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Leader (1850-1860), 5th April 1856, Edition 1 of 2, Page 323, - ¦ - -¦ ¦¦ ¦¦ .. *i\ II' (Tlfl- * * $l)TIuIIX JUtlltOU ¦

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      Untitled Article

      NOT 1 CKS TO CORRESPONDENTS , No notice can be taken of anonymous communications . Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of tlie writer ; not necessarily for publication but as a guarantee of his good faith . It is impossible to acknowledge the mass of jetters we receive . Their insertion is often delayed , " owing to a press of matter ; and when omitted , it is frequently from reasons quite independent of the merits of the communication . We cannot undertake to return rejected communications . During- the Session of Parliament it is often impossible to find room lor correspondence , even the briefest .

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      Untitled Article

      THE WAR AND THE PEACE . The self-governing English nation has concluded a peace with Russia—on what terms the self-governing nation is not permitted to know . It is a curious illustration of the irregular process by which our liberties have been developed , that , while we establish all our Laws on a Parliamentary basis , our Treaties , secretly negotiated , and irrevocably sanctioned , are equivalent to decrees . We insist on the responsibility of the Executive , and we tolerate an absolute diplomacy . The Minister conniving at an unwise or dishonourable

      Gonin such a war has been sacrificed to avert a struggle which would have given the leading military Powers the right to intervene , occupy , and dominate in every territory o-f Europe ? It cannot be said that , at this point , the constitutional liberties of England are exhibited in disgraceful contrast with the absolute unity of France . Much as the privileged governing class has done to injure the British prestige , by misconducting the operations , by lowering the tone of our diplomacy , by subordinating 1 our

      policy to that of the French Emperor , England , at the conclusion of peace , stands amply armed , opulent , and formidable . After two years of warfare , we are prepared } after two years of warfare , the French Government finds its capacities exhausted . France and Russia determine , therefore , to cease a conflict which neither could conveniently -prolong , and submitting to the will of its ally , the British Government accepts the peace , though peace arrests the march of the national power . Had

      the war continued , our sufferings , our failures , oixr disgraces , seemed past . We had been exposed , we had stripped our administrative system ; we had laid bare its whole anatomy , and confessed to Europe how much , and at what a cost , we could blunder ; "but a change had taten place . Surprising forces were ready for the third campaign . Our troops in the Crimea had wintered in comfort and safety . Our Baltic fleet was equipped for real warfare ,

      with an effective complement of gunboats . There had been no correspondents , no public scrutiny , to tell all another army that fought by the side of our own had endured ; but it will one day be known that all is not perfect in the organisation of absolute power ; it is already known indeed , that French soldiers , " children of the Emperor , " may starve and tremble with hunger , cold , and fatigue , and that every month of prolonged war must have added to their destitution . This is the

      unhappy truth . "We write it with , no desire to taunt the French Emperor with the sufferings of his army ; but we , in England , who have so unshrinkingly exhibited our official frailty , must not be told that a single will , a pervading master mind , imperial unity of conception , imperial celerity of action , result in invariable success ; while constitutional government cannot bear the trials of war .

      Great Britain expended in support of the Russian struggle as much money as France , though she furnished fewer soldiers . When the war broke out she had not more than a hundred and fifty thousand men in the regular army , and of these twenty-five thousand were in India , eight thousand in Canada , four or five thousand in the Cape ; others were in Gibraltar , Malta , Australia , Jamaica , others in the Mauritius , Ceylon , Singapore , Hong Kong , Sb . Helena , and the Ionian group . Thus

      nearly a hundred thousand British troops , in February , lt > 54 , were sprinkled over all parts of the globe , there being in England only the five or six thousand incomparable guards , and the detaohmenta in depot , yet England sent successively more than a hundred thousand soldiers to the Crimea , fifty thousand of whom remain , while fifty thousand have been killed or invalided . Her fleet , though it was not pittod effectively against the enemy ' s

      fortifications , no soonor appeared in the Black Sea than a hundred and twenty-soven liussian ships of war took refuge in the harbour of Sobustopol , whenco they never once dared to emerge , while the Baltic navy was , in the sanio manner , protected within rocks and gigantic walls . French writers , candid and liberal , havo expressed their * ' jealous wonder" at the celerity with which huge vossels half finished when the declaration of war was mado woro completed and proposed for sea ;

      vention , might , indeed , be punished by loss of power ; but the Convention itself could nob be modified or repudiated , but must stand as part of the public law of the world . This secret and positive method of regulating the relations of a free people with foreign Governments is in diametrical contrast to the practice of the United States , by which treaties are ratified by the Senate , in executive session , with closed doors . It may be a question , whether the American principle be preferable to the European ; but there can be no doubt as to which is the self-governing system .

      We must take the Treaty as it is given to us , and whether or not it be a satisfactory solution of the questions that caused the war , we shall certainly not regret that peace is given to Europe . A conflict , conducted on such a basis , under such auspices , could be of no permanent or general advantage to mankind . Instead of promoting civilisation , it was demoralising the habits and opinions even of Englishmen ; it was quenching those liberal sympathies which form the support and

      promise of nations on the Continent , aspiring to be equally free . It has come to a legitimate end ; its local objects avo fulfilled ; it has wearied Russia , satisfied France , terrified the German powers , taught England her weakness and her strength , and it is checkod in time to spare the world a desperate , aimless struggle between military monarchies , in which one chance might havo glimmered for a freo Europe against a hundred chances in favour of the

      absolutism of standing arrnios . On the one sido would have been bho vast , loose , heterogeneous mass of nations , some revolutionary , others conservative , without concert or unity , liable to the rigours of martial law ; on the other side , tho armed and organised despotisms , though divided , would havo recognised a common nocossity , and would , in sill human probability , havo reduced tho Continent to tho level of 181 /> . Can we regrofc that the one vague ohanco that liberalism might have seen

      Untitled Article

      four hundred ships of war , propelled by steam constituted the naval force disposable for the anticipated campaign , exclusive of at least a hundred vessels , similarly armed arid equipped , cruising in various distant waters , and of two hundred large transport steamers taken up from private companies . To man this vast navy sixty-six thousand sailors and marines were required . For 1856-57 , the army , instead of the original 150 , 000 , is estimated at

      275 , 000 troops of the guard and the line , 127 , 000 militia , 14 , 500 foreign legionaries , forming a total of 416 , 500 men , which , including the Turkish contingent , could have supplied ? two > distinct armies of a hundred thousand men each , to operate on different fields against Russia . We have no reason to be ashamed of our constitutional system . We have not been forced by exhaustion to sign the Peace of Paris , however unsatisfactory that peace may be .

      Austria has reason to be satisfied with the result of her diplomatic intervention . She has secured her interests on the Danube and in the Black Sea , has escaped the dangers of a war , and is enabled to reduce her armies . On the same grounds , Prussia and confederated Germany gain by the general pacification . Sweden and Sardinia are thrown upon the good faith of the Western Powers , since they have both provoked the Russian and German Governments .

      The Ottoman Porte was scarcely any longer an active participator in the war , in a third campaign it must have been trampled down by the belligerent powers ; bankrupt , and helpless , its defensive resources were exhausted ; it gains from Peace only the leisure of decay , while the Christian population , whether or not the reforms are loyally developed , must gradually take possession of the Government , as they have long taken possession of the trade and industry of the empire .

      As to Russia , the necessity of dissolvirig the active alliance of France and England—a policy illustrated by her treatment of French and English prisoners combined with the loss of three hundred thousand men , a thousand guns , a fleet , the entire maritime commerce of her southern territories , and her carrying trade everywhere , of Sebastopol , Anapa , Kertch , Kinburn , the Circassian forts , Bomaxsund , and the arsenals of Sweaborg , compelled her to accept the Austrian plan of pacification . Her entire revenues do not amount to a fifth of the

      united revenues of France and England . Her last loan , insignificant as it was in amount , was a failure ; she found it impossible to secure one active ally . Her only success in Asia would have entailed enormous exertion during the ensuing summer . She had but one alternative , which was between peace and ruin . But it was never the policy of the Allies to attempt the ruin of the Russian Empire—a bugbear to

      the European nations , but not to the governments . Rocovering from the effects of this prodigal conflict , prohibited from attacks on the territorial possessions of tho Turkish empire , Russia may enlarge her commerce , improve her industry , increase her diplomatic influence , establish a political connection with the French empire . She has lost by the war ; but the war has ceased in time to provenfc her loss being irreparable .

      Not being in possession of the Treaty it would bo useless to discuss tho details of the actual poaoo . But of this wo may bo oortain , it is a check on Russian , aggression - it guarantees tho territorial independence of Turkey but it loaves Civilisation and Liberty , the ob jects of popular enthusiasm and official bluster to languish as they languished before , or t < rise by a process which will never Ibo counto nanoed by a German Monarchy , by Britisl Aristocracy or French Imperialism .

      Untitled Article

      April 5 , 1856- 1 THE LEADER . 323

      Untitled Article

      SATURDAY , APRIL 5 , 185 G .

      - ¦ - -¦ ¦¦ ¦¦ .. *I\ Ii' (Tlfl- * * $L)Tiuiix Jutlltou ¦

      % M \ i Mniou

      Untitled Article

      There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed -when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . — De . Arnold .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 5, 1856, page 323, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2135/page/11/