The Sun.
London, England, 1857-01-14 00:00:00

L 3NDON, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 18t 7

The Government organ is already adopting in
regard to the new War in the East the old Mi-
nisterial tactics of Begging the Question. The
Times coolly affects this morning to consider the
rupture with Persia to have originated in nothing
more nor less than a petty Court squabble at
Teheran ! It is all about a lady, we are told ;
and that lady, too, a lady of rather more than
merely doubtful reputation ! We are facetiously
offered the alternative of a City or a Lady as the
cause of the misunderstanding ! The Adminis-
tration, and the apologists of the Administration,
are driven, of course by necessity, to " smell a
rat" somewhere. And so they put their heads
together deliberatively, and arrive at last at the
very astonishing conclusion that we must, per-
foree, in searching for the cause of the quarrel,
choose between Herat and (let us say) Sherat ! We
are informed, in a tone of pitying condescension at
so much ignorance, that it is sheer nonsense to talk
of the former miserable little atom—that is to say,
the City, and not the Lady—the insulated city of
Herat (according to the Times, a place of no kind
of value or importance whatever)—as the object of
the war, as the prize for which the belligerents
are fighting, as the original source of the whole
deplorable disturbance. Why, whe, in the name
of fortune, ever said it was I Who ever regarded
Herat as other than the ostensible, merely the
ostensible, germ of this new Eastern Dilemma ?
Not the actual goal towards which the Disturbers
of the Peace of the World were struggling, but
simply and literally—instead of that—the
portal to a much grander goal. Herat
being, in point of fact, not the mere
geographical " nothing " the Times pretends
it to be, but a place (from its situation) of that
extraordinary importance that it is universally
recognised, among those who know anything at all
about it, as—the Key, from the side of Persia, to
the British Empire in Hindostan ! But No ! the
Ministerial organ tells us, Nothing of the sort—
Herat is not even the ostensible cause of the war
—it is Nothing—it is Valueless. So that, after
all, when ovetything has been said and done in
this official quibbling of the organ of the Govern-
ment, we are brought in the end (upon the Horns
of the wretched Dilemma of this preposterous
alternative) to the following brief but very absurd
conclusion : That the " Bone of Contention" is
—Somebody's Spare-Rib ! That the Persian
War is not the least bit in the world about Herat
(even regarding the seizure of Herat as a step
onwards towards an incursion into Hinclostan), but
that it is solely, and exclusively, and entirely, and
incontrovertibly about the Mistress, Wife, Con-
cubine, or whatever you may like to call her, of
some very grand personage at the Court of the
Shah NASR-00D-DEEN.

Was ever more monstrous effrontery than this
revealed even on the part of the recognised organ
of the Government ? Scarcely, we should think !
The Times, as the mouthpiece of the Ministry,
ungenerously lays the whole blame of this new
confusion in the East upon the Hon. CHARLES
MuRRAY, until very recently her Britannic
Majesty's representative at the Court of Teheran.
To what end ? Notoriously, glaringly, undeni-
ably to the one end, that public attention should
be diverted from the REAL cause of the war with
Persia. That cause being the Ministerial pol-
troonery displayed towards Russia in the miserably
patched up, the meanly compromised, the despic.

ably precipitated Peace (i.e., Truce) brought
about by the redoubtable Paris Conferences !
THERE—if you like—is the cause of this new
War in the East ! The first hostile "movement"
in which war was marked by the capture of
Herat, the Key to our Oriental Dominions !
The specious but utterly futile "excuse" for which
violation of existing treaties was—if you will—
this scandalous little incident of the Lady pro-
tected, in violation of Persian usages, by the Bri-
tish Ambassador. We don't, of course, under-
take in any way to exonerate Mr. MURRAY from
all blame in the transaction. But otherwise than
as a wretched little episode, furnishing a miserably
inadequate plea for a rupture with England on
the part of the SHAH, this story about the Per-
sian Lady—as told by the Times—we warn the
public to regard merely in the light of a Minis-
terial Canard ! The promised, or rather we
should say more correctly, the threatened, Blue
Book will furnish us, of course, with all the facts
of the case about the Persian Lady and her Bri-
tish Protector. But already, before a single do-
cument is printed, to be " pottered" over at their
leisure by Journalists and Members of Parliament
—we know perfectly well that it is simply frivo-
lous and ridiculous to regard this as the source of
the confusion between the two contending Go-
♦ernments.

A Lady—no doubt of it—has " set the world
in arms" before now; and that Lady no better than
she should be. But to talk of the now War
with Persia as having been actually originated by
a second HELEN would be as extravagant an
absurdity in its way as to expect to find in one of
our Bran New Spasmodic Poets another HOMER,
ripe for the celebration of the struggle in a new
Iliad ! No—again we assert this entertaining
historiette about " The Persian Lady and the
British Ambassador" in its novel position, namely,
as the pretended explanation as to the source of
the new Eastern difficulty, an explanation put
forward by the Times in the name and on behalf
of Her MAJESTY'S Government—again, and again,
and again, we pronounce it to be nothing more
nor less than a Ministerial Canard. As an inci-
dent, we will at once admit it to be true in every
particular. But in its present application we
regard it as simply preposterous.
The Persian War traces its origin neither to
this frail fair one, nor yet again to the city of
Herat. The capture of Herat, as we have inti-
mated already, was the declaration of the war by
the Government of Teheran. The Protection of
the Lady was the shallow plea, the flimsy excuse
—nothing more. The secret source of the whole
difficulty being—there is no means of blinking the
matter—it is as clear as the sun at noonday—
The secret source of the whole difficulty being—
Russia ! Ministers are, of course, unwilling to
acknowledge this, because, quite as glaring
as the fact itself is the origin of that fact--
the Pitiable Peace patched up with Russia by the
Allies. But for this deplorably precipitated com-
promise Russia would never have ventured so
soon afterwards to set her old evil-policy in play
again, as opposed to British dominion in the Elst.
The " Precious Peace," however, is already as
fruitful of disasters, in the• way of fresh havoc
' and fresh bloodshed, as we, from the first moment
of its lamentable announcement, anticipated.
Hence the expulsion of our Minister from Teheran.
Hence the sudden capture of the city of Herat.
Hence the fl?Erant violation of treaties, leading to
the declaration of War against the Shah of PERSIA,
in the name of her most gracious MAJIISTY, on the
Ist of November, 1856, at Calcutta. The
intrigues, the trickeries, the chicaneries, the
hair-splittingeDiplomacy, are now, however (at least
be it said, for the time being) at an end between
Persia and England. i; The gage of battle has
been flung down on either hand. And we enter-
tain not the smallest doubt whatever, but that
before very much longer, a good account will be
given of themselves in due course by the British
Fleet, which has recently taken its departure for
the waters of the Persian Gulf, and by the British
Army which has simultaneously adventured upon
a march into Cabul through the rocky passes of
Affghanistan, under the daring and skilful com-
mand of Brigadier CIiAXIIEB.LAYNE.

We, yesterday, explained that Russia is par- I
suing her traditional policy with indefatigable
seal. She has not abandoned a single particle of
her iniquitous designs, and still looks forward
confidently to the period when the Muscovite
standard shall be displayed on the minarets of
St. Sophia. The action of the late CZAR is
now believed to have been premature. He should
have waited patiently to have completed all his
preparations, and to have sown dissension between
France and England, before he assumed the ini-
tiative. That is the prevalent opinion at St.
Petersburg, and throughout the length and
breadth of Holy Russia. There is no shame on
account of the iniquitous attempt. The only'
shame is for its failure. The "mission of Russia,'
as it is termed, is still to Cossackise Europe, and
Turkey is the first savoury morsel to be absorbed.
The feeling of " repentance" is analogous to that
of the " ticket-of-leave" man, who easily contrives
to " gammon" the chaplain, but whose anxiety
for freedom is greatly increased by the desire of
testing the efficacy of the new dodges which he has
learned or invented during his seclusion. He is
still at war with society 1 His hand, like that of
ISHMAEL, "is against every man." But he has
learned the necessity of saution, and of " as-
suming the appearance of virtue, if he hath
it not." Thus Russia professes modera-
tion, because it is not convenient just
at present to fling aside disguise. She requires
sufficient time to recruit her losses during the
late war—to replenish her treasury, and to have
the means of transit for her troops to the Crimean
coast, and adequate transports to land them in the
neighbourhood of Constantinople. In fact, she is
now merely " biding her time," prepared to take
advantage of the first favourable opportunity tkat
may offer !

Some credulous persons may suppose that she
will respect ber undertakings—that the pledges
which she has given to the great Powers of Europe
will not be deliberately violated. But the con-
science of Russia is of a very elastic character.
Her morality is peculiarly Hudibrastic. She
thinks—

"'Tis he who makes the oath that breaks it,
Not him who for convenience takes it."

She has for her convenience entered into engage-
ments, which will be partially kept so long as it
may suit her purpose, but no longer. Indeed
she has already given " a taste of her quality"
in the pettifogging quibbles raised about Bolgrad
and the Isle a Serpents, and even the most
verdant could not, after these melancholy exhi-
bitions, repose confidence in her promises, how-
ever solemn 1