The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-07
MONDAY, NOVEMBER I, 1870.
THE ARWESTTCE.

The cable dispatches render it doubtful
whether an armistice between the contending
nations will be concluded The succession of
stunning blows which have robbed France of
the power of resisting the invaders seem to
have also destroyed her ability to adopt rational
measures for promoting peace. She is given
up to indecision and anarchy, and with star
yation staring in the face of two millions of
citizens confined within the walls of Paris
few ambitious rulers reject a peaceable
method for extending relief to this i'm
perilled capital at moment when
they are making no martial efforts worthy of
the name to raise the siege of the beleaguered
capital. An immense number of human lives
arc apparently on the point of being sacrificed
to crafty the mistaken ambition of a few
vain leaders (for the underlying reason of
the reported rejection of the armistice must
be sought in the fear of the present govern
ment that it would not be sustained at the
proposed elections); and if Madame Roland
were living now she would have more cause
than ever to exclaim, go liberty! what
crimes are committed in thy name.' The
authentic test of public opinion which is SO
sedulously and selfshly avoided is the one
thing above all others that is needed for the
salvation of France, whether the war is to 90
on or peace is to prevail. If the present gov
ernment could vigorously enforce it's autho-
rity, it would be we'll enough to avoid an elec-
tion in the presence of a foreign army, but
proofs of its inability to control the national
resources are multiplying, and the very men
who protest loudly against any
movement which contemplates the
surrender of foot of French soil
put the whole country at the mercy of the
invaders by their disorders and disobedience
The treacherous course pursued towards
Garibaldi furnishes fearful commentaryupon
the fine sentiments that are so freely uttered,
and the hour for following up brave words
with heroic deeds is indefinitely postponed.
No handful of men have right to assume, as
the Provisional Government practically does
by rejecting the armistice, that the property
and lives of millions of citizens should be
sacrificed in vain effort to maintain the de-
lusive idea that French territory is inviolable.
If such resolution is adopted, under the
present circumstances, it should be clearly
expressed by an overwhelming majority of
the entire nation, and that majority should
at the same time establish government suffi-
cently powerful to afford a reasonable hope
that the resolution could be maintained.
1t is scarcely possible that the rejection of
the armistice can have any other result than
that Paris shall fall as Strasburg and Metz
have fallen, with the addition of indescriba-
BILE horrors arising from the density of popu-
lation and superior Importance of the capital;
and it seems incredible that Trochu and
Thiers, who have shown so much true states
manship in their efforts to avert these terri
BILE calamites, should be overruled by vain,
foolish, heartless, desperate, or corrupt poll
ticians. We can scarcely believe that French
men will suffer themselves to be DESTROYED
by blind and unscrupulous leaders, and when
they come to realize their perilous position
we hope that they will find means for forcing
even their worst impracticables to consent to
an aImistce.