The Lyttelton Times. Wednesday, February 28,1855.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 243, 28 February 1855, Page 7

The Lyttelton Times.

Wednesday, February 28, 1855.

The newspaper writers of England are beginning to speculate on the features the war will present after the fall of Sebastopol. That the premature exclamation of the Emperor Napoleon, " Sebastopol has fallen," will ultimately become a fact,none appear to doubt. The only conjecture is how long the granite walls of this fortress will be able to resist the " poundings of the allied forces. Sebastopol **a heap of ruins, or the flags of England and France waving on its towers, and then the policy to be pursued by the allied powers to stop the ambitious advances of Russia must of necessity be developed. What the pohcy will be of the rulers of these two countries it is almost impossible to conjecture. The following speculative reasonings of the Leader on this subject will be read with interest. " A correspondent writes to us, commen. ting on our counsel of a liberal movement on the Avar, to ask ' Can you carry on war by public meetings ?' We venture to answer—Yes. Because the war against Russia will fail if it is to be merely a military ■ war. Because the war with Russia must be a political war. Sebastopol being taken, the Russian armies in the Crimea annihilated, and the Russian naval force in the Black Sea destroyed, peace may be gazetted. The independence and integrity of Turkey are asserted and secured. An allied army, or a Turkish army, cc-uld occupy the Crimea permanently—our cruisers in the Black Sea would render that army safe. The Austrians blocking out Russia in the Principalities guarantee us against a casu belli on that side. But what then ? The-Empe-ror Nicholas will never sign a peace which the public opinion of England would accept. He will sign no abject peace merely because he loses the Crimea, because his army of the Danube falters even in Bessarabia, because his army of Asia gives way before Schamyl. The Crimea, then, for us, is a cul-de-sac; Sebastopol leads nowhere. Nicholas, the Emperor, is humiliated; f.but Russia, the Empire, remains. We can keep Russia down (supposing the alliance between England and France to be permanent) on the Danube, in the Black Sea, and in the Crimea. But (and the Principalities would probably object to an eternity of military occupation by an alien and abhorred race)

we are scarcely equal to an enormous enduring organisation to sustain by armed peace the independence and integrity of Turkey. The slightest retreat, and Russia advances. This is not only Russian policy but Russian necessity. Russia is really conquered for a long time to come; but Europe would be on the watch. We must then think of Cronstadt and St. Petersburgh."Dictate a peace in St Petersburgh,'' thatjs understood to be the cry of our wisest general and our most gallant statesmen. In singular contradiction to the cry is the homeward move of the allied fleet of the Baltic. The censure so universally inflicted on Sir Charles Napier is curiously illogical. He has done nothing in the Baltic. True; but do we forget that Admiral Duridas did nothing in the Black Sea? Odessa balances Bomarsund; precisely the reasons which prevented Dundas from bombarding Sebastopol prevented Napier taking Cronstadt. War must be carried on by armies, not by fleets. Dundas got ah army —Napier got none. Dundas is popular-— Napier is ridiculed. Can England and France produce a land force-equal to taking St. Petersburg? In the Crimea they!do not muster 100,000 men. St. Petersburg would require not only an army but armies. We have done our utmost in the supply of troops. Louis Napoleon would hot empty France of troops. He is popular, but a lost battle might ruin him. And Prussian neutrality is not guaranteed. But supposing a victorious French and English army marching on St. Petersburg!.; Paris is France, St. Petersburgh is not Russia. Nicholas has retired to Moscow; could retire to-Novogorod. He is inas.sailable in the recesses of empire. Do we contemplate a permanent occupation simultaneously of the Crimea and St. ? These are the contingencies of a military war ; a war extending necessarily over several years, in those years Nicholas having a variety of chances ; a commercial panic in England;..-' a revolution in France ; a quarrel between England and France. A political war would be more abrupt and more effectual. A political war would be implied in the restoration of Poland,i. c., in the sacrifice of the Austrian alliance. To get peace—the permanent peace that comes from legitimate concessions to nationalities—we must fight for human freedom. Russia is to be conquered by the destruction of Austria. The whole controversy converts itself in the end to that fact; and w e assume that the English nation is resolut on conquering Rus?ia once for all.'- 1