The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-16 00:00:00

~~.

whethet the Financial Minister would avoid the
grave mistakes committed last year ° Was the
new Loan to he thrown open to public competition,

or kept as a tit-bit for leviathan capitalists, who,
being enabled to bid for the entire Loan, could
exercise a virtual monopoly, and coerce the Mi-
nister into the acceptance of any terms they may
think proper to offer ? Speculation was rife on
these and a variety of matters of detail, and, as
we have stated, the result was a fall of nearly 2
per cent, on all classes of securities. Great ex-
citement was also created in consequence of
the a*" eiation that the Ministerial intention
was prematurely communicated to certain
favoured parties. It is certain that large
sales of Stock were pressed on the market
before the important intelligence was officially
announced. So decided were the rumours, and
so great; the dissatisfaction expressed, that an in-
vestigation subsequently—took place before the
Committee of the Stock Exchange. It was de-
cided that the assertion was without foundation.
Perhaps the Scottish verdict, " Not proven,"
would have been more suitable in the case under
notice. The actors in such improper proceedings
are usually too wide awake to leave any direct
and unequivocal evidence sufficient to bring the
guilt home. The suspicion may be very strong,
but suspicion is not proof, and nothing short of
certainty, would justify the stringent punishment
which the offence would eminently merit.
We can make every fair allowance for the mis-
takes committed by Sir G. C. LEWIS last year,
and which, as then proved, cost the country not
far from a million sterling, about the same
amount sacrificed by the GLADSTONE abortion.
He was then new to office. It was practically
the first step in his progress as Financial Minis-
ter, and it would have required great firmness
and vigour to shake off the red-tapist trammels
by which he was fettered. But he has now had
sufficient experience. He has witnessed the
almost miraculous success achieved in France by
having sufficient confidence in the community.
No such excuse will now be available, and his
character as a financier will mainly depend on the
course now adopted. He is now fully warned as 1
to the shoals and quicksands to be avoided,
and if he wilfully disregard the lights clearly
visible, and suffer the vessel of the State to sus-
tain any damage, he must be held responsible for
the entire injury sustained.
One point of great importance will be the
amount to be raised. It is far better that the
extent of the evil should be accurately ascertained
—that the Exchequer sla.leilla be placed in a per-
fectly easy position—so that every probable de-
mand may be met without any new demand either
on the Bank or the Stock Exchange. Last year
we pointed out the grave error of limiting the
Loan to 16,000,0001., in place of taking
20,000,0001., which would have averted the
necessity of Deficiency or Exchequer Bills, which
subsequently occasioned great mischief to the
commercial and monetary interests of the nation.
We are told that all our naval and military pre-
parations are to be carried on without cessation.
Sir G. C. LEWIS is therefore bound to act as if
there were no prospects of peace ; and
even if peace be obtained, lie will still find
abundant occupation for all the money he can
get, and may be saved the disagreeable necessity
of proposing new fiscal imposts to the already
1 over-burdened tax-payers. Thirty millions would
be obtained just as easily, and on as favourable
terms as twenty, or even fifteen. •
Let him also for once appeal to the people with-
out the intervention of middlemen. We believe
that if the matter be fairly put forward the call
will be promptly and liberally responded to, and
that ho will have no cause to regret the experi-
ment. We have already explained the causes of
Mr. GLADSTONE'S failure. Flis successor should
carefully eschew any attempt to obtain biddings in
the dark. The chance of a trifling advantage will
he fully compensated by diffusing the profits to be
obtained among the great body of the people. If
he offer fair terms, stating clearly the sum he re-
quires, and the conditions and price of the loan
he will get all he wants; and- the-people of Eng-
land will show that they are not. behind their
French brethren in such a cause. We earnestly
commend this course to his consideration, although
from the request for the attendance of capitalists
at the Treasury on Monday, at one o'clock, we
fear that it will not be adopted, and that the
vicious red-tapist system will still be rigidly
adhered to.

Even the Times at last•cluakes for the English
Plenipotentiary at Paris. Yesterday it read him
a lecture on the necessity of maintaining in the
discussion of the terms of peace the position due
to England. We gladly accept the rather tardy
co-operation of our influential contemporary.
Our own fears we have never concealed, nor have
we failed to urge that Patis is now the spot on
which we have a somewhat damaged reputation to
retrieve, but on which we may retrieve it. The
French nation, entered on the War rather from
their chivalrous love of military glory than for
political reasons. The English nation, ou the
contrary, were prompted chiefly by their sturdy
love of freedom, and their hatred to the cruel,
encroaching dispositions of the Czars. Hungary
and Poland lay on the hearts of Englishmen ;
Moscow and Waterloo on the hearts of French-
men. The immediate and urgent object of
both countries was to prevent the absorp-
tion of Turkey and the subjugation of the East
by the insatiable aggressor ; but the deeper feel.
ings and sentiments of the two peoples were what
we have indicated. France had to obliterate a
national dishonour by...xanauishing her van-
quishers ; England had to disonable the Northern
Bear front trampling down liberty in every adja-
cent country ; and very general was the feeling
that a free Poland at least was. essential to that
end.

We thus hunted in company, and the French
have gained the prize they sought. We have not.
Our Ally has acquired in the E ist such a reputa-
tion and influence as she never enjoyed before.
Her last military appearance in that quarter was
to be driven from it, and chiefly by English
!armies and navies. She has now appeared there
as the leading military power, taking the lead in
the great achievement of the War—never once
beaten, while an English Commander, after
immortal feats of skill and valour, was
starved into surrendering himself and his Turkish
garrison
asprisoners of war. Waterloo and
Moscow have been
avenged at the Malakhoff, but
the solid objects dear to
the hearts of Englishmen
are almost wholly unattained. Now, we can
hardly believe that the French people are so selfish
as to rest satisfied while their own ends alone are
is an
gained. Besides, liberation of the nations I
object as dear to:the 50125 of the Great Revolution
as to us. Paris has been, as much as London, a
ihome for the Poles, and by a singular tutu of
fortune a Pole is now the Plenipotentiary of
1 France, and presides over the Peace, discussions !
li though not the first thought
hitherto
wioee
of
lisie
riren,chin3u,
is at least their second;'
nor can We think they would endure that we
should have Wed at the Redan, to secure to them
the uiu.pla a QV 1116141.16114 whlo_t4ey oftusd 1

' afterwards to seek with us the reduction of Russia
to her own boundaries.

Even if the French might otherwise be content
with a peace based on the most lenient demands
justified by present achievements, yet their views
would be very much modified by the tone of an
ambassador worthy of England. Suppose, while
insisting on the fullest development of the Black
Sea article, in Circassia, at Nicolaieff, the Sea of
..k.zoft, and elsewhere—suppose Lord CLARENDON
to say, " On these points the mind of my country
is made up. I must carry them or return home to
give vent to the national desire of useing our vast
preparations to obtain yet more." Would Fiance
desert England ? We believe not. If she did we
are confident Lord CLARENDON would return home
with enhanced popularity. Orders to go to the
Baltic and the Black Sea in earnest this year would
be hailed with enthusiasm. The nation would
rise as one man to carry on the War alone, and to
show that England was England still. There
would, however, be no need of this. France would
never haul down her flag in this War while that
of England waved in the breeze.

Decision and firmness would, however, do their
work. Russia is prostrate. Her hope is no longer
in generals and guns, but in diplomatists and
paper. What she finds she must concede she
will concede "to the half of her kingdom." The
manner in which St. Petersburg and the Court,
Odessa and the merchants, the journals under
censorship, and even generals from the Crimea,
have clutched at peace, tells its plain tale. Lord
CLARENDON needs not be afraid of asking too
much, and of abiding by what he asks. Austria
and France will soon become advocates with
Russia of the English demands, and Russia will
" magnanimously" gratify the surly English for
the sake of her respected Austrian friend.
If we have left in Russia no trace worth men-
tioning of our past naval and military operations,
let us for once, for this once, surpass all expecta-
tion, and leave on the Peace the stamp of our
power. If it does not tell what we have done,
let it tell what we can do. If lookers back should
ask what did England effect, let the most efficient
stipulations of this Treaty be the answer. Let
History see the strength of England at the close
of the War, by the terms which she insisted on
more than the other Allies, under the alternative
of their acceptance by Russia, or of our continuing
the War alone. Let us be called dogged, obsti-
nate, anything the despots like, but confident in
our plain sense, and the necessity of the case, let
us be the power which insists on most, and which
is prepared to maintain our demands too.

Our aristocracy have humbled us hitherto.
They have made us appear afraid to begin, and
afraid to press the War. They have taught Eu-
rope to think we had sunk to the second position
among the nations, and all, as we fear, to gratify
certain German families. They had begun to per-
ceive that this would do no longer, and only this
year have they made the preparations requisite to
do what they ought to have done the first, or, at
least, the second year of the Whr. It is for them
now to use a mighty and willing nation, and such
an armament as would completely prostrate the
enemy, to effect either this, or to erect a trophy to
England in the terms of the peaoe itself.

The glory of the Crescent, once so lurid and
uiinacious, seems fast passing into a final eclipse.
Long before the arrival of the Allied Armies in
the Bosphorus, the once formidable buttresses of
Mussulman pride and prejudice bad begun to
crumble and tnoulder into dust ; and now, within
two short —years of that event, a spectacle has
been witnessed in Constantinople which the most
audacious prophet did not venture to predict.
The adoption of European costume and European
science by the forces of the SULTAN at his com-
mand bespoke a great change. The visits of the
Commander of the Faithful to the princely re-
presentatives of the dynasties of England and
France were sufficiently startling ; but what shall
be said of the recognition by the SULTAN of equal
rights on the part of the Giaour in his dominions
with the Faithful, and the ratification of his in-
tention to establish them on a legal footing by a
visit to the English Ambassador, on the occasion
of a Fancy Ball given at the Embassy ?
The descendant of MAHOMET, the cynosure
of Mussulman veneration, whose appearance
in public was recognised by prostration, who broke
bread alone, whose smile was fortune, whose frown
was death, a touch of whose hand was signal dis-
tinction, and a visit from whom an honour rarely
vouchsafed to the claims of kindred, actually, and
with the most honest and liberal purpose, has
condescended to visit an Ambassador of the
Franks, eat with him, walk hand in hand with
him, nay, even stand up the better to gaze on his
fair countrywomen as they gracefully swayed to and
fro in the undulations of the dance ! So imperious
is necessity, and with so much discretion has the
comparatively youthful Monarch adapted himself
and his rule to the altered circumstances of the
times ! Surely this is a lesson which rulers
making pretences to a higher Civilisation and a
more venerable authority may well take to heart
and profit by—a lesson all the more deserving of
honour in that it has not been read without pre-
vious risk or with any but themost praiseworthy
design. 11l indeed would it be appreciated if
attributed exclusively to weakness. An enlight-
ened head and a not ungenerous heart have, there
can be no reasonable doubt, had a creditable char,
in eliciting it. So much effected, what may we not
anticipate for the future? Turkey in Europe may
already be described as Turkey f Europe, so far
has the influence of Western civilisation prevailed.
The strictly orthodox Mussulmau no doubt pon-
ders gloomily over the decadence of his dominant
and exclusive creed,- and regards the Frank as a
thing unlean, which by no possibility Can be en-
titled to share his privileges, put the cause of his
chiefest grief is that day by day he finds fewer
sympathisers and less ;round for hope in resistance.
Is it too much to anticipate that the reforms
which have taken and are about to take place in
Western Turkey will lead to a renovated and
vigorous empire, before which the prejudices and
superstition of Eastern Turkey shall melt away !
We shall see. In the meantime we look on
with hope—not, however, untinctured with
anxiety. There is opportunity for distinction for
the prophet where there is such unstable footing
for ordinary calculation.

BOULOGNE AND AMIENS RAILWAY.—The town of
Boulogne has recognized the claim of all the holders of
shares in the former Boulogne and Amiens Railway
guaranteed 4 per cent. by the town, and, on the propo-
sition of the mayor. M. Alexandre Adam, has agreed to
repay the amount due in full, although without interest,
by yearly instalment?.
THE NEW BISHOP OP CARLISLE.—The new Bishop of
Carlisle is the Hon. and Rev. Montague Villiers. A
better selection could not have been made. Thoroughly
imbued with religious sentiment and conviction, yet free
from fanaticism—liberal in his political views—impres-
sive and winning in his public ministrations—Mr.
Vii-
liers has, by his devoted and unremitting labours as a
parochial clergyman, given earnest of the judicious but
indefatigable zeal with which he will discharge the
weightier functions of the Episcopate. There are few
in any church who combine in so Ugh a degree the essen-
tial qualities of a Christian 'Bishop. ft ought to be
known that the appointment took Mr. Villier's family by
suhrprise. Even Lord Clarendon was only told of it after
t"lntoiiittnent had been made. Mr. Villiers was not
Personally known 0 Lot 4 rtzoriatoia. DIP i 3 lov:qv
ale tci