"A regular subscriber for five years" sends to us, from
Manchester, an extract from the reported speech of Mr. Milner Gibson at the soiree on Friday last, in which that dilettante statesman, casting about for points to 'adorn his oration, thinks it necessary to attack the Spectator as "a war journal." The point consists in contrasting our present opposition to the designs of Russia upon Turkey, with an opinion expressed in our journal in 1835 that Russia would possess herself of Constantinople and the Turkish empire, and that it would only be the exchange of adminis- tration by a nation more civilized for one less civilized. We certainly entertain a different opinion now. Recently, the Turkish Government has shown a capacity for appreciating civilization, commercial and po- litical, far superior to that of Russia. We do not pretend that twenty years can be added to our experience of the world without modifying our opinions. It has been our business within the last two years to re- mark the extent to which we had all been deceived in regard to Russia and her professions : the present year has added immensely to the evidence of that deception. We confess to having been duped along with the British Government and the British nation. Mr. Miner Gibson, however, seems to consider that the lapse of twenty years can add no- thing to observation or understanding. It may be so in his case. If we remember rightly, indeed, he showed a considerable change of Opinion when he passed from the Tory side of the House of Commons to the Li- beral side. It did not take him twenty years to accomplish that transfer ; but, even without the incentive of a Parliamentary seat, it may be pos- sible within the longer period to see a subject from another point of view. Mr. Gibson thinks that war is in no danger save from the advances of "free opinions and free institutions." We cannot say that we see the
slightest progress which those influences have Made in Russia. They have not even broken bulk. Mr. Gibson, however, being independent of time, is probably independent of space, and views Russia and her future entirely from the Reform Club point of view. Now Pall Mall is not St. Petersburg ; and the right conduct of affairs in our day is not to be gathered from the journals of 1836.
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