The Sun. — 1860-07-23 (London, England)

NICHOLAS. Where  all might be, and ought to be, easy and straightforward, we are obliged to act with fear of sinister projects. In Syria, at this moment, the need for action is -urgent. The murders and massacres of the Christians by the Mahometans, and their allies the  semi-Mahometan Druses, must be stopped ; but the intention of the Annexer of Savoy and Nice are the real difficulty. Europe does not want to see another Algeria in Syria, and one which may be a gain rather than a loss. pecuniarily ; while England remembers that it is on her road to the East.  In the city article of a contemporary the affirmation is pretty plainly made, that we owe the break up of the Euphrates Telegraph Company to the opposition of the French EmrEnon, and that too after our own Government had given earnest sup port to so evidently desirable a project, and the Turkish Government had pledged itself to grant a concession. This concession was suddenly refused ; and the allegation is, that the EMPEROR'S visit to Osborne, which occurred just at the time, induced oar Government to acquiesce, the threat being that otherwise the Isthmus of Suez question should be made a ground of international disagreement ! The imperial objection could only have been to the pr estige which would be acquired by an English company in the East, among the tribes of the Desert, and the inhabitants of the few cities on the route ; or, perhaps, still more to the rapid information which both Constantinople and London would receive of what was going on in the farther east. It was great weakness in our Government to give way. We wanted the line for a bone fide object ; it would have been at the service 'of all Europe, of Turkey and France included, for all honest purposes, but if dishonest schemes were at work, no doubt speedy publication of them in the west would have been very embarrassing. The suspicion is not unnatural, therefore, that nothing but dishonest purposes induced the present master of Savoy and Nice to oppose such a boon to Turkey, Europe, and India, as the telegraph by the Euphrates line. We are assured now that the outbreak has been provoked by the Christians themselves—even French papers tell us so—and there is a strong suspicion that France has good reason to know. If it be so, there is, we fear, too much reason to think that the Christians were stimulated by evil counsellors, whose master wanted a pretext for insurrection in order to divert his subjects' minds from home politics. We think so the more, because the Ilarcnites, from the best accounts we have access to, do not outnumber the Druses to the extent an interesting article which we quote from aeorttemporary. Indeed, weincline to thinking their numbers approach pretty near to equality, though all travellers mention the Maronites as the larger ly.)dy. The Druses, however, are the more fanatical sect of the two. rr ...heir founder, HAREM, though springing from Mahomedanism, taught the indifference of all actions and the equality of all and on this basis founded a sect of mystics, in their way ; since they have three grades, the last of whom only are taught the esoteric doctrines of the sect. They have always been a more furiously fanatical sect than the Maronites, corn. biming the worst zeal probably of Mahometanism and Heathenism too. The 11,1aronites had their origin in the time of the Greek controversies about