relieved from Redschid Pasha's base admission of signing the conjoint note. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe has sent home his resignation! If it does not seize the moment, then under the most favourable contingency that can be imagined, comes down upon it the Tooth-money. Compensation will be demanded; the policy of the golden bridge will be approved; to the old escheat will be added the new mortgage; the general will disappear; the bailiff will take his place; the Provinces of the Danube will come under the auctioneer's hammer; they are- -"going-going :" they will be-“ GONE.” The Hammer will have come out of the Truncheon; the Truncheon has been fashioned from the Keys of the Holy Sepulchre. With those Keys will have been opened the gates of the Sound and the portals of the Dardanelles; with those Keys will have been broken the Saxon Trident and the Gallic Sword. "Now let us sing, long live the king, And when he next doth ride abroad, HOW TO KEEP THE PEACE. September 17th. "The people! that blind Colossus without discernment, who begin by making a great noise, and heavy movements, and who threaten at first to devour everything, finally stumble over a straw." -Schiller. Chalmers held that the most powerful figure of rhetoric was repetition. It is a figure, however, which requires on the one hand a definite proposition, and on the other an earnest mind; it is needless to repeat what is not clear, and no one will go on repeating what he has not very much at heart. But what shall we say to a process of repetition, continued day after day, with a solitary and unwilling exception of the seventh, not of a proposition, but of a string of contradictions, uncalled for by any ostensible motive of the rhetorician? The Times of yesterday says-" Russia has violated public law and infringed special treaties, by marching bodies of troops, &c." This has been said very often; the fact is known, and therefore, has no need to be repeated, unless as exhibiting to the nation their shame, and to the Government its infamy. But the Times is the advocate of the policy of the Government-commends the " ability" which has conducted the "negotiations"-asserts they have entirely "succeeded" is proud of the high spirit shown by the people, and is confident that the demonstrations of our well-equipped men-of-war have had the most startling effect upon foreign governments. But having said all this about "public law" and "public treaties," it also says, "The Porte has impeded a settlement otherwise at hand, and has thus endangered, as we think, unnecessarily, the peace of Europe." If we had nothing but this single fact, any observant man would conclude that there is here an underhand purpose; that the purpose is not that of any British faction, nor of any English Government, except in so far as it may have been suborned; in fact, that this journal is working for Russia, and that, consequently, it is preparing the public mind in England for the next turn which she is about to give to events. Every line therefore which it writes must be considered of importanceindeed of the very highest importance, as, on the one side, exhibiting the process employed for deception, and on the other, the direction of future events. The present position is this. The Vienna Conference forwarded to St. Petersburg a note, modified or corrected, it matters not how, but which they approved of as a settlement of the question, instructing" their own representatives," said the Times, to enforce it on the Russian Government. That Government has refused: consequently, the Porte is relieved from its concession, and at the same time the "authority" of the arbitrators is disputed, and their "award" rejected, and at this moment the organ of the British Government tells us that it is the conduct of the Porte that has impeded a settlement and has endangered the peace of Europe." Now let as look to the practical state of things. A Russian army was marched into Turkey. It was suffered to do so unopposed, because the Turks were influenced by the advice of the English Ambassador. The Times itself says, yesterday, "It has even allowed its own provinces to be invaded without resistance, in deference to the advice of the mediating Powers." Supposing that these Powers chose to overlook the character of the act, and their own position in reference to it, there were the consequences to be considered; not a day, nor an hour, nor a minute, could have been lost; no pretext for gaining time could have been admitted. Supposing a bona fide negotiation, on the mere basis of consequences, could they have allowed hour after hour, week after week, month after month, to roll by? Every pretext, any pretext has been good enough; the most frivolous seem to have been purposely and carefully selected. In the meantime Russia puts every hour to profit by advancing more men, by concentrating towards the frontier her disposable resources; extending herself over an advanced line from the neighbourhood of Widdin to Ibrail, forming a segment of no less range than six degrees of longitude, the centre of which is no less than four degrees in advance of her own territories-four degrees of latitude into the territories of the Ottoman Empire. The space thus covered exceeds the area of Ireland. Throughout it she has selected the available points to occupy and to fortify. She has been accumulating stores, preparing pontoons, introducing small vessels of war into the waters, consuming the food of the people, and the stored harvests prepared for exportation; and, finally, the last intelligence brings us an order of the day of the Commander-in-Chief, calculated to arouse the most frantic spirit of fanaticism amongst the Russian troops and their co-religionaries, subjects of the Porte. She has completed all these preparations without the slightest hinderance on the part of the Turks, they being restrained by the mediating Powers, not only from attacking the Russians, but from occupying their own territory even when not occupied by the Russians. As far therefore as Russia is concerned, the Conference has taken her by the hand and led her on, placed its shield before her, and enabled her under its cover to accumulate and to fortify an enormous army in the centre of her neighbour's empire. Now let us see as to Turkey. The Conference interposed upon the plea that Russia was so powerful, and Turkey so weak, that without their interposition, the latter would be overrun and subdued by the former; they believed (we will suppose they did believe) that "All the merchants of Ibrail and Galatz (capitals of Moldavia and Wallachia) are ruined. In consequence of the news from England, in the early spring, they had bought vast quantities of the standing crops in the interior. Since there are no vessels to ship off the corn, which is daily arriving, and no granaries in which to deposit it, immense heaps are lying in the streets, uncovered and wasting."-Times, Sept. 15th. the Christian subjects of the Porte were ready to rise on the appearance of the Russians; that the Turkish Treasury was destitute of resources; that the Turkish army was weak and inefficient; and that there was no national spirit capable of being aroused by an invasion. Day by day, these illusions are dispelled in proportion as Russia strengthens herself in the provinces, Turkey strengthens herself at home. The accumulation of the defensive force proceeds more than pari passu with that of the aggressive; the elements and the spirit of war develope themselves at least in an equal degree in the one country as in the other, so that the effect of the interposition of the Powers in restraining Turkey, is parallel to that on the other side, in shielding Russia. The point to which the war-spirit has been raised in Turkey may be inferred from the telegraphic announcements in the London papers of yesterday; that, for instance, of the Post is as follows: "SMYRNA, Aug. 27th.-Almost all the troops coming from Asia, pass this place, and display the greatest enthusiasm. The Sultan would lose his life if he were to accept dishonourable conditions." That of the Times is still more significant; it is this :— "Large bodies of troops (Russian) are being concentrated on the Moldavian frontier. This fact is not considered as alarming, since Turkey continues her armaments, and since the Ottoman army on the Danube is superior, in point of numbers, to the Russian army in the Principalities.' Thus, then, has the action of the Conference resulted in preparing the elements of a terrible war, whether by compromising Russia into a position from which she cannot recede, or evoking in Turkey a passion which its Government will no longer be able to restrain; the pretext having been the weakness of Turkey, and the effect having been the strengthening of Russia. There is, however, another alternative. The passion of Turkey may be diverted from Russia to its own Government. Its troops, instead of crossing the Danube, and driving out the Russians, may be marched on Constantinople, to dethrone the Sultan. This is the service which is now required from the deference of the Conference. The Times explicitly stated it on the 1st of this month, when it said, the interests of peace, and in the real interests of Turkey, it is as important to prevent the Sultan from making war "In on Russia as it was to prevent Russia from making war on the Sultan." Now, the Conference did not prevent the Russians from making war on the Sultan, and as they have commenced the war, it is not the Sultan that would make it in any case. The Conference has hitherto, by peaceably practising on the Sultan, prevented him from defending himself; the proposal, therefore, is no less than the use of coercive measures, to obtain, despite of the rising spirit of the nation, the prolongation of that exasperating submission. The Times of yesterday continues, at the interval of a fortnight, and in the very paper in which it publishes the above-quoted telegraphic despatch, to enforce the same view, and undisguisedly as the organ of the British Government. It says,the Four Powers are ready to take these points into immediate consideration; and if they guarantee the evacuation of the Turkish territory, and provide for its immunity in time to come, we think that no friend of the Ottoman Empire could advise the rejection of such terms." It further says," It may be perfectly true that, according to the strict law of justice, Russia ought to give some compensation for aggressions committed. This, however, was not the decision of those four Powers.' Here we have a change in the views of the English Government. They are now ready to take into "immediate consideration," they are thinking of guaranteeing the evacuation, and providing for future immunity: but they will not go to the length of compensation-that is to say, they will come to what the French call a 66 transaction" by which the Russians shall retire, and the Porte shall be held to the payment of the expenses of the war. This is precisely what we said yesterday-it is the auctioneer's hammer; for if Russia is not to pay an immunity, of course the Porte must. But, we would ask, what guarantee there is for immunity, unless Russia is made to pay damages? and if Turkey has to pay the damages, what means the guarantee of evacuation? But what value can attach to any treaty, seeing that the "transaction" will arise out of the violation of the last treaty, and this "transaction" is only to be obtained by the Porte's signature being appended to a note which gives Russia the right of interference between 12,000,000 of the subjects of the Porte, and every local tribunal throughout the Empire. For such, if not in the terms, lurks in the effects, of the proposed arrangement. It |