The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1877-04-17

An Italian caricature which happily
records the humors of opinion in Europe
gives an illustration of the first collision of
the war; There is the terrible General Ig-
natieff fourishing q portentous sabre, and
there are the awful Russian soldiers bearing
down on the Grand Turk, who is pictured
in the placid guise in which he appears on
the outside of half pound packages OF to-
bacco. But this picture of the Grand
Seignior is borne on the shoulders of
stalwart fellow whom it partly hides-as
the advertising placards are borne on the
backs Of city tramps. AS the sharp weapons
of the Russian soldiers pass through the
picture of the mustachioed Turk they tease
this fellow behind, who, in desperate
move to get out of the way, discloses the red
coat and we'll known visage of our cousin
John Bull. This is the opinion of diplo-
matte Europe, that the Turk is show and
an appearance of no more consequence in
the case than tobacco label, and that the
real figure behind the label is England.
There is SO much truth in this that it
scarcely meets the requirements of a joke.
It is an obvious fact to whoever has observed
the case with ordinary attention that England
is the Power that is hurt, and the very occur
renee of the war is the defeat of English
craftsmanship. It is England's case that
the Turk stands for, and the tone in which
the last note of Lord Derby is written re-
fleets the humiliation felt over the fact
that England is not party to a war
in which her own case in the East
is the cast, is the most important point
ut stake. It is not with sense of satisfac-
ton that the Ministers of q country fully
conscious of its greatness and Of its own
part in the history of the human race are
compelled to take notice of the evidence
that they cannot act up to the scale of their
pretensions; that they are unequal to what
the world expects of them; that, in fact, the
position of their country, if not precisely
that of political decadence, is one SO much
| in contrast to what it was in the days when
it gave the law to those from whom it must
now accept it that it has the effect of de-
cadence upon the observer
Earl Granvilles reference to the Eastern
/ uueSLlOn III tue uOuse VI LOIub putS tulS
fact before the Ministry very successfully
without overstepping those limits of patri-
otism that every Englishman regards. He
declares, with truth, that England is ex-
posed to ridicule in the world to-day pre-
cisely because she has been placed in po-
sition where she is necessarily impotent by
a Ministry that plunged head first into
this vortex of Oriental politics, professcd
to "raise England's position in Cont
mental politics" to assert abroad her
ancient consequence. In fact, the Min
istry began this game as Olivier began
the last war-s'with light heart" with an
easy ignorance of all the conditions of sue
cess and the possibilities of calamity. and
now wishes it was as safely out of it as the
government it displaced was out of the
Continental cataclysm that occurred in its
time. Events exhibit that the difference
as to Continental politics between the Glad
stone government and that now in power
is that the former perceived Immediately
the changed relations of England to the
rest of Europe, and the latter only learned
them by great humiliation.