The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-13 00:00:00

MR. BAXTER, M. P. FOR THE MONTROSE 1
BURGHS.

On Tuesday evening Mr. Baxter, M.P., addressed a
large meeting of his constituents in the Guildhall, Mon.
trose. The hon. gentleman met with a very warm recep-
tion, and was accompanied by the provost, town council,
and a numerous body of the electors to the platform.
The PROVOST occupied the chair, and introduced
Mr. BAXTER, who, after some observations upon the
particular relations between himself and his constituents,
briefly explained the reasons for the votes he bad given
upon such questions as that of the Police Bill for Eng-
land and Wales, the Cambridge University Bill, the
Fire Insurance Bill, and the Appellate Jurisdiction.
He also said that he was one of nine who voted against
granting a good-service pension to Sir Richard Airey
until the report of the Chelsea Commission was before
the house ; and he could net help expressing his indig-
nation that any kind of reward should have been given
to men who, whether they deseived to be brought before
a court-martial or not, had been proved guilty of incom-
petency and neglect ; whose names, whatever might be
thought of them at the Horse guards or in the Palace,
would be a byeword and a reproach among the British
people as long as there were mothers to mourn for
sons who died of neglect, and disease, and hunger, on
the heights of Inkerman and in the trenches before
Sebastopol. With reference to the Treaty of Paris,
though it was hardly popular, and in some respects it
was unsatisfactory, he thought as honest Christian men,
we could not have gone on with the war, after better
terms had been offered than were at first demanded
• by us, and after the professed objects of the war had
been attained. Those objects were, in the first place,
to secure the independence of the Turkish empire, and,
secondly, to extract from Russia such terms as would
put it out of her power, in our generation, thus to dis-
turb the peace of Europe. Now the first of these objects,
said the hon. member, has been accomplished by the
admission of Turkey into the European confederacy, the
cession to her of part of Bessarabia, and the limitation
to a comparatively trifling amount of the naval force of
the Czar in the Black Sea. The internal state of Russia,
even more than the clauses of the treaty, guarantees the
second. I believe that at this moment the warlike re-
sources of that great empire are thoroughly exhausted.
A. British merchant who resided in St. Petersburg
during the whole of the contest, told me that the
Russian officials themselves confess to a loss, by famine,
disease, fatigue, and tho sword, of 950,000 men ; and I
heard of one regiment which marched from Livonia
800 strong, and had only 57 men left when it reached
' the Crimea. Why, unless the accounts lately received
are very erroneous, Central and Southern Russia are
strewn with the debris of carts and waggons, the imple-
ments of warfare, and the skeletons of horses and men.
The peasantry had begun to hide themselves in the
woods for fear of the conscription ; the land was going
out of cultivation, and the proprietors were on the
point of being ruined. Peace was, in fact, a necessity
with Alexander; and when his people begin to make
canals, railroads, and telegraphs to improve their agri-
culture, and their means of communication—to extend
their commerce, and develope the national resources,
depend upon it they will lose their taste for war. They
may tell us at present that they are thereby preparing to
be able to beat us next time ; but when the sword is
once turned into the ploughshare, the trumpet may also
be hung up in the ball. The fathers may, indeed, make
railways principally to be able with facility to convey
troops ; but the sons will regard their designs of con-
quest as mere remnants of barbarism, and their plans of
campaigns on the Bosphorus as curious old papers to be
enshrined in the Kremlin among the records of the past.
But to insure the provisions of the treaty being faithfully
carried out, and to prevent such a complication arising
again, we must have a more efficient diplomacy, and a
very different class of men as our consuls in the Levant.
This war has opened up new fields to, and will undoubt-
edly vastly extend, our commerce ; it will, I trust be the
means of diffusing Christianity in regions where, for I
ages, it has existed but in name ' • it will necessitate great
changes in Ottoman rule, and be the herald of civilisa-
tion to tribes to us scarcely known. New ideas in poli-
tics and religion are quietly revolutionising society in
Armenia; the Jews are everywhere on the alert, and
even the Arabs who wander by the banks of the Eu-
phrates are beginning to find themselves brought into con-
tact with the nations of the west. In these circumstances
it is all-important that we have, on the spot, men in
every way qualified to reflect British opinions, and
represent British interests, lest what we have gained at
Sebastopol be lost at Brzeroum, at Mosul, and at Aleppo,
and bad counsels be permitted to render nugatory the
reforms of the Porte. The hon. member then referred
to the late disputes with America, expressing his opinion
that `bosh England and the United States had been
somewhat to blame, and he said—l will only now ex-
press 'a hope that when another ambassador is sent to
Washington—which, however, probably, and for obvious
reasons, will not be until the new President is elected
—the ministry will appoint a first class, a liberal-
minded, and able man—one who sympathises generally,
with the American people, and understands their insti-
tutions—not some employs or attach 6 who has filled a
subordinate office on the continent of Europe, but a
politician of advanced opinions, who will be acceptable
to the people of the United States, and whom they will
consider a fitting representative of Great Britain. There
are many such men amongst us ; and without mention-
ing the names of others well qualified to fill the office,
I may point to Mr. Charles Villiers as a type of this
class of persons to which I refer. When the Republic
sends to us statesmen of such mark as Mr. Lawrence,
Mr. Everett, Mr. Buchanan, and Mr. Dallas, we are
expected with justice to select individuals of similar
standing to represent British interests at the seat of
its executive power. But the state of matters in the
south of Europe demands a few sentences of notice
before I close. To my mind it is hopeless to ex-
pect peace, quietness, or good government there
until the Bourbon dynasties, still clinging to despotic
rule in Spain and Naples, are driven to share the exile
of their relatives who occupied other thrones. The
court of Madrid seems to me so abandoned, politically
and morally, as to deserve the countenance of no people
who respect public decency, to say nothing of liberty,
or honesty, or law. He who knows all things only
knows by what :means a country once chivalrous and
powerful—even new rich in resources, and favoured by
nature in a remarkable degree---can be delivered from a
degraded aristocracy and a venal governing class, re-
stored to its proper place among the nation., and
enabled to enjoy the blessings of those free institutions
which at present are ill every respect a mockery, and to
many have proved a snare. I turn to Italy, for to it
public attention is now directed ; and, unless the signs
of the times are more than ordinarly deceptive, we may
soon expect the volcanic fires of popular fury to break
forth with terrible energy there. You do not require to
ha told that every part of this land with the exception of
the kingdom of Sardinia, is at this moment groaning
under a tyranny too terrible for description, too agonising
to last. An immense military force alone prevents rebel-
lion in Venetian-Lombardy—the Austrians, the detested
Tedeschi, are also in Tuscany and the Legations—
priestly rapacity, exaction, and violence, have crowded
mere than ever the dietnal dungeons of Rome—while per-
fidy, espionage, and horrible cruelty, have reached such
a height in Naples that I verily believe, if not checked by
the interference of earthly potentates, they will ere long
bring down upon the perpetrators e consuming ven-
geance of Heaven. If Cicero, even in his days, could
say with truth of Calabria, " Magna Graeeia, nunc non
est," how much more striking are the desolation and
rain which a vile government has since brought upon
that land. Yet dark as this picture is, it may be said of
the whole peninsula what Wiliam says of Lombardy in
particular, "The strong principle of national liberty
still remains imperishable among the perishing armies of
her patriot.,, inconsumable in the conflagration of her
cities." 111 the words of the poet Alfieri, "Schiavi siam,
ma schiavi ognor frementi"—" Slaves we are, but still
indignant slaves." Now, the question is, how far are
we interested in this latent volcano, and under what
circumstances would our interference be justifiable,
if justifiable at all ? There is no one, I hope, who will be '
inclined to dispute the soundness of the principle of the
non-intervention in the affairs of other states. It
humbly appears to me that there may be only two excep-
tions to this rule—first, when the affairs of a neighbour-
ing kingdom are in such a condition as seriously to
threaten the peace of our own ; and, secondly, when, as
in the case of the slave trade, humanity is outraged
by repeated and continued deeds of cruelty and blood.
On the first theory, Sardinia, but certainly not England,
might go to war with Naples. Before acting on
the second, we must be well assured that the dungeons
of King Bomba are worse than those of Pope Pius, and
that anything has occurred by orders of the former more
revolting than the massacre of Ciceruacchio by the satel-
lites of Austrian tyranny. For my own part, I confess
to a doubt lest, appalling as are the sufferings of State
prisoners in the Two Sicilies, they are wore than those
in other quarters, where the fleet of Great Britain might
not be able to act at the moment when "the iniquity of
the Amorites was full." It is certainly no part of our
national duty, and would be unmistakeably Quixotic to
act as knight-errants in all parts of the world, either for
oppressed men or oppressed nationalities ; but if tho-
roughly convinced that such an exceptional state of
things existl, as at Naples, as renders it necessary for us
to interfere for the sake of humanity, let us not waste
words or time or letter paper, but send such a fleet as
will surround the island of Procida, open the gates of
its hateful guard-houses, and set the prisoners free.
Perhaps
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dungeon walls—would be the signal of insurrection from
the passes of Abruzzi to the gates of Patermo—the
Mane Mene Tekel prophetic of his fall.

In the recent sitting of the Scientific Congress of
France at La Rochelle a resolution was adopted on the
proposition of Professor Baruffi, of the University of
Turin, to the effect that the cutting through of the Isth-
mus of Suez will be exceedingly useful to all nations,
and injurious to none, and that it is therefore desirable
that it may be promptly effected.

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