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Leader (1850-1860), 8th October 1853, Edition 1 of 2, Page 973

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      the national feeling . America may he dragged into war with Austria or Spain ; but she # \ vill not he dragged by secret diplomacy into any position which she dislikes ; and her diplomatists must conform to the feelings of their own nation . It is said that one main use of diplomacy is to protect individuals on their travels : the American citizen passes through the Austrian dominions with every outward mark of respect : the

      Englishman , even under the immediate jurisdiction of Lord Westmoreland , is stopped on his way , examined like a vagrant , arrested , imprisoned , remanded , and perhaps driven out . If he is an officer he is subjected to an access of indignity . But then American diplomacy , being open , is accountable to the American nation . The English Ambassador at Vienna is—a chef d ' orchestre in scarlet uniform .

      To defend her citizens England would sacrifice much ; but here again secret diplomacy frustrates her good intentions ; and , by . establishing a show of defence without the reality , actually serves as a trap for the unwary citizen . There are some things for which England would make a regular stand-up fight ; but those things ai'e important and few . While diplomacy , however , blunts the action of England in defence of principle and right , it is continually hazarding war for trivialities in which England feels no real interest . Thus , besides conducing to the safety of the citizen , the welfare of the country , and the honour of the State , a national , instead of a dynastic and bureaucratic diplomacy would be the real key to a strong and honourable peace .

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      CHANGES AT THE SPANISH COURT . Of all caprices in history , perhaps the acts of the Spanish Q , ueen in obeying the proverb , "to welcome the corning , speed the parting guest , " are the most amusing ^ The court scandal-mongers say , that in order to secure the genuine substitution , of one Ministry for another , it is necessary to make a change at Court ; as Sir Robert Peel insisted upon being permitted to substitute ladies of his own party in the bedchamber of the Queen

      for the Whig attendance in that department . If it is dangerous to leave a Whig lady " at the ear of Eve , '' it is still more dangerous when the seductive spirit assumes the engaging form of a young man ; and royal caprice , it is averred , assists the policy of the incoming Ministry . The father of " the Favourite ' ' is to receive a foreign embassy , [ and the Favourite himself 35 , 000 / ., for travelling expenses;—premiums to create a vacancy for the new Ministry , and a new patron of that Ministry at the ear of Eve .

      At the same time that the departure of the Favourite on foreign service is negotiated , the Gazette contains the order for the return of General Nurvaez , on grounds highly characteristic of the dignified country to which he belongs . The first reason of his return is , that his health is in a had . state ; but as it was indifferent when he set out , the same reason might have rendered his journey necessary . Other reasons are , that lie has explained the ills that affected him in January last , that he has been prevented from going to Vienna to

      study the archives , and that a more temperate climate is necessary for his health ; in consideration of which her Majesty " has deigned to relieve him of the commission which she conferred upon him in December lust " : in other words , being exactly in the same position as to health and grievances in which ho was when lie started for Vienna , having disobeyed the royal order , and banting to return to Spain , he is allowed to do a . s lie pleases , and her Majesty deigns to let him have his way .

      I his treatment of General Narvaez might be a lesson to our Government . If the Spanish Government be resolutely defied , it deigns to discover the grounds on which it ought to give way , Should a Minister obey the Queen , as Espartero did , a rival may Htartup , seize the state by a coup

      recognise his merits . Our bondholders might apply this principle in reference- to a good stout frigate and reprisals ; our Government , dolmuded in stipulations for the suppression of the slave trade , and insulted in tho persons of its officers , might discover in tho case of General Narvaex the principle upon which conviction < an be carried home to tho royal heart of Spain . Escorted on similar principles , an English dead bod y might be permitted to go to tho grave as

      Narvaez is to Madrid . We can now understand the sagacity of American politicians in dealing with that proud and dignified state : like the sublime Laputan , its intelligence is awakened by slapsinthefa . ee .

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      THE DEVIL'S DRILL IN MERIONETHSHIRE . Nothing has afforded us greater pleasure during the current year than the frequent opportunity whifch we have had of noticing the excellent effect of discipline upon the young men enrolled in the militia corps . We mentioned not long since , a brilliant example in the artillery corps of East Suffolk ; we have now another instance taken out of the heart of Wales , in the rifle corps of Merionethshire . This corps was assembled on the 20 th of September last , for twenty-eight days training . The mere fact of its assembling was in itself a success , since considerable difficulties had attended the mere enrolment of the corps . Amongst the coadjutors of the blind peace party , are benefit clubs , which , alarmed at the risk incurred by handling deadly weapons , have threatened their members with expulsion if they were enrolled in the militia , and have indeed , in some instances , carried out their threats . The subject has been referred to Government , and the } aw officers have pronounced , that the managers of benefit clubs have no power to expel a member for joining the militia ; a declaration . which will probably check this species of persecution . We are not aware of anv official declaration which would check the

      other kind of difficulty , felt with peculiar force in Wales . There is in the county of Merionethshire some peculiar sect , whose tenets , as we do not understand theological Welsh , we are notable to define , but amongst whose dogmas appears to be the startling doctrine , that the Colonel of a militia regiment must be Satan in person ; and these chapel saints , therefore , have been warning the young men eligible for militia service , that if they take the bounty they are selling their souls to the cloven-footed Colonel . It happened , however , that the adjutant of the regiment , Captain Ward , was a man of experience , ability , and tact , and with those resources he collected about 1 . 50 men . This shows what may be done by zeal .

      The men were assembled under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Morgan ; and all that has been said of the capability , the attention to drill , and good conduct of the militia corps elsewhere , may be applied to this one . The conduct of the men might , have edified the intemperate preachers who pursued them with Welsh excommunication . The handling of the arms ; the discovery that the Colonel had both feet of the usual form ; and the thanks with which the conduct of the men was rewarded , have probably done much , not only to strengthen the patriot-soldierly feeling amongst the young men , but to correct the ignorant bigotry which chokes the many chapels of that remote district .

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      THE FINAL SOLUTION OP THE RUSSIAN QUESTION . ( To the Editor of the Leader . ) Snt , —The Turkish question has been so often " elucidated" that the public must be pretty well informed upon the merit of the question : indeed , from the very commencement of the negotiations , the general voico of the country , setting aside particular coteries and particular classes , gnve its adhesion to the policy which the peaceful prints now choose to designate the " warlike . " This term , however , although particularly significant on ordinary occasions egregiously faila of veracity on this . No party in the nation worthy of consideration , ever for one moment thought of upholding a war-cry , or of plunging the country into all the horrors of which war is the natural herald . All parties Bought pence , only they chose different and widely dissimilar paths . The warlike majority , if warlike they needs must be termed , imagined that , if the Western Towers assumed a determined and dignified attitude , the Emperor Nicholas would never commit himself ho far as to assert a position from which he could neither withdraw with honour nor with credit

      This ferocious party deemed also that the threats of an immediate invasion of Turkey on tho part of Russia , called for an energetic protest on the part of the Governments , and merited a declaration , that any mioh unwarrantable infringement of existing Treaties would bo deemed a castis belli , and would b '« followed by immediate measures of retaliation . This blood-thirsty party also imagined that in tho fnco of such an invincible and

      immovable opposition Russia would never be insane enough to provoke a blockade of the Baltic , and an irruption into , the Caspian Sea , resulting in the overthrow of her own costly blockade of the Caucasus , and promising to be succeeded by events whose magnitude might appal the stoutesthearted despot that ever breathed . But this bold and manly , and from all that we now know , sensible conduct , was overruled by mild commercial men , and the doctrinaire incompetency of the Aberdeen administration . We heard of nothing but polished courtesies and of notes calculated to

      avoid wounding the feelings of the tender-hearted gentleman whose dignity is now sending thousands to the grave , paralyzing trade , creating a commercial crisis in the country , and threatening to light up a devastating war . We were counselled to confide in the skill of our secret diplomacy . But while these gentlemen were displaying their efficiency at Vienna , the Czar was quietly invading and securing Moldavia and Wallachia as a material guarantee , fortifying his troops , obtaining a magnificent supply of

      simpleminded people ' s corn , by obstructing the Sulina mouth of the Danube , and generally acting in a most discourteous manner , with evidently a most irreverent feeling towards the polite but somewhat impolitic blunderers at Vienna . The conclusion , sir , of what people are pleased to term the diplomatic part of the question , lias been a little ignominious to everybody concerned , but the palm belongs of right to the veteran minstrel who scrapes and sings away his country ' s ieputation at the Austrian capital .

      After all , this Note question and phrase disputation beg the question . The simpie fact is , that Russia desires influence in Christian Turkey , and that she is determined to acquire it . Whether she declares that she reads a JS ote two ways , which it is absolutely stated she desires to do ) whether the Western Powers read it another way , or whether the Porte refuse her assent to such absurd effrontery altogether , is not the real point now at issue . The main question is , shall Russia affirm the right of convulsing Europe at any time she pleases , by retiring unpunished or perhaps

      rewarded from an unparalleled aggression upon a peaceful State , which refused assent to inadmissible demands ? This is the entire question . If Russia be not made to suffer severely for this outrage , we shall have continued repetitions of it , for the Czar will only have to declare his co-religionists illtreated , to demand impossible concessions from Turkey , and then quietly , ami as a matter of course , to take his " moral" guarantee , referring to the invasion of 1850 as a precedent . This is the difficulty our European diplomatists have to solve . The peaceful policy , however , lias been tried fully and fairly—na } ' , even sickeningly , and -it has

      proved an utter failure . It has collected enormous armies in Russia and Turkey , or rather two nations in Turkey , and Cossack hordes in Russia ; it has caused appeals from Moslems and Christians to the most fanatic , brutal , and ignorant of their race ; and should Avar follow , as it appears almost certain it will , the peace policy will have prepared so bloody a page for the history of the nineteenth century , that our descendants will be appalled to contemplate the folly that led to such a termination , and the blindness that pursued the policy when its consequences had become so evident .

      But the very fanaticism which we are compellei to deplore , constitutes the sap and vigour of both armies . With the degraded and barbarous hordes of Russia it is all powerful , and if . is tho most inspiriting thought of the Mussulman that he is combating for is faith . The Mussulman knows , too , that he his defending the conquest of his fathers from spoliation , and avenging the dignity of his Soveroign from tho grossest insult . The mere robber inspiration of the Russian . serf .

      . sanctified though it be by his furious idolatry , does not pon . se . ss the wippoit which now upholds the soldiers of Turkey tho one is the mad instrument of an unprincipled aggression ; the other defends not only his religion but his Sovereign and bin country ; und , by a singular inversion , the Mussulman also asserts tho rights of Europe , and the public Jaw of the world Turkey is at present in a more favourable position for war than she will be some time hence .

      Heroic exertions , and undaunted perseverance have created a patriotic soldiery , animated by the strongest and most patriotic feeling . She has repaired old fortresses and established fresh camps ; eho haa exhausted tho pouce policy to its

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      October 8 , 1853 ] THE LEADER * , 973

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 8, 1853, page 973, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2007/page/13/