The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-26 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1856.

The Conferences were duly opened yesterday,
at the official residence of the Count WALEW-
SKI, Minister of France for Foreign Affairs. The
first step would of course be to elect a President ;
the next, the production and verification ofethe
powers which authorised the several plenipoten-
tiaries to participate in the all-important proceed-
ings. A responsible party should. also be selected
for the purpose of preparing the protocols. These
are indispensable preliminaries in every similar
transaction, and we may therefore assume that
they were completed at the first meeting. It is
also positively announced that an armistice was
signed. This is probably the case. It is the only
point in which there could be an immediate pub-

lication of any decision arrived at. We only hope

that Lord CLARENDON has not forgotten his de-
claration that " it cannot be too brief ;'" and that
be has taken care that it shall not be extended
beyond the period when the advent of spring,
and the breaking of the ice, would enable
the allied armies to commence active measures in
the Crimea, in Asia, and also in the Sea of Azoff,
the Rivers Bong and Dnieper, the Euxine, and
the Baltic, and the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland.
Within a few weeks at the outside, probably
within a few days, unequivocal indications will

be afforded respecting the real intentions of
Russia. It will be seen whether she be truly
desirous of obtaining a. permanent peace, or it
be merely a fraudulent attempt to obtain time,
at any. sacrifice of character and veracity. We
confess that we should greatly have preferred
allowing matters to remain in their previous
condition until these indications had been
manifested. As we save already repeatedly
pointed out, a formal armistice will be exceed-
ingly advantageous to Russia, affording her
the means of recruiting her almost exhausted
resources. From Austria, Prussia, and America
she can obtain the stipples of which she stands
greatly in need. She can dispose of her redundant
stores practically for English gold, and replenish
her exchequer at the expense of her chief op-
ponents, and perhaps negotiate a loan in Berlin
or Amsterdam ! These are matters which we have
already dwelt on usqus ad nauseam. But Lord
CLARENDON may have been committed by an im-
provident arrangement in the first instance. If
so, all he could effect would be to curtail the time
required, and see that the positive disadvantage to
the Allies may be reduced to the minimum. amount.
We shall not, therefore, distrust Lord CLARENDON
until we ascertain that, in direct opposition to his
own voluntary declarations, he has assented to
matters injurious to England which he could have
effectually resisted.
On all other points we must remain in the dark
for some time. The glegest precautions have ,

been taken to prevent any " leakage " from the
salon, of Count WALEWSKI, and it is even hinted
that strict pledges of secrecy have been exacted
from the several Plenipotentiaries. There will,
therefore, be sundry guesses, and some of them
probably very near the truth. But nothing au-
thentic can be known until some point be attained
at which publicity to a certain extent may be
sanctioned.

It is, then, a duty incumbent.on public jour-
nalists to endeavour to the utmost extent of their
power to impress on the representatives of their
country the matters that should „be resolutely
pressed on the other side. The doubtful ques-
tions are those which may be submitted under the
fifth head; and foremost amongst these is the
question of full and.complete indemnity for the ex-
penses of the War to Turkey, to France, to England,
and to Sardinia. In every private litigation
when a party puts forward an unrighteous claim,
or an untenable defence, he is held responsible to
the other side for the costs of the suit. War is
the litigation of nations. There is no civil tribunal
to which they can appeal. They are, therefore,
compelled to resort to the arbitrament of the
gun, the sword, and the bayonet. Those who fail are
at the mercy of their opponents, and payment of
the pecuniary expenses at least ought to be an in-
dispensable condition of the final arrange-
ment. All the predecessors of the present
CZAR acted in accordance with that principle,
and it was a standing rule of the first NAPOLEON
that "every war should pay its own expenses."
The doctrine is based on justice and equity, and
its universal recognition would prove the best
possible guarantee for peace. The late CZAR
would probably have paused before order-
ing his troops to cross the Pruth if assured
that he must inevitably pay all the ex-
penses of his aggressive movement. Had he then
succeeded against Turkey, he would unquestion-
ably have insisted on full costs out of pocket ;
having failed, his successor must be prepared to
yield to a . similar claim. Besides, as we have
already very recently explained, the amount of
the repayment would furnish one of the best pos-
sible securities for the future good conduct of
Russia. When liquidating several millions
per coinunt, she could not make provi-
sions of men, money, or materials for future
aggressions, she could not speedily construct
new " standing menaces" to Constantinople or to
Europe. We cannot claim compensation for the
valuable lives sacrificed, for those permanently
maimed or invalided—we cannot enforce from
Russia suitable provisions for the widows and
orphans created by her reckless ambition—or for the
manly frames rendered incapable of earning their
own livelihood through wounds or disease. They
must remain the care of their grateful country.
But in order that the obligation may be liberally
discharged, every legitimate claim should be
stringently enforced. Ten millions from the
Russian indemnity would constitute a glorious
contribution by the British Parliament to the
Patriotic Fund.

Since the earlier portion of the foregoing was
written the Moniteur has come to hand, in which
it is officially announced that the armistice " is to
terminate of right on the 31st March, and that
it is to have no effect on the blockades now esta-
blished or that may be established." Although
the term is longer than we could have wished,
we may congratulate ourselves that it
is no worse, while the latter part of the stipula-
tion is eminently satisfactory. It proves that
Lord CLAREIWON is fully alive to his duties, and
that the interests of England are confided to safe
hands.

We have to invite -the attention of the repre-
sentatives of the agricultural interest, and more
especially the .representatives of that interest in
Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, to the condition
of the class of agricultural labourers in those
counties and throughout the kingdom. Glancing
over a letter to the Editor of the Sherborne
Journal, by the medical officer for the Sherborue
district, we find the following melancholy pic-
ture :—" There cannot be the shadow of a doubt,"
says that gentleman, who has. had the manage-
ment of two of the largest districts in the above
counties, and has, consequently, had abundant
opportunities to ascertain the truth of what he
advances, "but that vast numbers of the la-
bourers—indeed, the majority of them—resort to
the beer-houses to seek for that which their own
homes afford them not—comfort—after their
daily toil, returning home, as they do, fatigued,
oftentimes drenched with rain, having not a se-
cond garment for a change, no hearth, scarcely any
fire to dry their saturated clothes, which, for tLe
most part, are suffered to remain on, for the wet
to exude and evaporate—no comfortable meal—
a scanty cupboard; chiefly containing a little bread
and some cold swedes, with little else, save, per-
haps, a little lard to give it palate—surrounded
by a numerous offspring of young children, look-
ing up to him with their pallid cheeks lighted up
by the hectic flush. Beneath his feet are damp
floors, and around him rough unmortared walls—
old rotten window-casements, readily admitting the
cold wind and wet—a tattered roof, which
not unfrequently acts as a shower-bath ; in-
deed there is every misery to drive the la-
bourer from, and nothing to reconcile him to
spend his evenings at, his home with his family.
Thus the labouring man, although naturally
vigorous, is worn away under the malign influence
of the evils I have but faintly portrayed. Hence
he resorts to the beer-house, those sinks of ini-
quity, where, for the most part, the deepest crimes
are concocted ; there he mixes with the vilest
characters ; in those dens he learns that which
leads to crime and to the ruin of his family.
Such is the melancholy fact—such is the condition
of many of the poor labouring men dwelling in the
parishes around us." Such the condition 1--nay,
only part of it.

Listen further—" My own observations," he
goes on to say, " have led me to believe that a vast
deal of crime originates from the too early and
indiscriminate admixture of the sexes : frequently
are to be found some ten or twelve human beings,
male and female, sleeping in one room; here they
are huddled together, most likely for the sake of
warmth, and as a substitute for proper bed-cover-
ing, and to compensate for short sheets and thin
blankets. Hence arises so much concupiscence.
Here is the hot-bed where the seeds of vice
are sown and nurtured—where depravity is
grafted upon the rising stock, and fostered ;
in a word, a catalogue of miserable items
might be mentioned that would be not only too
numerous, but too revolting to be particularised."
Gentlemen of the Agricultural interest, what
have you to say to this ? Good philanthropists,
with So much sympathy for the sons of toil on
your lips, can you realise the picture ? Tender-
hearted Christians, parish parsons, ministers, and
what not, whose charity is so comprehensive that
it can take in the torrid and frigid zones, how
comes it that no indignant protest rises to your
lips against such a state of things as this ? These
poor creatures are of your own country, almost of
your own household. Are ye " worse than in-
fidels Stern cliscigmarians, who would
whip vice out of the offending Alum and

oppose crime with a decalogue of scorpions,
how comes it to pass that you do not lay
the axe to the foundations of such hot-beds
of iniquity as these ? Magnanimous statesmen,
with education bills cut and dry in your pockets,
waiting session after session for submission to the
Legislature, is it too much to ask why your efforts
are not in the first place devoted to teaching the
landocracy what hovels their labourers have " to
knot and gender in ?" Dread majority, by whose
omnipotent fiat the doors of our national institu-

tions frown "no admittance" of a Sunday to the
sodden gaze of the working population ; you,
more especially, who moved heaven and earth—
no, that is not the conjunction : drop the
heaven—lest the Sabbath should be profaned—
how comes it that you tacitly suffer every day
and hour of the week, Sunday and all, to be pro-
faned after a fashion so revolting as this ? The
remedy is within your reach, within the reach of
all of you. Shame the landlords into doing, or
compel them to do, their duty!—and that is,
first of all, to build substantial weather-proof cot-
tages for the agricultural labourer, and give him,
as the writer recommends, a plot of garden ground
in which to cultivate a sufficiency of vegetables
for his own consumption. Until this bo done, or
attempted, your pretences to consideration for the
poor and for the welfare of society cannot be suf-
fered to pass muster, for they are incompatible
with a flagrant fact. So long as the labouring
population are suffered to live in styes, and we
are assured this is the case in other counties
as well as in Dorset and Somerset, so long
will they be tempted beyond their strength to voce
and crime, and besubjected to a needless mortality;
so long will our prisons and workhouses be filled
to overflowing, and a heavy business be transacted
at our assizes and sessions, at an enormous cost to
the rate-payers.