The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-30 00:00:00

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LOXDON, "TT 'EDNESDAY; DEC. 30, 18 C 8 .

Thera is a significance in• the Cabinet Council
having been held at the Foreign Office yesterday.
The Turko-Greek difficulty is naturally at this mo-
ment, among all political themes of the hour,
the one of the most urgent importance. Diplo-
matic communications flying to and fro, now-a-
days, at important crises like these, not in the
valise of a QUEEN'S messenger, but, when occa-
sion requires, on the wings of the lightning—Con-
ferences may be arranged with a rapidity that
would have astonished our forefathers. Festina lente
in one sense has become an obsolete axiom, now,when
our travelling carriages are harnessed to the fiery
dragon of the steam-engine, and when our messages
are signalled no longer across country by the un-
gainly swinging of the arms of a semaphore telegraph,
but by the instantaneous thrill of an acid and click
of a❑ electric-needle. Wonderful as these agencies
are, however, for the hastening on of the movements
of even that most deliberate of all professions, the
profession of diplomacy—rumour anticipates occa-
sionally in a ridiculous manner the speed with which
the preliminary negotiations for the meeting of a
Congress are, as at the present moment, being carried
on among the European Governments. It has been
thus in regard to the arrangements now making for
the assembling together of the representatives of the
Great Powers for the consideration of the latest
phase of that complex and chronic difficulty, known
but for too many years past, and but too well,
throughout Northern and Western Europe as the
Eastern Question—a phase now glaring ominously
and somewhat alarmingly upon the recognition of the
world at large, in the hostile relations at this juncture
visible between the Ottoman and the Hellenic Go-
vernments. According to the announcement of one
of the Paris newspapers—an announcement to which
we took occasion to allude yesterday —the date fixed
for the meeting at Paris of the appointed Plenipo-
tentiaries was to be at as early a date as Saturday
afternoon next, the Second of January ! The fact
being, on the contrary, that the Plenipotentaries
themselves have as yet to be selected and nominated !
Immediately, or almost immediately, the Conference
will, in all human probability, be assembled together.
But its assemblage at as early adate as the 2nd prox.,
is, it may be said at once, simply au impossibility.
Meanwhile the two antagonistic races of the Turks
and the Greeks are there, at the seat of war as it
may be called, confronting each other with their
blood up, with arms in their hands and with a deter-
mination not to give in either of them spontaneously
—not to give in otherwise than if constrained
so to do by the force of the public opinion
of the civilised nations of Christendom as represented
through their respective Governments. Greece from
the outset has not only been the insensate aggres-
sor, but is, of the two Powers thus brought into
collision -with each other, now that hostilities have
commenced between them, the one most eagerly
bent upon carrying on warlike— measures a
l'ol'trance. Left to herself, the chances of
her success in this struggle latterly threatening
between her forces and those of her really
formidable antagonist are, as one ►might almost
say, intinitissimal. lIonAnT I'ACIIA, if not inter-
fered wit'► in so doing by European diplomacy,
might readily enough sweep the whole Greek navy
from the waters of the Arehipmlego. OMAR PACIIA,
a veteran soldier at the head of an army dispropor-
tionately large when contrasted with any military
array that could be brought together under the ban-
net s of King GEORGE, might clear before him just as
easily, in his turn, whatever obstac'es might be set i►.
his path by the Athenian Government in a futile en-
deavour on the part of that Government to prevent the
occupation of Thessaly by the Turks. Recognising all
this, satisfied of all this, it seems to us almost ab-
surd that we should have occasion to add at the same
time that such is the warlike ardour manifested by
the Greek population generally, according to all the
accounts now coming to us from that quitter, that
the Hellenic Sovereign and his Ministers profess
themselves powerless to repress the national enthu
siasm. KING GEORGE is even stated to have so writ

ten himself in holograph letters addressed by him to
each of the principal Sovereigns of Europe. Whether
the warlike ardour of the Greeks be such or not, cer-
tain we may be that the Sublime Porte will never
dream of holding its hand, if driven to extremities
by a foe at once so insulting and so insigni-

ficant. The office of the Conference will be
that of a Pacificator. But, while it will be so,
it will at the same time be constrained in the inte-

rests of European order, and in vindication of the
probity of nations, to reprehend with the sternness
demanded by the occasion the extraordinary aggres-

sions adventured upon by Greece in the whole of
these recent proceedings on the part of the Hellenic
People and on the part of the Hellenic Government

in regard to the integrity of the dominions, and the
independence of the Sovereignty of the Sultan
Caliph, ABDUL Aziz.

DETERRED by the difficulties of a change of currency
and the supposed perfection of our present system,
the Royal Commission on International Coinage
decided that England ought not to join in the efforts
now being made abroad to establish a uniform money
throughout the commercial world. It was feared that
the disadvantages attendant upon a great alteration in

our coinage would outweight the benefit to be derived

from uniformity. It would be necessary that we
should alter the value of our sovereign, and this
would vitiate all existing contracts. All debts and
obligations would have to be recalculated, and all
fixed rates and fares would need readjustment. The
Commissioners urged, too, that the sovereign as it
is now would answer all purposes as an international
coin ; it is already current in the vast British Colo-
nies, is freely accepted in several foreign countries,
and has gained a hold in commerce which ought not
to be disturbed. We have previously shewn that
these conclusions were not well founded, and that
the Commission has struck the balance between the
benefits and inconveniences of the change on the
wrong side. Subsequent inquiry has still further
exposed the extent of this error. An elabo-
rate examination of the state of our coinage
at the present time, and of the results
of the proposed reform, decisively proves, not
only that its ill effects have been exaggerated, but
that to a great extent they are imaginary. The
change under consideration was to affect, in the
first instance, only the sovereign. In order to secure
a uniform currency, it has been recommended that
a gold coin of the value of twenty-five francs should
become the monetary unit in all countries. This
coin would fall short of the worth of the sovereign
by about twopence, and it was this difference which
the Commission feared would affect all business
arrangements in the British Empire. It has now,
however, been established that the alteration would
be profitable in every respect, both as regards the
business of the world and our own business as a

single nation.
In a very valuable contribution to the literature of this
subject, Professor JEVONS proves that the state of our
coinage is far from satisfactory. Our gold currency