ENGLISH PUBLIC OPINION ON THE WAR.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 4, 27 October 1877, Page 2

ENGLISH PUBLIC OPINION ON THE WAR.

TIIE London " Spectator," after remarking, on the position of Germany, that it was reasonable to believe that Prince BUmarck was rather glad than otherwise to see Russia involved in a war that must cripple her resources, and that he might be still more gratified to see England drawn into the same mess, continues :—" So far,' we admit that the alarmists have some case, but what we cannot see is their resulting proposition that Russia is playing a great secret game, and that England can only be made safe bv lighting, or, at all events, by threatening to tight Russia. Setting apart the irresistible evidence that the Russian Emperor was forced into war against his own will, and in spite of Ins own determination, what conceivable interest can Russia have in realising Pi'ince Bismarck's supposed designs! How will it strengthen Russia that he should invade France, or gain by any means whatever controlling authority in Holland ? Or rather, to put the difficulty still more plainly, what conceivable acquisition could compensate Russia for any serious aggrandisement of Germany, whether through the extinction of France, or the acquisition of maritime provinces on the Atlantic >. It certainly is not an Asiatic gain. Not to talk alniut America, all Western Asia laid at her feet would not compensate Russia for the creation of a danger at her gates so imminent and so immense. All Western Asia could not protect Moscow, and Moscow would be more nearly in the grip of the Hohenzollerns, so strengthened, than Paris or Vienna is now. The Turkish Peninsula might be a bribe that would stagger far-sighted politicans, but Bismarck cannot give what all Germans would refuse; and even the " Pall Mall Gazette." with all its belief in the Sceptre in a spike-helmet, acknowle lges that tin; valley of the Danube will never be surrendered to the Northern Slavs. What bribe then, can have so tempted Russia, that in order to help Prince Bismarck's far-reaching plans, she should have elaborated a scheme for tempting the Turks to commit atrocities which, but for the presence of an American diplomatist in Constantinople, an American perhaps of all human beings the least likely to be in Russian pay, would never have impressed Europe at all ' We wish to write temperately, for the matter is far too grave for rhetoric, but surely this suggestion can arise only from a very frenzy of suspicion worthy only of a French Radical, or of some Foreign Committeeman in an English Northern town. And then, whether Russia is Machiavellian or not—and we take it she is very like other Powers, permanently devoted to herown interests' but liable to gusts of better emotion—how in the world is the plot to bo embarrassed by Lord Beaconsfield's " policy," or any policy which involves a needless war between Great Britain and Russia ? Surely if the suspicion about Prince Bismarck is correct, if he really is subtle as a Jesuit and unscrupulous as a Turkish Pasha, if he is preparing to extinguish France, or absorb Holland, or recognise P. Kruger as Sovereign' of South Africa, or fling any other grenade into the British magazine, the true policy of this country is not to embarrass itself with a second Power, but to keep ourselves strong and ready, to cultivate alliance with France—terribly worried by a fear that we shall fight Russia, her future ally—to possess our souls in calmness, and to keep our powder dry. The " London Times," commenting on the correspondence between Earl Derby, and the Russian Prime Minister, says: ". Tno eff( -' ct of the correspondence is likely to be altogether beneficial. It removes occasions of misunderstanding. It shewsjwhatjare our point* of difference, and enables us to measure their importance. Frankness has been met by frankness, and the result is a conviction that the war, for winch we may hope the speediest termination, ought not to endanger the good relations between England and Russia."

' In another article on the attitude of Austria, the " Times " says : " The Austrian Government has sufficient confidence in its own strength ,*and in the Russian assurances to watch the progress of the war with calmness, all the more so as the conviction of the Government is that the Turkish rule in the neighbouring Provinces is a perpetual element of disquiet and danger."