TOPICS OF THE DAY.
CAUSES AND OBJECTS OF THE WAR.
Ma. Disitartr took advantage of that which is a natural and laudable desire on the part of the public, to understand why it is going to war, and what is the object of the war ; and he under- took to examine the official papers, and to catechize Ministers, for the purpose of enabling the English public to understand the "causes and objects" of the contest. If he had performed that duty in good faith, he would have done a public service ; but he still left it a desideratum. His purpose, indeed, was different—it was to damage Ministers ; and for this purpose he worried texts of the blue-books in order to vamp up an absurd libellous insinua- tion that Ministerial vacillation was the cause of the war, by en- couraging Russia to aggressive encroachments, and that the object of the war probably was to cover a real complicity in the designs of Russia. Mr. Disraeli never introduced into his romances any plot so wild,—deference for the publisher would have absolutely precluded him from such madness. The publishers, however, are not, in this respect, more sagacious than the public. The cause of the present war, and the origin of the quarrel, are distinct things. The quarrel began, as we have already said, with the French squabble about the Holy Places; but the cause, the only cause, the well-understood cause why England and France take up arms to resist Russia, is the arbitrary and lawless per- severance of that power in asserting rights over an independent empire and treating that empire as if it were her own. A clear conception of the cause of the war involves a conception also of its object. Admit that Russia has a right, by the mere virtue of superior strength, to do what she likes, not with her own, but with another's, and you at once abrogate the law under which Europe has been preserved in peace, and throw open the supremacy of the Continent to the competition of the strongest : in other words, it is a licence to chronic warfare and the dominion of imperial brigandage. Russia is the only power which has dared to act openly upon such principles, and the object of the war is to put down the attempt.
As to the result of the war ? It follows from the causes and objects of the contest that a mere restitution of the status quo would not be a sufficient result. To go back to the old treaties which Russia was offered if she would have accepted the offer peaceably, would be a reductio ad absurdum of all the exertions that England and France are called upon to make. Something more is required for equity. If Russia desired to preserve the treaties, she might have done so on the easy terms of conceding peace : but she refused, and common justice would retaliate the refusal. If she would not when she might, she shall not when she would. If she has forced other states to the expense and trou- ble of war, she must surrender something to compensate them for the cost which she has thrust upon them. What the English peo- ple have to pay for the war, is really so much robbed out of the pockets of the English taxpayer by the wanton pride and gam- bling rapacity of the Czar, and he ought to be made to pay it back in some way or other.
He ought the more because he can be made. The absolute opening of the Black Sea and the Baltic, with the abolition of ar- bitrary restrictions upon the passage of ships, would be such a gain to England as might compensate her for the investment of money in the munitions of war ; and it may be said that on a broad con- struction of English interests, England will be compensated by any result of the contest which shall secure the peace and freedom of other states. For at this day it is the operation of absolute government, by its arbitrary restrictions and its suppression of free opinion, that keeps up restraint upon commerce and profitable intercourse between nations. Let other states be freer and more prosperous, and England would share the benefit. But besides justice, besides probable gain to mankind as well as to England, there is another very specific and necessary reason for not returning to the status quo. The object of English Ministers in using their exertion to continue the peace, and to avoid the commer‘Lis.....was to prevent the disturbance which must ensue to states, in permitting an ontinCniust ensue to the stability of attempt at wholesale spoliation and do-miniolf,iining war. In the if not the letter of any specific treaty, the virtue of the e; tern of treaties ; she has shown, therefore, that the system was not sufficient for its purpose, or if it was sufficient to keep other er states in mutual control, that it was not sufficient to restrain her Either the restraints must be strengthened, or the power which is so pre- sumptuous must be lowered. The status quo was a condition of affairs which permitted her to acquire that power and to indulge that criminal presumption, and to return urn to the status quo would be to renew her licence and to render the whole effort vain. Whatever, therefore, be the specific results of the struggle, it is evident that England and France cannot but exert themselves to procure arrangements more conducive to the happiness and tran- quillity of Europe than those which Russia has invalidated by breaking them.
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