantees. The possession
of Belgium as a French dependency enters
not into the circle of European rights. The
day that the Belgians shall break their
chains, or the day that other nations shall
emancipate them from their dependence upon
France, on that day alone will it be that
right shall resume its empire." From Poland
M. Bignon passed to Turkey, and under
this head he took occasion to reveal the secret
of a proposal made to Napoleon in 1808, by
the late Emperor Alexander, for the entire
partition of the Turkish Empire, Constantinople
and the Dardanelles being the share of the spoil
which the Emperor contemplated as his own.
Hence the French orator, under the sanction of
the Minister for Foreign Affairs, inferred that
Russia is systematically ambitious, encroaching,
and rapacious. We complain not of the infer-
ence. It seems natural and just, and we will
take it to be both, at least until Russia shall
have been heard. But what was M. Bignon's
object in noticing this fact and drawing this
interence ? Was it to expose the systematic
rapacity of Russia merely ? If so the French
orator pursued his object with a very uncere-
monious disregard to the feelings of Lord
Palmerston, of whose spirited talk against
Russia he pretends to be so much enamoured.
Lord Palmerston, and Lord Lansdowne, and
Lord Holland, and some other members of Mr.
Canning's Cabinet and 'of the present, will be
inclined to wish that M. Bignon had been
somewhat less eager in the pursuit of his imme-
diate object. Of the fact he states they ought
not to have been wholly ignorant ; of the infe-
rence he adduces they ought not to have been
wholly incapable ; at the moment when, for sake
of a little transitory popularity with the lowest
and most ignorant classes of the people, they
entered into a league which bound Great Britain
to assist Russia i❑ crippling the resources and
annihilating the independent power of Turkey.