The Sun.
London, England, 1835-09-16 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMEER 16,' 1835.

order to gain time, and see how the office may be finally
disposed of to the best advantage. A Commission to
execute the office of chief member of another Commis-
sion would be a startling novelty, but we are not yet
quite sure that the Administration may not in its dis-
tress be compelled to resort to it. It is no wonder, by
the by, that the Whigs are so fond of Commissions of
all sorts. It is a fine expedient for frittering away the
importance and dignity of any office in the State, so as
to reduce it to a level with the capacity and reputation •
of the kind of men whom this party can find in its ranks.
In the article of the Commissioners the party can boast
of countless numbers, but when the affair in hand is
to appoint to an office which attracts the attention,
interests the feelings, and engages the thought of
the country, then it is that the miserable poverty of the
party becomes visible to all eyes—then it is that the
party are driven to resort to all sorts of discreditable
shifts and contrivances, in order to postpone or evade
the risk and responsibility of a final and effective ap-
pointment. It is a month at the least since the office
of First Lord of the Admiralty was in effect vacated
by the appointment of Lord A uckland to be Governor-
General of India, and the office still remains vacant.

We certainly should not have expected that so mud
difficulty would be found in providing an adequate sue
cessor to Lord Auckland, who, when he held a.subor
dinate situation under a Tory Government, was not, to
the best of our recollection, considered as a genius of
the highest order. But the case is altered now. Lord
Auckland among the Whigs is quite an " Admirable
Crichton," to occupy whose vacant chair no compe-
tent man is to be found. Never was the adage so
completely verified as at the present day.
" A very small man as a Tory
Is a very great man as a Whig."
The difficulty, great as it is, of finding a successor to
Lord Auckland, must, however, be overcome ; and
the idea has for some time prevailed that Lord Minto
is the person whom the Administration. has selected
as the Whig of all Whigs best fitted to sustain the
hazardous comparison to which the successor of Lord
Auckland must necessarily be exposed. Lord Minto
has not only a brother, as we stated the other day,
but a brother-in-law also, already at the Admiralty
Board, so that the country has the greatest reason in
the world to feel confident that, in a snug family party
of this description, nothing can possibly go wrong.
With the great advantage of having.his family about
him, it is thought that Lord Minto may manage the
affairs of the Admiralty almost as well as they have
been managed by the admirable Lord Auckland
himself. This consideration, combined with the
difficulty, or rather we should say the impossi-
bility, of finding any other Whig who is at all
presentable for the office, has, we understand, in-
duced Ministers to overlook the dangerous anomaly
of having an important Board like that of the Ad-
miralty, whose various members are supposed to exer-
cise a constant control over the conduct of each other,
composed almost exclusively of persons intimately con-
nected by the ties_ of blood or marriage. When we
say that Ministers have determined to overlook the im-
propriety of having three members of a family at the
same public Board, we are, however, perhaps in error.
This was their determination yesterday morning—it
was their determination up to a late period of the day
yesterday—it was announced in their evening organs of
yesterday, with the addition that the appointment of
Lord Minto would appear in last night's Gazette—but
Ministers, having led their organs into the rash asser-
tion that deliberation, or procrastination rather, was at
an end upon this subject, re-resolved, it would seem, after
all, to deliberate and procrastinate yet a little longer.
The Globe of last night says that " the appoint-
ment of the Earl of Minto to the important office of
First Lord of the Admiralty has been decided within
the last few days. It will be gazetteel this evening."
There must certainly be some hitch in the affair, for
the promised announcement did not appear in the Ga-
zette of last night. What the Globe asserts to have
been decided within the last few days has, it appears
from the silence of the Gazette, not been as yet de-
cided at all. We do. not doubt that Ministers will
eventually give the appointment to Lord Minto ; but
the hesitation which they have shown to do so is any-
thing but complimentary to his LOrdship, and proves
that Ministers have no great confidence in his ability
to discharge the duties of the office with honour to
himself and satisfaction to the country, although his
Lordship have the assistance of two near relations,
who have had some experience at the same Board.
It is really lamentable that the party which has ob-
tained possession of the reins of Government in Great
Britain, should be compelled to represent itself before
the world in a state of such utter destitution, as to be
unable to find among all its friends and connections an
unobjectionable First Lord of the Admiralty.—
, Morning Post.
We published yesterday the conclusion of the article
from the Journal de Frankfort, in vindication and
eulogy of the policy of Russia in the East. This de-
fence was professedly called forth by an made in the
Journal des Debats, wherein the writer took his text
from an erroneous translation of a phrase, (in the
pamphlet entitled, " England, France, Russia, and
Turkey,") " The defence of Turkey must precede occu-
pation ; ' which was rendered—" Pour dOendrela Tur-
quie occupier." " To defend Turkey you must
occupy it." Though defence by occupation has long been
an established principle in Russian diplomacy, its asser-
tion by the Journal des Debats, on behalf of France
and England, drew forth from the writer of the Frank-
fort article, evidently an official tool of the Kalisch
conspirators, an elaborate panegyric on the forbear-
ance and self-denial of Russia ! ! and a denunciation
of the hostile designs of which the Press would make
Russia the object. " Let us speak out," says the
writer, " What would become of the repose of the
world, if, to maintain the independence of nations, we
should begin by subjugating them ?" Occupation and
subjugation, it appears, are synonymes in the Russian
vocabulary ; it is, however, for Russia herself to answer
the query. How did she maintain the independence
of Poland, when the repose of the world, for which she
now affects so much solicitude, was preserled, not by
Russian forbearance, but by the disgraceful dereliction
of public duty, and an atrocious abandonment of public
faith on the part of France and England ? How, we
ask, did Russia maintain the independence of Po-
land ?—By its subjugation. On what principle, but
that of conquest and aggrandisement, has she ever
acted ? Is there one point of her vast dominions
that does not bear evidence of her tyrannical
aggressions on the rights of nations, and would
it not be worse than madness to suppose that
after pursuing for centuries an undeviating course of
despotic encroachment, she would change the tenor of
her policy when Turkey lies so invitingly before her ?
No, no, Russia professes and feels a desire for peace
now, while she is perfecting her organizations ; but
when these shall be completed, the independence of
Turkey, like that of Poland, will be maintained by sub-
jugation. The Frankfort concoction alludes to the
peace of Kaiduardgi, 1774, which extended the Rus-
sian frontier to the borders of the Black Sea, including
the Crimea ; the peace of Yassy, 1792, which gave
her possession of Bessarabia, a considerable portion of
European Turkey, and the fortresses of Bendar, Is-
mael, &c., and laid her boundary on the Dniester ;
and the peace-of Bucharest in 1812, which gave her
the richest portion of the Principality of Moldavia—
that between the Pruth and the Dniester. These are
termed in the Russian
A ft
e r
boastingvocabulary,
o fbathing"the
civilization walls
blood," the Journal de Frankfort ob-
ofisaelwith
ob-
serves :-
411 fhpe conquests of civilization have been made by
Russia. It does n6t dept' *M. We repeat, it was a con-
queror in 1774, 179, and 1812? bPF4H3P it 1,94 Its interest Iq
ye w, Nog, it is ho longer so, 4114 fqr the Mlle TP4VM, be.
cause its interest, well understood, commands it not to extend
its conquests, but to preserve in peace the advantages it pos-
sesses. And Constantinople, it will be said, will Russia bo
content not to seize it ? It will not seize it, it cannot desire
it, because it desires to preserve entire all the elements of its
strength ; and, to Iv strong, it feels the necessity w
ty reataiiAing
• • • k :ts 1.••:.
.ry
P. 9490 employ a sitigu)ar pht4seology,,
w 45 401nonced to Teigli at W4I*S4IY W4ll it wa,s de-
poplilated apd inTqins 1 " Alfkr.tf#7lcl" elf lltltioll~
is ifg4tPd of as is eritio4l
_ with sutmus,swo to Russia!
--nd the forcible appropriation of whole territories is
4.ft
4.1:1
t' n
oßouet,
bthee
called " the c .
of civilization
~.,
avowal that Russia will no
cause she desires to
admission that
her strength, Is tmt4PPRO
progve entire the elements of