The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-05-09 00:00:00

RUSSIAN COMMISSARIAT.

This wholesale organised system of public plunder
exceeds all that we have ever read or heard of in the
history of ancient or modern peculation. Our own home
practice is not without some shining examples, but they
furnish the exceptions rather than the rule. Verres in
Sicily, and John of Cappadocia at Constantinople, under
Justinian, were honest administrators of finance compared
with these insatiate bloodsuckers. Here is a true and
satisfactory solution of the supineness of the Russian
leaders in Wallachia, who cannot concentrate strength
sufficient to drive the Turks from Kalafit, or attempt the
permanent passage of the Danube. They poured into the
undefended Principalities more than nine months ago ;
time was everything to them, that they might have the
chance of crushing Turkey before her allies could come to
the rescue; and yet they have been beaten in every
encounter with the troops of Omar Pacha, and have looked
for a long time on the Turkish lines without venturing a
decisive result. If they do not endeavour to strike a
great blow before the French and English auxiliaries
arrive, their inactivity is a confession of weakness more
damaging than a total defeat. In fact, they have neither
the forces they would wish the world to suppose, nor
generals capable of handling them, if they were ready to
march to the Turkish entrenchments.

In considering the subject as it presents itself to
an insular and maritime people like the British, Mr.
Cole makes the following sensible observations on

RUSSIA AS AN AGGRESSIVE EUROPEAN POWER.

In a war with maritime nations, how can Russia avail
herself of her only two commercial outlets, the Sound and
the Bosphorous, within which she will be hermetically
sealed by the overwhelming fleets of France and England ?
It is difficult to answer this question, unless it be true, as
Sir Francis Head told us in 1851, on the authority of the
Hon. Captain Plunket, R.N., that Russia could send thirty
sail of the line to sea before England could send three.
Oar readers will start, but they have no occasion to be
under any apprehension. Matters are mended since that
alarm-trumpet blew such a foreboding bla,st and the
Liverpool merchants may rest assured that a Russian
squadron will not lay the Mersey under contribution,
seize the defenceless shipping, and pillage their well-
stored warehouses. The Muscovite nobility are luxurious
as well as rich, but their revenues are principally derived
from kind, nor can they easily convert their hides and
tallow into specie, if the ordinary channels of commercial
egress are impeded by a fleet of screw-steamers. There
will soon ensue a paralysis of the body, unless a timely
cure is applied to the head. Beyond all doubt the Emperor
Nicholas is individually and solely responsible for the im-
pending storm which will soon burst in thunder on his
country ; the feeling of all the world which is not his is
against him, and not even the autocrat of half that world,
and the arbitrator of countless millions can stand up be-
fore the battery of public opinion, so heavily and so unani-
mously erected to oppose his wild pretensions. Sooner or
later the crisis must have arrived, and most fortunate is it
that he has brought it on when we are well prepared, and
when an unexpected coalition between former rivals has
linked them together in a bond of confiding amity. We
may now fathom the secret of his obstinacy. He has ex-
cited revolt and revolution in Turkey, relying on his
power to coerce Austria, and to neutralise Prussia; but
he dreamed not of the possibility that France and Eng-
land would join the flags in friendship, which for so
many centuries had waved in opposition. Neither did the
first Napoleon believe in this, when from his island prison
he prophesied that Russia would never pause until she held
the destinies of Europe in her grasp, and that there was
no opposing power strong enough to prevent this con-
summation.
In Mr. Cole's book, and even in the extracts
given, the general reader will find means to explain
some of the otherwise inexplicable events which
have occurred in the valley of the Danube. He will
there see that the germs of Russian inertness and
inefficiency, where promptitude and vigorous ac-
tion should have been all in all, have been marched
with its hordes to the theatre of strife. For several
months past the press may be said to have teemed
with memoirs, military and statistical, connected
with Russia and the impending war, but probably
in no one of these will there be found a more
judicious or more clearly arranged view of the
subject in most of its bearings than is gontained
in this interesting and opportune publkation by
Mr, Cole. • .