THE PRESS.
RUSSIAN AGGRANDIZEMENT AND ENGLISH DEBASEMENT. MORNING JOURNAL—The war is to be renewed, and the fate of the Otto- man empire to be decided by the sword. It was won by the sword ; and who knows but the same instrument, in the hands of one class of barbarians, may drive the other class beyond the Bosphorus, and, possibly, at no distant day, force them back upon our possessions in the East Indies. Russia fights for territory—not for cold and irliospiteble lands—not for icy regions—not for hills of snow, but for those fair and sunny fields which lie to the southward of Mount Hiemus. Such a country is worth contending for. It is worth nearly the one half of the Russian empire. It is worth the lives of at least a million of Cossacks, who, poor slaves, will be led on to the slaughter to gratify the ambition of one single, grasping, cold-blooded despot. What are the thousands of human lives in a game like this—where so splendid a summer-garden is the object of contention—where the blue ripples of the Mediterranean wash its shores—where the Levant covered with com- merce is in the foreeround, and the trade of all countries in the distance? This is worth contending for. Let the Danube stn with blood—the prize is worth all its crimson waters. Treachery is a virtue in such a cause as this Let Rutischuk, therefore, be bought as Varna was bought, even though the seller should die as Yusuf Pacha died. Stick at no means, at no edifies, ye high-cooled invaders ! Fight, purchase, bribe, betray—acquire territory at all hazard, and leave the means to be juetified hereafter. But can England be a calm spectator of such a contest ? Can the look silently on, and see a new candidate for the trade of the Levant, who comes front the Baltic, contest with her the rights or navigation and etenmerce ? If we submit to this we are fallen indeed ! * * * We can stir neither hand nor foot. We have been nearly fourteen years at peace, but, instead of having had the address to relieve the pressure of the taxes and public burdens, we have actually increased this pressure by our insane measures. Our statesmen, during the greater portion or this period, have proved themselves utterly unfit to manage a parish vestry, far less so complicated a machine as the system devise.i by Mr. Pitt. We know what they ought to do; but we know that his Majesty's present Ministers dare not attempt what honour, interest, and common justice, dictate. Mr. Peel's bill is a millstone about their necks. Mr. Peel's liberal measures keep their heads miller water. The fundholder is 110W master ; tire free trader tyrannizes over the agriculturist ; the landowner is at the mercy of his mortgagee; the saint at lime rules the planter in the colonies ; our domestic trade has been sacrificed to the cravings of a few overgrown capitalists ; the revenue which we formerly derived from the con- sumption of malt and beer is now derived from the customs on foreign menu.- factures; whole system has undergone au essential and injurious change; we thereore cannot go to war; we cannot contend for ohr ancient rights, for the first shot fired in their vindication would shake to its base our already tottering and sickly finance system. This is the truly lamentable condition to which England has been reduced by her philosophers. We suffer at home— we are defied in the Mediterranean. But we turn our cheek to the smite]: We are preyed upon by all nations. Our manufacturers are starving, yet our warehouses arc hill of foreign goods. We have destroyed the sinking fund ; we have fleeced the holders of super-centum stock; the public revenue is declining; our trade with Portugal is monopolized by the French ; America has excluded us, but we still import her cottons ; and all these acts of dis- honour and outrage are tolerated by Arthur Duke of Wellington :- "All trail, Macbeth I thou shalt be king hereafter I"
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