TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE PREMIER'S EXPLANATION.
The impulse which urged Lord Aberdeen to neutralize the warmth and boldness of Lord Lyndhurst's admirable speech last week with an unseasonable temperance and caution has turned out anything but unfortunate. Had he left the matter in Lord Clarendon's hands, the public might still have suspected that he had little syn. pathy with the frank and unreserved avowals of the Foreign Secre- tary, and was employing his influence in the Cabinet rather to bring about an early than a complete and satisfactory solution of Europe's quarrel with Russia. But in repairing the error of the moment, he has not only done away with any such suspicion in candid minds, but has won upon the sympathies of the public by the eagerness he displayed to set himself right, and the evident value he manifested for the good opinion of his countrymen. His explanation, it appears to us, does more than replace him where he was ; it tends to efface a very general feeling, independent of and long antecedent to his unlucky speech, that he was not hearty in his conduct of the war, and would gladly snatch at any occasion of patching up a peace by negotiation, however insecure might be its foundation, however fallacious its guarantees. No one can now doubt that the Prime Minister is as strongly convinced as any man in the country that Russian aggressiveness needs a de- cided check, and that the object of the war in which we are now engaged is and must be to apply the check. Whatever may have been the motives and feelings which made Lord Aberdeen more than almost every other statesman, reluctant to commence the war —and just motives and natural feelings in abundance may be sug- gested—we may now be sure that sympathy with Russian policy or blindness to Russian unscrupulousness had nothing to do with it. To these Lord Aberdeen is as alive—to say the least of it—as any of those orators who are so much louder and more vehement in their Parliamentary language. And we see no reason for sup- posing that he has less skill to discern the proper and practicable means for checking them, or less firmness in resolving to employ the means, than either Lord John Russell or Lord Palmerston himself. And this we are quite sure of, that his tongue does not outrun his sincere convictions, and that he will be ready to act up to any amount of energetic and spirited language he may sign his name to.
Lord Aberdeen's pertinacious disbelief in the possibility of war, his firm refusal to pander by a single word to the popular eager- ness for the struggle with Russia, his known distrust of the soundness of Turkey either as a military or a civil power, his aversion to oratorical exaggerations, his long habits of official reserve, acquired and confirmed by a life entirely devoted to di- plomaey,—all these considerations lend an emphasis to his avowal of Monday last that it could not have borne in the mouth of any other living English statesman. We feel with respect to it, that it stamps authority upon the popular conviction with which it is in harmony, as strongly as if the Duke of Wellington himself had uttered it. We feel that nothing but the most irresistible conviction, resting upon irrefragnble experience could have forced from Lord Aberdeen words so condemnatory of a great foreign power, so decisive as to the duty and interest of England to stop at no sacrifice necessary to successfully re- sist and permanently check that power. They place upon the popular feeling, upon the instinct of the partially in- formed and irresponsible public the seal of experience, of official conviction, of responsible statesmanship; they proclaim that the time has come when the voice of the People is to issue in the acts of its Government; they denote the greatest stride forward of our determinate and deliberate national action in the most impor- tant matter People and Government have had in hand for nearly half a century. i This, then, s the point on which there is no longer any doubt, on which all classes of politicians of any weight in the matter are agreed—that the object of the war is the permanent repression of Russian ambition beyond the borders of Russia. We are no longer tormented with fears that the retirement of the invader is to be ac- cepted as atonement in full for the invasion—that he is to be al- lowed to choose his opportunity more wisely another time. We are no longer apprehensive that our rulers so far misconceive the crisis as to apply temporary remedies. This has been all along oitr principal apprehension, and Lord Aberdeen's speech on Monday night has done more to relieve that apprehension than any words of any other public speaker could have done. Hence- forth the problem of the war is placed beyond cavil or dis- pute. The only thing now remammg is to determine what means are efficacious and practicable to secure that permanent re- pression of Russia which is allowed to be necessary to the security of Turkey and therefore of Europe. We do not see how this is possible without depriving Russia of territory at present in her possession. For, unquestionably, the command of the Black Sea must no longer be hers; and how this is to be wrested from her while Sebastopol stands bristling with a thousand guns it is hard to understand. But our confidence in the military skill of our strategists would lead us to leave such matters with perfect security in their hands. So long as we could feel doubt whether the ultimate objects of those who have the conduct of the war were identical with our own—whether their views of the nature and necessities of the crisis were coextensive with our own—we na- turally felt anxiety about the direction of the military and naval expeditions. That anxiety is now relayed of its moat painful. ale- sent, and we see no more reason to question the ability of our statesmen and commanders to discern the proper points of attack. and the proper means of success, than we question the skill and bravery of those who by land and sea will have to maintain and extend the glory of the British flag by their valour, prudence, and discipline.
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