The Sun.
London, England, 1832-10-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THt PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We perceive, " hot upon the heels" of Lord
Durham's mission, the institution of a Court
military and despotic at Warsaw to try the Poles
who took part in the revolution ; and we also
perceive that among the first proceedings of that
Court has been the condemnation to death of a
young Volhynian Member of the Diet, the Cas-
tellan Olizar, who was arrested by the Russian
authorities after the capture of Warsaw, as he
was endeavouring to cross the frontiers into

Prussia. This is a melancholy illustration of
the beneficial consequences of that mission, as
far as the Poles are concerned, who, as a people,
had a claim by treaty upon us, which we have
allowed the insolent Czar to annul, without con-
descending to submit the question to the con-
sideration of the British Government, as if he
were already sole and supreme arbiter of the
destinies of Europe, and as if the " Ocean
Queen" were the vassal of his barbarian empire.
That the Czar insultingly cancelled the Treat)
of Vienna, relative to Poland, of his own free
will, we are warranted in saying from what fell
from the Chancellor of the Exchequer when
questioned on the subject in the House of Com-
mons ; for, on being interrogated as to the
Ukase by which the nationality of Poland was
declaied extinct, and the organic Statute which
framed a Russian despotism for Poland, in
place of its own Constitution, Lord Althorp
declared that the British Government had no
qficial intelligence of tile existence of either of
those documents, although both had been pre-
viously published, like all acts of State of the
Russian empire, in the Government Paper of
St. Petersburg, where, we believe, there is
nothing inserted that is intended to remain a
profound secret. Since then, however, the
British Ministry received, we presume, what
they admit to have been an official communica-
tion on the subject. They were apprized in
" good set terms" of the autocratic decision b)
which a nation whose independence we were
instrumental in creating, expressly on the
ground, as stated by Lord Castlereagh at the
Congress of Vienna, of being a barrier to the
ambition of Russia, was erased from the
map of Europe. When Lord Durham was
sent to St. Petersburg, the Treasury scribe:
wished to impress the public with the belief
that a part of his mission had reference to the
restoration of the nationality of Poland.
If it had, the Czar, while he feasted and flattered
and cajoled the Ambassador Extraordinary of
Great Britain, treated with exemplary contempt
the Ministry who sent him. But how can we
wonder at what has taken place when our Go-
vernment subsidized the Autocrat first, and en-
treated him afterwards ? Had our Ministers
made the payment of the British gold which he
has received conditional upon the restoration of
the independence of Poland, we should not now
have to lament the insignificant results of Lord
Durham's twenty-two. horse power of diplomacy.
Morning Herald.
The unsettled state of the Belgic question
renders the maintenance of peace in Europe
every hour more precarious, and, therefore, the
condition of Europe itself, and of every country
contained in it, and of every inhabitant in each
of those countries, more alarming and more
awful. 'There is no statesman who does not
deeply feel this truth. What, then, is the Bel-
gic question ? The Belgic question varies with
the mind which contemplates it. Ask the King
of Holland, and he will answer, that " the only
question is, how most speedily and effectually
to bring back Belgium under the yoke of the
House of Nassau." If it had been doubtful
some days ago that such was the King of Hol-
land's view, the speech to the States-General
would have made it now quite manifest. For
the Duke of Wellington, the English Conser-
vative faction, and the members and partisans of
the Holy Alliance on the Continent, the first
Belgic question was, " Shall Belgium be suf-
fered, by means of a popular movement, to sepa-
rate herself from Holland ?" the two countries
having been nailed together by the short-sighted
mechanics of 1815, that they might form a bul-
wark against French ambition. The Duke of
Wellington, however, and the Conservatives
of the earth, perceived on trial that forci-
bly to keep the Dutch and Belgians in
one compact body would cost more than the
thing was worth—that the sham kingdom
had been framed of crude and green materials,
into which the dry rot had early made its way,
—and that if there was a hope of preserving any
portion of the edifice from ruin, it must lie in
the re-opening of all the seams and joints, and
disposing the pieces in some more wholesome
form. The first question, therefore, was an-
swered in the affirmative—the separation of
Belgium and Holland was decreed by common
consent of all the Powers in conference. The
second question for the Conservative politicians
then arose,—" How shall we adjust this inevi-
table separation upon terms as advantageous as
may be to the King of Holland, whose person
and interests represent those of the Holy Al-
liance Monarchs, and of all Kings as contra-
distinguished from all subjects ?" The solution
• of this question was, after long discussion, em-
bodied in the treaty of November. By the said
treaty Antwerp was to belong, as it had always
done, to Belgium,—the navigation of the
Scheldt was to be relieved from the restraints im-
posed upon it by Dutch cupidity and selfishness,
—and aspecified portion of the common debt was
to be provided for by Belgium. By an express
condition of the treaty, whichever of the two
adverse states should refuse to accept the above
terms, the contracting parties bound themselves
to coerce that state into acquiescence. Thus, then,
the variousand successive problems have resolved
themselves into one, and the only " Belgic
question" now unsettled is this—" Shall the
treaty signed, sealed, and ratified by all the great
Powers of Europe—each pledging itself to each
and all of the others for the bona fide spirit in
which the instrument was signed—sliall that
treaty be honestly executed, or shall it remain a
dead letter and a recorded fraud ?" There is
no escape from this question. There is no
evading it. The King of Holland rejected the
treaty. By Belgium it was, for the sake of
peace, and on the faith of a promised support
by the Allied Powers, accepted. Belgium de-
clared her readiness to fulfil every engagement
undertaken for her, and imposed upon her by
this treaty. The King of Holland refused—
Belgium, to pacify him, offered more than the
treaty of November exacted from her. The
King of Holland, instead of meeting concession
with conciliation, insulted Belgium and the
Allied Powers by fresh demands. He holds to
this hour, by an armed force, the citadel of the
second city in Belgium—the commercial key to
the whole kingdom—the sole outlet for Belgic
industry—the door of ingress for Great Britain,
and all other maritime nations ; this, moreover,
in open despite of the well-known feelings of
France and England, and of the ostensible and