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    GBEAT BBITAIN GOING TO WAR . TJmjbss the omens are mistaken , the year 1854 is to wiiness the' commencement of a great European w * r in which Britain must take a leading part . Eonr-fifths of the effective populatioif of Great Britain have been , expecting this' issue for some time past , and have even been desiring it . Of the remaining one ~ nfth a large ¦ portion have been compelled ' within the last week or two to give in . Theyhave had a Cabinet after their own hearts , a Ga ^ inet acting to the very uttermost on their principles , a Cabinet certified as excellent in this pfet a £ i its policy by Messrs . Bright and Cobden themselves ; and yet this Cabinet has at last given

    aptlie'hope of a pacific solution , and sent forth ^ jp ^ itirclers among our military and naval estab ^ Timen ^ . ^ Those of the middle and commercial cjbasse ^ therefore , who have relieji ' on this Cabinet as a Gk > vernment anxious to carry but the policy agreeable to them , and save Great Britain from the necessity of going to war , must by this time se ^ ethat ^ ere is no course left but that which they hA ^^ rj ^ : so lon ^ to ; avoid- Where in . Great Britiuh ^ will- ^ i political party be found bold enough to say ^ thtftil" could work the Peace-principle in © ie present Eastern question further than it h ^ been already worked by the Ministry of

    gunpowder , of all that portion of the very contents of our globe , human beings and their buildings included , which is charged with the element of hostility and injury . A great political power called Russia , so far behind all similar powers on the earth as to be accounted "barbarous , has lon g been extending its influence "beyond its original limits , and is now proposing to take under its stewardship the most .. important parts of Eastern Europe and Western Asia , with an ulterior view to dominion in "Western Europe and in India ; this power has been reasoned with , lectured , and

    treated didactically with no effect ; and now there remains nothing else than , either to allow it all the extent of geographical stewardship it wants , or , if we regard that as an evil , to walk up to the power , seize it by sheer force , and inflict on it such a mutilation as willcure it for ever both of the desire and of the faculty of this detestable stewardship . The process may cost us millions , but it must be undertaken and carried to a conclusion . And what may reconcile us to the war thus Tendered necessary is that , according to the most severe mode of judgment , it is strictly a defensive war . It is a war of the West in

    defence of her civilisation . It is a war of Great Britain in defence of her ^ ornmerce , her colonies , her liberties * her moral greatness , and the very sustenance of her inhabitants . The fact that we are thus , as a nation , pledged and committed to war , entails on us certain duties , and a certain style of behaviour . 1 . We must place and keep ourselves in the war attitude . The nation must t > e unanimous . Men

    volves the liberation of Hungary , the liberation of Italy , the erection of new Slavonian nationalities , and an entire re-arrangement of Europe , on a basis which will render all future wars unnecessary , and this war the last . War on any other terms will be a bad bargain . If the war on which we are now entering is to end in another treaty of Vienna , like the one of 1815 , we are fools for beginning it ; and all the money we may expend upon it will be money thrown into the sea . But , if Great Britain shall thus plainly recognise the nature and bearing of the war to which she is now committe'd , are not certain things immediately necessary , in order that the war may be carried on well , and as she wishes ? There are .

    In the first place , we cannot go . to war with any security with an Aberdeen Ministry for our Agency . Our present Cabinet must be reconstructed : and Lord Aberdeen , at least , must be turned out of it . A Cabinet , with that man in it , at the present time , would bring Britain to ruin . Even a Palmerstonian Cabinet will give us cause enough for alarrn ^ 4 » dri 3 rit ^ faism . But with such a CabinW = wa « Hn | pjt possibly get on , if one other thing were made imperative—a change in our

    system of secret di p lomacy . If this war is carried on diplomatically , we are undone . We shall have another Vienna treaty , as sure as fate . If we are to have a war , let it be a war in which the British People shall know every step , and conclude their own peace . For some activity towards this end , the country necessarily looks to the Parliament which is to assemble on the last day-of the present month . It will be one of the most notable sessions of Parliament that Great Britain has yet seen .

    and parties must cease to ride their separate . hob ' - bies—their peace-movements , their ballot-movements , and what not :, or , at least , must ride them gently . There must be but one cry , one thought in the nation—resistance to Russia . There must be no financial stinginess , but a perfect generosity in all matters of ships , and regiments , and gunpowder . We must cultivate the war-spirit by talking of Nelson and Wellington , and singing and humming all our old national songs . t > ui newspapers must reform their rhetoric . There

    must be no more talk about the horrors of warthe burning villages , $ he destroyed warehouses , the writhing corpses on battle-fields , the increased amount of widowhood , and orphanage , and matters of that kind . We know all that infinitely well already , and we have deliberately passed the boundary within which such , descriptions are opportune and proper . It is -hypocrisy any longer to speak of peace as a blessing . Now is the time to sound—the trumpets ; we will sing the dirges 2 . With all this enthusiasm ^ we must know clearly what weare about , and be prepared to carry on the war thordWahlv end intelliaenthi . In ntJiPT -worrls

    it must become a distinct notion in the universal mind of Great Britain that the object of this war is to cripple Russia ; and that the only natural termination of the war is the thorough accomplishment of that object . We cannot desist from this war on any mere treaty of status quo , or evacuation of the Principalities ; or throwing open of the Black Sea ; ' ' abrogation of existing treaties between Russia and Turkey . We must fasten our teeth in the war , and continue it doggedly and grandly , until we have reduced Russia to that condition in which , she shall he at least

    innocuous in the confederacy of nations . What does this mean ? It means , in all probability , the political extinction of the House of Romanoff . It means certainl y the destruction of the system of that House , and the letting iu of light upon , Russia . It means a revolution of Russian society . It means a resuscitation of Poland , an emancipation of Denmark , and a diminution , by several largcslices , of the present dimensions of Russia on the map . All this is involved even in the negative aim of the war—protection from future Russian aggression ; and any cessation of the war short of ihese results will be absolute folly

    and infatuation . Moreover , once engaged in the war , there are certain collateral positive designs which it ought to be made to subserve . Our object should be , not only to extract out of this war the greatest possible amount of humiliation to Russia ( that is , of course , not to the Russian nation , but to the political system of the Czar ) , but also to extract out of it the greatest amount of liberty for the rest of Europe , and of contribution to the oause of progress and civilisation , it can anyhow bo made to yield . And what does this involve ? It involves the dissolution of Austria , that deplorable figment in the European system ] it

    inl * prd Aberdeen ? Why , that Ministry has boiled the Peace ^ principle to rags , and has eveh \ submitted the ' bones of it to Fapin ' s digester—an ms ^ br ^ n ^ nt which will obtain gelatin and make soicgi out . of anything osseous on this side of a fossil-t If the Aberdeen Ministry has concluded for war , it is time for even the followers of the Pea ^ Societies to be singing- Dibdin ' s songs , and practising"in shooting-galleries . v We can conceive but of two classes of persons who ' can consistently hold out any longer for peSace , and lag behind the great mass of the nation now moving forward to the battle against Russia . One is the class of mercantile blockheads

    wh-o know nothing of the whole question now agitating Europe but that war will derange the money-market , and be expensive . These persons are simply to be set aside m the nationat reckoning , as , incapable even of seeing the bearings of the question as one of commercial interest . The other class deserves more respect . It consists of those who push the Peace-principle to its last logical extreme—that is , who maintain that war in any conceivable circumstances is wrong , and that ^ hc necessity of going to war in furtherance of any

    cause , or in defence of any cause , is to be regarded as a revelation to men that that cause is to-be abandoned , and that Providence wills that the other side shall win . This class of persons , hovveyer , constitute at most but about one-tenth per cent , of the entire British ; community ; and it is sufficient to point out , by way of reply to them , that their doctrine amounts to this , that conscientiousness must always be on the losing side . Britain , Deing conscientious , obeys the intimation of Providence , refuses to go to war , and loses ; Russia , being unconscientious , despises the intimation , goes to war , and , by doing so , wins ! If

    it is blackguardism to go to war , only blackguardism will be warlike in behalf of its ends ; and thus the world has no hope except in those grand laws of which we hear so much , whose function it is to outwit blackguardism in the long run , and convert it all into beneficence and moonshine . In point of fa / it , then , the entire nation of Great Britain is deliberately and voluntarily about to go to war . It has made up its mind that mow , after thirty-eight years of general peace , an emergency lias arrived in which it is necessary to have recourse again to the last and most terrible mode of tinman action either for aggressive or for defensive purposes—the annihilation , by steel and

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    WINTER , ITS TRIALS , AND ITS LESSONS . Withe * the last few weeks the state of the country has been totally altered , as much altered in its sensations as in its aspect . The surface has been clothed far and near in white ; the sky has undergone every change , sometimes , a brilliant sun beings reflected from the frozen surface of the earth , as from a mirror of glass , at other times clouds coming over with a moisture like warmth , which melted the ice and snow only to be congealed again in strange cast-iron forms .

    Snowstorms then succeeded ; the quiet of the air has been followed by gusty winds ; the hilly lands exhibited strange patches of bare earth ,, in the midst of a snow-field ; or sometimes the snow drifted until there are heaps many feet deep , disguising the outlines of the country . In , towns , the architecture of the houses is newly picked out with lines of white like fur , or is disguised in masses of snow , according to the caprice of the wind . The

    traveller Jias been blinded b y . the sleet . The rural parts' are more desolate than they have been for months , if not for years , here and there a dead body marking the intense cold . The towns are comparatively deserted by carriages of all kinds . London itself seems to have undergone some event which restores numbers of its population , much reluctant , to forgotten foot traffic . Harsh the isit is not with

    as season , altogether - out its pleasures . As every indication shows , from the quotations in the money market to the larder of the private house , from the Board of Trade returns to the countenance of the schoolboy , the resources of comfort are more abundant than usual . If skating is suspended by the snow-drift , the very labour of removing the frozen and heaped-up rain makes a sport in itself . Except for those to whom the robe of prosperity

    has not extended even its fringe ; who have no comforts , no consolations ; who lack even the ordinary means of meeting cold and hunger . For them , that which is but a sport or a zest to others , is a misery . Assuredly many years have passed since the very poor have felt the sting of hardship and hard weather as they do in these hours . One looks round to know what has been done to provide against that suffering , or what might now be done . .

    Commerce , we are told—the " st imulus of competitive invention , " " supply and demand "—^ irill secure for society all that is needed . We have had many occasions to deny this gross presumption ; but never was the protest offered by tne -whole face of nature so clamorous as it is at the present moment . In order to render industry thoroughly provident and productive , it is necessary that fliere should be some intelligent Concert between those who are carrying on its divided employment . It is the want of that concert that has brought about many of the troubles that now

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    There is nothing so revolutionary " , oecause there is nothing « o unnatural and convulsive , aa the strain jto . Jceep things fixed when all the world is by the very law or its creation in eternal progress . —2 > b . A&zroxD .

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    v - SliiiiKDAY , JANUARY 7 , 1884 .

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    12 THE L EADER . [ Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 7, 1854, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2020/page/12/