TheAnglo-German despatches have been very carefully edited, but Mr. Layard
has passed over a sentence which will give rise to some discussion. On the 7th of January our Ambassador at St. Peters- burg writes to Earl Russell, reporting a conversation with Prince Gortschakoff. (Page 504.) In that conversation the Prince re- marked, "it was in his opinion most desirable that the action of Austria and Prussia should not be separated from England and Russia in any question of moment ; the four Governments happily now thinking and acting in harmony on a question still more important than that of Holstein and Schleswig ought not on this matter to be split into two camps opposed to one another." What is this question—Turkey, or Poland, or the Rhine? Has our Government really been reinvigorating the Holy Alliance, as the Emperor of the French seems in another despatch to think ? Russia, Austria, Prussia, and England acting in concert—what on earth does it all mean ?
