THE CHARACTER OF THE WAR AND OF THE CONTENDING POWERS. [From the Times, March 6.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 931, 5 July 1854, Page 4

THE CHARACTER OF THE WAR AND OF THE CONTENDING POWERS. [From the Times, March 6.]

We have now before ns in a complete form, not only ilie answer of the Emperor of Russia to the letter of the Emperor Napoleon, but also the manifesto or declaration which the Czar has thought fit to address to his own subjects at tbis crisis. These documents render the position of the Russian Government towards Europe as clear and determined as that of England and France has tacome fince the recent declarations of Her Majesty's Ministers in Parliament and the address of Louis Napoleon to the Legislative body of his empire. These documents serve also to render the contrast we have already pointed out between | the language of Russia and that of France still I more palpable and striking. The merit of.the French Emperor's speech is that it is throughout straightforward, accurate, and true ; there is no attempt to disguise qae part of the case or to disavow another part; it demonstrates to the capacity of any peasant in France that the most civilized nations of Europe are reluctantly drawn into war with the Russian empire because great acts of aggression and violence have been committed, because the public laws of the world have been broken, and because the general and particular interests of every nation command resistance to such a course of action. The Russian manifesto, on the contrary, assigns no definite ground of war, and gives no definite object to these hostilities. It adverts to what are termed " the treacherous instigations" addressed to Turkey, as if they, and not the unjust demands of Russia, followed by the seizure of the Principalities, were the cause of the quarrel. It insists on former treaties, but it does not attempt to allege any specific violation of them. It declares lastly, that the eniry of the combined fleets into the Black Sea, for the purpose of protecting the Turks and impeding the navigation of that sea by Russian vessels of war, is an unheard-of proceeding among civilized nations. But, instead of resenting such an interference in the manner which might be expected from the head of a great empire, the Emperor Nicholas informs his subjects upon this point that he " has broken off all political intercourse with the Allied Powers." Such would not have been his language if a real wrong had been inflicted upon him, and if he were not conscious that his own forcible seizure of the Principalities more than justifies the measures of retaliation that are directed against him. In short the true causes of the war are in this Russian document either mis-stated or kept out of sight, and a false issue is raised by the suggestion that the frontiers of Russia and the .Christian religion are attacked by England and France, while Russia herself is preparing to contend for the defence of her territories and of the orthodox faith. The letter addressed by the Czar to the Emperor of the French enters still more minutely into these details : it evades every real point in the case, and endeavours to press into the service of Russian diplomacy several of the arguments which had previously bepn demolished by official proof. Here, too, we find an allusion to some " fatal influence," which, like the " treacherous instigations" of the manifesto, is, no doubt, an expression intended to reflect on the conduct of the Biitish Ambassador at Constantinople, because Lord Stratford de Redcliffe stood, with a foresight and a courage which it is impossible to rate too highly, between the aggressor and his victims. These calumnies have already been victoriously disproved upon positive evidence, in the Parliamentary papers now before tbis country

and before Europe ; but, when Russia speaks of the " fatal influence" which opposed and defeated such of her demands as were unjust, she forgets that she owed to Lord Stratford the settlement of the affair of th<* Holy Places, and that in the earlier stage of the negotiation. Prince Menschi^off himself wrote to the British Ambassador to thank him for the assistance given to the claims of Russia on this part of the dispute. But we are told that if the Porte had been left to itself this difference would have soon been settled. Between Russia and Turkey, it is not improbable that intimidation and corruption might at last have obtained that species of settlement which consists in submission, not only to these demands, but to any demands made by so strong a Power on one so little capable of effectual resistance. Bitit is due to the Ministers of the Porte to remember that not one of them hesitated is to the imperative duty of making the best resistance they could to such pretensions, and war was declared by the unanimous advice of the dignitaries of the empire, though in direct opposition to the advice of the maritime Powers. The Russian Government thinks fit to rep3at the assertion that the occupation of the Principalities had been " preceded, and in great part brought about, by an important previous occurrence — the arrival of the combined fleets in the neighbourhood of the Dardanelles." Lord Clarendon, however, has demonstrated, in his despatch of the lGth July, 1853, that the instructions empowering Lord Stratford to send for the fleet were not despatched from London till the Ist of June, and could not be known in St. Petersburg before the 7th or Bih of that month ; whereas the resolution of the Russian Cabinet to proceed to the occupation of the Principalities bad been taken on the 31st of May. It is therefore false to state that our movement preceded that oF Russia, and physically impossible that the occupation of the Piincipalities should have been brought about by an event that had not yet taken place, and was not even announced. Just as the Russians had attempted to represent the arrival of the fleets in Besika Bay as an equivalent to the occupation of the Principalities, and to establish a parallel between these two events, which was justly and vehemently denied by the English and French Government, so they now attempt to assimilate the entry of the fleets into the Bosphorus with the attack on Sinope — that is to say, they place on the same footing a perfectly legal measure of defensive precaution, not amounting even to hostility, with one of the most atrocious acts of modern warfare ; and they even taunt the French Government with not having declared war before that event had takeu place. The resolution of the two Powers to prevent the Russian fleets from cruising in the Black Sea was an appropiiate punishment on Russid for the outrage ; and it has been so entirely successful that we believe since it was taken our ships have not had the fortune to meet with a single Russian man-of-war out of harbour. The Emperor of Russia carefully abstains in both these productions from any language amounting to a declaration of war, yet he says that in the position h which he is placed he cannot di.scu.ss or even examine for a moment the conditions offered to him. How, then, docs In* suppose that Turkey was to discuss and examine the conditions offered to her, when they were backed by threats and by an act of invasion far more direct anil incompatible with her dignity as a Sovereign Sate ? The Power which sent Prince Menschikoff to Constantinople and Count Orloff to Vienna has no right to complain of any want of respect to the dignity of great empires or their Ministers. Yet, even on the very threshold of war, all thai the united interests and remonstrances of Europe have obtained from the Autocrat is summed up in the haughty phrases that conclude his letter; — "My conditions are known at Vienna. They are the only basis which I can permit myself to discuss." The purport of these documents is, therefore, a flimsy attempt to give effect to one or two arguments long since exploded in the judgment of all Europe — an affected disinclination to declare war, inasmuch as to this hour no lawful cause of war can be produced by Russia, — but at bottom a complete determination to yield nothing and to fight out this quarrel. It still remains for us to notice the last and most offensive portion of this manifesto, which is designed to give to the war the character of a religious contest, to throw on England and France the odium of supporting the enemies of Christianity, and to claim for Russia the protection of the Almighty against the enemies of His faith. When we call to mind what a. tifices, what passions, what arts of dissimulation and fraud, what acts of croehy and violence this cry of mingled ferocity and fanaticism is intended to cover, we recoil with disgust from the savage and blasphemous hypocrisy which invokes the blessing of Heaven on such crimes. The deeds of men bent on mutual destruction and animated with the fury of war have indeed small claim on the forgiveness Gf a higher power, unless they are devoted to the noble cause of duty and justice. But when the Emperor of Russia presumes to identify the cause of Christianity with the duplicity of his envoys or the carnage of his fleets — when he attempts to throw on the most civilized and Christian States of Europe the imputation that they are fighting against what he terms the Orthodox faith — we indignantly repel the charge. He has no more right to insult his illustrious adversaries by so ridiculous an accusation than he has to arrogate to himself the exclusive dignity of a champion of the faith. Our influence in the East, which we are prepared to defend by arms, must eventually extend to the Christian populations a more independent condition and the fellowship of Europe ; his power has already degraded every province it has touched to the superstition of Asiatics and the condition of slaves. While we are seeking to raise the Turkish Government to the spirit of European toleration, Russia summons her hordes with a war cry of Oriental fanaticism ; and if this struggle is made by Russia to assume the dreadful character of a religious war against Turkey, it acquires a totally different aspect when the real antagonists of Russia are the leading Christian Powers of Europe, contending not certaiuly for Mabomedanism — but for the" rights and independence of the world.