TOPICS OF THE DAY.
RUSSIA WILLS IT.
IF the slowness of our Government has given military advantages to that of Russia—if it has subjected Ministers to be severely cri- ticized and perhaps unworthily suspected—it has at least secured to us the moral advantage of placing the objects of Russia far be- yond suspicion—has left no room for a lurking doubt that possibly Nicholas was not so bad as he was painted. It is now not matter of inference or argument, but of history and fact, that the first grounds put forward by Russia for her aggression on Turkey were pretences—the Holy Places, the Greek Christians, the key in Beth- lehem, all pretexts. The object is conquest and territorial aggran- dizement. At the beginning of the year that was suspected ; now it is revealed in glaring colours. Russia has confirmed the gravest charges against her, and has confessed by her acts that she intends to take more than Moldavia and Wallachia, more than Turkey, for a family gift—that she intends to take what suits her, and to assume the right of un- settling and redistributing Europe at her will and pleasure. This also was the inference of " Russophobia": it is now the plain act of Russia, in part accomplished. She forces upon the reluctant " Powers " a revision of Europe. Undoubtedly the last adjust-. ment was not of the best. States were wedded that have not been blessed in the union; Governments were created that have not justified their trust, but have used unmeasured earthly power to establish horrible tyrannies and perpetuate intolerable wrong. We knew something of this before,—even before Mr. Gladstone elo- quently denounced a fraction of the wrong ; but there was a reluct- ance to disturb existing rights, or to risk a painful convulsion in at- taining redress. Some powerful states dread revision as they dread destruction ; and if revision now be forced upon them, it clearly is not the fault of England, or of any constitntionel party in Europe : it is due alone to Russia.
The fact, however, being so,—slowly and reluctantly competed to move, it is not to be supposed that England could any longer content herself with the " status ante." No ; Russia cannot, if she would, restore the Principalities unharmed, or the Ottoman empire as it was—cannot restore faith in treaties that have failed to restrain her—cannot make us again believe in the virtue of alli- ances, or in the virtue of any right for a state but thikeiVhich is
supported by its own intelligence and power. Its that we know as much. Some of us doubted; but the illtibiis whole- somely, if painfully, removed. We stand no lonWeel-tlii Old treaties, simply because they will not "bear." The revision, the disturbance, unsought by us, is forced upon us. We must provide our own guard; must take our own securities as we best may for checking the disturber hereafter; and above all, we must do what in us lies, as the work is before us, to profit by the mis- takes of 1815 and of subsequent junctures, and if possible to see that the next settlement be better than the fast.
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