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

NICIIOLAS. 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, mast 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 prettyllitiaNly made, that we owe the break up the Euphratirnlegraph Company to the op it e. ion of the French EMPEROR, and that too aft r our own Government had given earnest support 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 theprestige 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 bona 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 deubt 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 foar, 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 Maronites, from the best accounts we have access to, do not outnumber the Druses to the extent stated in an interesting article which we quote from .a contemporary. Indeed, we incline to thinking their numbers approach pretty near to equality, though all travellers mention the Maronites as the larger body. The Druses, however, are the more fanatical se-A of the two. Their founder, HAKEM, though springing from Mahornedanistn, taught the indifference of all actions and the equality of all religions, 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 doe trines of the sect. They havo always been a more furiously fanatical sect than the Maronites, corn_ bining the worst zeal probably of Alahometanisra and Heathenism too. The Maronites had their origin in the time of the Creek controversies about