The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-03
sPIR1T OF THn PRuss.
Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current Topics smpiIed Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
THE NEW ASPECT OF THE RUSSIAN
CUES TLON

The dispatches we published yesterday
morning under our most conspicuous foreign
heading indicate that the grand diplomatic
and military game which for months past has
held the world in suspense and has bestrewed
one of the fairest portions of Western Eu-
rope with corpses, is working Its way into
the clear revelation of perfect light. the
British Cabinet is in a state OF crisis because
Earl Granville stands firm to his note, ou the
one hand. aud the attitude of the Russian
Prince Gortschakoff indicates no retreat
upon the other. Yet, in the meanwhile,
Russia positively discaims any hostile de-
signs upon Turkey, and Prussia, as an in-
termediary power and an intercessor, cour-
teously accedes to something quite novel.
What is that? ? the reader may ask. All the
secret pith and kernel of the whole matter
to wit the virtual possessorship by England
of the new chief channel to East Indian
commerce. the Suez Canal, leaving Russia to
do as she pleases with the Ottoman empire.
In other words, Prussia finds 1t not only easy,
but just the very thing, working into her
own hand, to use both her powerful neigh
bors and secret friends-Great Britain on the
right and Russia on the left-to cut off and
extinguish the outside prestige and influence
of France, as she herself is trampling down
the military strength and trade resources of
that afflicted country at home. But ye5ter-
day France was the patron, as a son of hers
was the deviser and engineer, of the Suez
Canal, and then England decried and op-
posed the enterprise. To-day France is
stricken and English capital steps in to con-
troll the prize so long secretly coveted. Yester-
day both in Syria and at Constantinople,
as well as in Egypt, France dictated the
evolutions of the Eastern question aud
foreshadowed the destiny of the holy places
To-day Russia looms up as the master of the
situation.
''It is no longer in the north, said the first
Napoleon, whose conversations still form a
textbook for modern statesmen, "that great
questions will be resolved, but in the Medi-
terrsneaD. There exists enough to content
all the ambition of the dfferen<epo wers, and
the happiness of civilized nations may be
purchased with fragments of barbarous lands
Let kings listen to reason. Europe will no
longer tolerate continued international hatred
Prejudioes are dispensing; routes of commerce
are multiplying; it is no longer possible for
one nation to monopolize them"
4 Now, this is precisely the wisdom which
Russia has pondered at home and has been
seeking to apply abroad since the commence
ment of the reign of Alexander and under the
able guidance of Gortschakoff, the inheritor
in our time of tho best traits of Nesselrode
She has shown as much in her enlightened
commercial treaties, and especially in those
contracted with her great Oriental neighbors
Persia and China; in her propositions with
regard to the navigation of the river Amoor-
the Muscovite Mississippi; in her genial and
friendly sale of Alaska and her other possess
sions on the northwest of our continent, and
in her spontaneous abiding, and outspoken
friendship for her very antipodes in political
form-tbe American republic. Now we be-
hold emerging at the eleventh hour, from the
vapors of the political caldron over whose
Bubble, bubble,
Toll and trouble,
the wizard Bismarck has been presiding, a
fresh and imposing conception of Russian
policy. With railroads rapidly stretching
their glisteniDg lines, like rays of the rising
SUB, to every part of her dominions, particu-
larly on the south and east; with steamships
dartipg forth from all her ports on every in
land sea- with Christian missionaries persist
emily piercing the boundaries, crossing the
frontiers and penetrating the recesses of Mo
hammedan and heathen lands, Russia ad-
vances upon Turkey, no longer for war,
but for peace. The thirteen millions
of Greeks, Armenians, Druses, etc.,
and the one million five hundred thousand
Roman Catholics among the less than forty
million of souls subject to the Ottoman
sceptre, do not tremble at the approach of her
legitimate influence, for which, indeed, the
growing reforms adopted and favored by the
present Grand Turk himself have largely pre-
pared the public mind of his dominions. In
word. out of the perilous embodiment OF
the present hour arises, in clear and beautiful
outlines, a magnificent guarantee for the
security of the future, as out of primeva
chaos, "without form and void, with ''dark
ness resting upon the face of the deep,
ascended, because the Supreme mandate had
prepared it, armament of future beauty.
'and there was light" The clouds and con-
fusion that have fallen upon France have
preoipitated the eastward movement of civil
iization and Christianity which might, other
wise, have fingered on the way through
Western dynastic aspirations. Britain ad
vanoing by Suez and gaining clear and swift
pathways to her East Indian possessions
Russia must join (not oppose) Turkey at the
Dardanelles. and thus three enlightened
powers together must unite in pushing farther
eastward the arts and arms of Europe
The Cyar steps to the front and into tht
command which, bat seven short months ago
Napoleon held and forfeited. The Turk and
the Egyptian are thrust into the vanguard o.
the armies of commerce and religion, which
by local reforms, improvements, and recon
oiliaGons, will settle the old disputes around
the great central basin of the Mediterranean
and, at day not distant, kindle q common
beaoon-light and plant common symbol 70
the nations, with the seat of the universa
ClGroh and the banner Of the cross upon the
topmost heights Of Jerusalem.
TERRITORIES OR STATES