The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-11 00:00:00

BrISSIA AND TIM WESTERN POWERS.

(From the Times.)
It is a natural, though not the less a dangerous
error to look for sudden changes of policy in nations
ail the result of great calamities. People forget
how slowly and how difficultly the gambler, the
drunkard, or the brawler of private life is reformed
--how inveterate are the old habits and the old
longings which cling even to those who see and
confess their error. Yet the world is ready to
hope that powerful and ambitious nations will be
turned from their course by a single check. It is
only the few who have learnt from political experi-
ence that fully understand how little will be chang-
ed by what seem great convulsions. These more
prudent thinkers, if they calculate on the effects of
a war or a revolution, rightly look upon it as only
likely to alter something in the moral constitution
of the people who have undergone it, which change
of tone will, after a certain term of years, have its
influence on outward actions. Thus, we may

l'airly hope that the lesson of the late war has not
been lost on Russia. For the first time she had
a ,coalition against her. For the first time she has
seeu her immemorial allies hostile or neutral, and
for the first time her frontier has receded. The
Czar is no longer the arbiter of Europe ; not even
a Gt‘rman or Italian potentate dares to propose
him openly for an example. The dreams of Euro-
pean .and Asiatic conquest are now dissolved, at
least for all the world beyond his own dominions.
No opponent of England now talks of the Musco-
vite =lnk to the Indus ; no enemy of democratic
France speculates on a second entry of Russian
soldiery into Paris. The spell which in one form
or another has bound nations for nearly a thousand
years is now broken. We may therefore expect that
Russia w ill eventually undergo a great moral change.
Hedged in by the armies and the reprobation of
Europe, compelled to restrainher activity within her
own territories' it may be predicted as a necessary
consequence of her condition that new forces will
come into pi ay to civilise and elevate, or perhaps to
weaken and Glisrupt. But these things are for the
next ten year.;, or perhaps for the next generation.
We of the W.etst can hardly pretend to see the full
,acope of what has been done, and we may be sure
Oat the Russia us see still less. They probably do
no t feel how much they have been beaten andwhat
they have lost. To them it is doubtless only so
muct:.l fighting, in which their deficiencies of land
transport have detracted from their success. Every
incident which teb's in their own favour is of course
1-nag,nified, while reverses are forgotten or explained
a way. The Baltic and Petropaitlovski are in the
mouths of every one ; Kars is a glorious triumph,
while the fall of Sobastopol and the dismember-
ment of Bessarabia are disposedof as disasters inse-
parable from the checkered fortun e of war. A little
41ase disperses the memory of last :rear's sufferings ;
the beginning of a new reign seen is to typify a re-
nowal of national vigour. What wonder, then, that
dm, Russian Czar, army, and peoples should still be
apparently as far as ever from acquiescing in any
nee'. policy?
Emperor has been slow to carry out the
evacuation of the territory which 110 must even-
tually abandon. He has availed himself of his
extreme right of leaving the posts from which he
retires in a state of ruin. But, more than this, he
contests his liability to quit a spot which every one
but a Russian holds to be plainly oeded by the
treaty of March last. Fidonisi, or St ?rpent Island,
is situiited 'about 25 miles east o f the Sulina
mouth o f the Danube. It has always been an
appendage to the coast near which. it lies ; its
only value is in its use as a post for assisting or
controlling the navigation of the river, and in fact
it is as much a part of the ceded territory as the
Scilly Islands are of Great Britain. But this spot
the Czar declares cannot be brought within the
meaning of the late treaty. The island and its
ighthouse still, in his opinion, belong to Russia.
It need not be said that the Western Powers can
never permit such an infraction of a solemn agree-
ment. As the wish to retain Serpent Island re-
veals the spirit of the Russian Court, so a yielding
to such claims would be an encouragement to a re-
vived policy of aggression, and would do away
with nearly all the moral results of the war. It
is evident that a firm determination to carry out
the spirit of the treaty will be followed by the re-
quired cession. If, on the contrary, we suffer the
Russian Emperor to retain this post, we may pre-
pare for future attempts at a revival of Muscovite
naval power. The possession of the island would,
of course, be construed as giving a right to super-
intend the navigation of the Danube at its mouth.
Russia would keep up a lighthouse, furnish pilots,
perhaps establish au entrepot. The consequence
would be the employment of small armed vessels to
manage the business, and the tradition of naval
power would be kept up until some new complica-
tion in Europe gave an opportunity of openly
trampling on a treaty the spirit of which had been
broken from the beginning.
In this matter we have both right and power ou
our side, and our remonstrances aro therefore
likely to be effectual. But the affairs of Kars,
and Ismail, and Serpent Island are chiefly remark-
able on account of the spirit which they indicate.
Russia will yield with unwillingness even where
bound by positive treaty. We may therefore
guess Ithat where her r decision is unfettered
she will concede nothing to the new order
of things. Alexander's promise to follow in
the footsteps of his father seems to have been
no idle boast. The hopes of free trade are every
day becoming more faint ; little is said of railways,
except as links between the central stations of the
army and the points which an enemy might assail ;
but worse than all is the continuance of the pass-
port system in all its crude barbarity. It may be
said that we have less cause to complain of such
hindrances in Russia than in France or Austria,
simply because Russia leads to nowhere, and its
people may, if they choose, seclude themselves
from the world, so that they do not stop up the
pathway between other territories which wish to
communicate. Still, in the cause of the world's
general interest we have a right to protest against
such a policy. It is the right of every civilised
man to have free access to any territory so long as
he behaves himself peaceably and with decorum.
Any infringement of this right must be reprehen-
ded by the public opinion of Europe, and the
country which habitually rejects the intercourse
which is the lifothlood of civilisation must be told
that its neighbours have reason to complain.
We have concluded a peace with the Czar, in which
the terms allowed him were better than he had
any right to expect. It is to be hoped that be will
not persist in giving a reason to regret an act of
too great leniency.