26 AUGUST 1949, Page 9

"gilt Evertatur" August 25th, 1849 HUNGARY succumbs to Russia. The

tzar is at an end ; and, for the moment, a thorough frustration appears to have finished the revolutionary movement of 1848. Reaction, more or less pronounced, is everywhere in the ascendant—in Rome, Paris, Prussia, Hungary ; in every quarter. But the nature, objects and prospects of the reaction, are not clearly to be descried. We only know that they vary in every quarter.

Meanwhile, the Peace Society has assembled in convention at Paris, to preach the efficacy of moral resistance and the virtue of arbitration. Good things, which have been advocated long, especially since the Christian dispensation, as yet so little obeyed, which enjoined men to think less of Judaic forms, and to "love one another." The command- ment to do no murder is still defied, both on a small and on a large scale ; and we still require the police to defend us, both on a small and on a large scale. M. Victor Hugo's able but rhetorical sermon [at the opening of the Peace Society meeting] is only a few pages added to whole libraries of such literature. The acutest of the pacificators, like Mr. Cobden and the Archbishop of Paris, only give a qualified adhesion. If, however, the Peace Society has some new and substantive doctrine, some influence by which it can supersede the use of war, let it be tried on the spot: let the Society ask France, into whose capital she is so politely welcomed, to withdraw the most gratuitous and vain of all warlike expeditions, that to Rome ; let it ask Russia and Austria to waive their victory over the Hungarians ; let it ask Russia to forego an outpost on the Mediterranean. needless if (mace and arbitration arc to rule the world.