NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE preliminaries of Congress make way ; Austria and France have agreed to send to the other Powers, circulars of invi- tation from Vienna and Paris, but not identical in terms. Lord Cowley has been passing two days in England, of course not idly. The object popularly ascribed to him of proposing the mutual disarmament of France and England is only a very far off though coarse approximation to the real purpose of his corning. England- is not armed and cannot disarm, nor can it for a moment be stated that France is armed as against England ; it is simply a matter of course, however, that Lord Cowley, besides being charged to consult her Majesty's Mi- nisters upon several points connected with the relations of the Powers and with the arrangements of Congress, should also be the bearer of friendly explanations and assurances which he would find them fully prepared to receive. Our own readers have perhaps not been so generally misled as many in this country, since they have been kept informed as to the actual position of the Emperor of the French, and have been enabled to estimate at their true limits the degree of antagonistic feeling which had unquestionably been aroused in France. A cheek has been put to this feeling by the caution which the Minister of the Interior, M. Billanit, addressed to the journals of France through the Prefects of the several Departments. The Minister does not scruple to remark that the unfriendly language will have the worse effect where it is employed by journals which usually sup- port the policy of the Imperial Government. It will at once be perceived that the warning thus issued is in strict accord with what we have always supposed to be the actual sentiments of the Emperor.
Whatever may be the actual conditions proposed for the meeting of Congress, and whatever the terms of acceptance on the part of our own Government, of one thing there cannot be the smallest doubt. No meeting of European Governments during the pre- sent century will have been conducted with the same deliberation or the same direct bearing on the part of the British Govern- ment ; the questions at issue are of an extremely practical kind, and we fully expect that the representative of our Ministry in the Congress will be instructed on every occasion to speak the sentiments of the Cabinet itself. On occasions of a similar kind the Plenipotentiaries have acted very much as a Member of Par- liament acts with regard to his constituency; they have con- sidered themselves to possess the confidence of their constituents but at the same time to obtain a commission involving a con- siderable degree of discussion ; they have been in a proportionate degree governed by the course of this debate, perhaps we may say carried away by the debate, and while the counsels of this country have on some occasions been scarcely maintained with the pertinacity which is supposed to be the national characteristic, our principles have been somewhat compromised together with our interests and the interests of those communities with whom we felt the greatest sympathy.
