The Emperor of Austria has this week paid a visit
to the Czar, the first since the " sublime ingratitude " of 1854, when Austria turned against Russia in the Crimean war. It is affirmed on all hands that the fate of Turkey was the question under discussion, and that the renewal of amity may be the signal for the. re- opening of the Eastern question. It may be, but as we have endeavoured to show elsewhere, it is much more probable that it is not. No conceivable arrangement can make the interests of Russia and Austria harmonise in the East, even though the Ailge- ;mine Zeitung does declare that " the safety of Turkey is no dogma of the German Empire." The valley of the Danube is as essential to Austria as the valley of the Mississippi to the United States, and the Czar cannot, in the face of England, pledge himself to - the water-route across the Black Sea. As for the third alterna- tive—conquest to the South of the Black Sea—the attempt would take years, and must be preceded by the reduction of Persia to a state of vassalage. That preliminary step is not accomplished yet. Every Czar must want Constantinople, but only one Power can give it him, and that one is not seated on the Danube. The Emperor. Nicholas understood that well enough, and said so to the British Ambassador, when he offered Egypt and Candia as equivalents.
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