BRITISH JEALOUSY OF RUSSIA.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2518, 31 January 1877, Page 3

BRITISH JEALOUSY OF RUSSIA.

With equal unreason, and equal reliance on the power of his eloquence to conceal the falsehood of his history and the weakness of his logic, Mr Bright: speaks of the present situation, lie ridicules the idea that we should close the Dardanelles against Hussian fleets while endeavoring to open the Suez canal, to our own. In the first place, it is notorious that the Eussian Government has no business outside the Dardanelles except for purposes of aggression and menpec, and that the interest of England distinctly lies in maintaining a rule some centuries old, which binds the Sultan to forbid the passage of Eussian ships of war into the Levant. The element of distance comes in here, though in quite a different way from that in which Mr Bright so perversely used it. It would be perilous in the last degree to English power and to the safety of Asia Minor, and even to Egypt, if a great fleet could at any moment sail from Sebastopol to the coast of Syria or the entrance of the Suez canal, while wo could only reinforce our squadron from Portsmouth. In that case Eussia would be practically the supreme power in the East, would hold the key of our naval as well as of our land road to India, and would be so formidable that there could no longer remain any equal balance of power and interests in Europe, ami that we ourselves could feel no security in India till we had fought, at every disadvantage, a successful war with Eussia and driven her. back to the point which "she now occupies. Moreover, Russia herself has always insisted on closing the Euxine to our war ships, and we doubt whether even now she would be willing to open the Dardanelles reciprocally to the ships of all Powers. If she were to do so, it would be with the Intention of seizing very speedily some point on the Bosphorus from which she could absolutely close the passage by main force against the most powerful navies of tho world. The Suez Canal is our road to our own possessions : the Dardanelles are Bussia's road to the territories of others.—Standard.