WAR PROSPECTS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XVIII, Issue 59, 23 July 1859, Page 3

WAR PROSPECTS.

[From the Examiner, April 30.] The aspect of affairs is undoubtedly much darkened by the report of the alliance, offeusive and defensive, between France and Russia, the rumoured combination of whose fleets can be for no other purpose than keeping a check, or presenting a menace, to this country. It is now too probable that the two great despots have confederated to rule Europe between them, and to hack and hew it to the shape of their ambitious designs. Sardinia is the cat'spaw, Italian emancipation an impudent pretence. There is, however, happily in civilization a security for civilization, and a barbarous confederacy like this, if such a confederacy there be, is an anachronism when money and credit and moral force are elements necessary to success. Russia is not recovered from the exhaustion of her last war, and, further, the Emperor has enough on his hands at home ; France is in financial difficulties great, but only now beginning ; Sardinia is weighted with arms far beyond her powers ; and their adversary Austria is in no better case. It is a battle of the bankrupts.

France will be the first to feel the pinch. Her people's interests have opposed them vehemently to the war, but latterly the working classes have been moved to utter cries of sympathy with Italy. The same mouths, when they want bread, will shape themselves to other sounds. Thousands will be thrown out of bread. Already an embargo is laid on the vessels employed in the deep-sea fisheries. Their crews are wanted for the war. This cuts off an importaut supply of food, and source of wealth, at the same time that it deprives a large number of hardy seamen of their employment, or forces them into the navy. But this is only one instance out of many of what our neighbours have to suffer, and of the greater miseries in store for them. We have seen how soon France sickened of the Russian war, and it was but a skirmish compared with the struggle upon which she has now entered, or, we should rather say, has been dragged by her unscrupulous ruler. The crime carries the penalty with it in ruinous commercial and finaucial embarrassments. And here we must have a care not to be tempted to join in the race of ruin, and not to weigh ourselves down with arms with the mistakeu notion of security. To make the most of our resources at the smallest cost should now be the great business, and our fleet being a match for the combined fleets of France and Russia, the whole adult population should be trained to the use of the rifle. A few hours every Saturday evening, of six months of the year, devoted to firing at a mark, and movement in bodies, would prepare a million of men for the protection of a country having the best means of defence of any in the world, for the intersections of hedge-rows, all of which would be available as positions, present a tougher barrier to an enemy than mountain passes. The formation of volunteer rifle corps will, however, encounter all discouragement and opposition at the Horse Guards, where the opinion is that nothing is like leather. The Times truly observes : —

Our older officers, those to whoae obstinacy and incapacity wa owe the disaatera of tlie Crimea, and i indirectly the complications of the present hour, have constantly discouraged the formation of those corps to which countries like Prussia and the United States look for their safety. To keep " civilians " apart, as entirely distinct from military men, to have the regular army everything and all the rest of the nation nothing, has been the policy of the old fogies of the Horse Guards, and it is of a pieco with all that we know of pre-Crimcan administration. " Volunteers, j Sir," would exclaim a plethoric Colonel, " all nonsense, Sir; it takes three years to make a soldier— not an hour less. Volunteers in war are not oi" the slightest use— only get in the way, Sir." This has been the enlightened criticism of the Eegulars for many a year past, and it is likely to prevent all attempts at creating a cheap and efficient force for service in these islands, unless the popular voice be loudly heard. Tha only notion of patriotism current in certain quarters is the payment of taxes for new regiments. More money, and still more money, and ever more money, is the cry. But there must be a limit both to taxes and standing armies. For the purposes of national defence we have a mine never as yet explored, and which wo may predict to contain immense resources. It is the spirit of our young men throughout the country, and their willingness to form themselves into bodies for the support of the regular troops in case of need. Educated men are not like ploughboys, and there cannot be a doubt that a few days' drill and rifle practice in the month would shortly give us a hundred thousand men perfectly fit for the ordinary duties of a soldier. Commanded by officers who have served in the regular army, accustomed to the use of a perfect weapon, what strength would they not impart to this country on the eve of a war !

The militia is a false reliance that should now be abandoned. The men are not equal to volunteers in spirit aud character, and they are so badly officered as to make it at least doubtful whether they would be of any efficiency in the field. The militia is, indeed, only the worst way of getting soldiers for the line; and at the cost of twenty or thirty thousand bumpkins in red coats, drilled to turn out their toes, and to roll their eyes right and left, we might have a million of volunteer riflemen in these British isles. *

No people have more aptitude for the use of fire-arms than the English, not even the Swiss, who owe their independence so much to their rifles, and all that is requisite is the first training, all the rest of the marksmanship comes as a pleasure. Let us now glance back at the passage through which we have passed to the present fearful position of things, wholly unforeseen by our sagacious rulers, and especially by the boasted guardian of the world's peace at the Foreign Office,

Not a step has been taken in this great European quarrel without a change of the public judgment as to the culpability of the parties, all having been blamed and acquitted of blame in turn. France was first found in the wrong, for commencing the year with a menace to Austria ; next Sardinia was blamed for blustering; next Austria drew upon her the anger of the friends of peace by her obstinacy and arrogant demands ; next Russia was discovered to be the Marplot of Europe by thwarting Lord Cowley and proposing and impossible Congress ; next again, all the blame was cast on Austria for her peremptory ultimatum ; and lastly, the discovery is made that Russia has been at the bottom of all the mischief, the moving spring of all, in concert with France.

The combination of Russia and France is an event which we foresaw and predicted upon the close of the war, but it now bursts upon us, as if it was not a thing that should have been expected in the order of revenge for the Crimean campaign. The Muscovite, it is true, allies himself with two of his former antagonists, but it is to have his active revenge upon Austria, who failed him in his time of need, his indirect revenge on England, and the ultimate success of his designs on Turkey.

The alleged treaty between France and Russia explains everything, and if diplomacy had had the wit even to suspect the understanding between the two Powers, Lord Cowley might have been saved the trouble of running backwards and forwards and on bootless errands, or it should have been clear that war was a foregone conclusion. But our Ministers and Diplomatists have been like country bumpkins, pitted against sharpers at a knavish game. They have been like the duped guests at the President's ball, the night before the coup d'etat which consigned them to prisons and exile.

At the Mansion House Lord Derby stated, with a regret at which the two Emperors will smile, that just at the moment when Lord Cowley was bringing his negotiations to a successful issue, Russia interposed with the proposal of a Congress, which our Prime Minister did not hesitate to accept, though he was aware that it was a mode of proceeding less conducive to a solution of the difficulties than a mediation conducted by one person. Why, the very fact that France was ready to waive the good offices of England, and to prefer the proposal of Russia, should have been sufficiently indicative of her feelings and views. Lord Cowley's success was not desired, and the Russian had superseded the English alliance, which had served its turn, and was to give place to another to make a new map of Europe, and perhaps of Asia.

. But something more than the co-operation of Russia is necessary to the schemes of Napoleon 111., who wants botb money and men to carry on the war — twenty millions of the first, and 140,000 of the second. And here, for the first time, we find the French backward and the Germans forward ; for Austria, with greater financial difficulties than France, is in a better state of military preparation. Napoleon 111. played his bad game ill in uttering his menaces before he was in a condition to carry them into effect. Austria lost no time in putting herself into an attitude of both defence and attack ; and, upon the delivery of the ultimatum, Piedmont found heiself unsupported by the French, and exposed at overwhelming odds to her powerful foe. It was not so that Napoleon I. used to manage his affairs. The blow with him followed swift and sure upon the word. The Austrians, forward as they were, have been induced to forego the advantage they might have gained by the intercession of our Government to stop their march ! So disastrous are our intermeddling counsels.

France and Italy might hardly be a match for united Germany ; but the reported adhesion of Russia makes the complication undoubtedly .more serious, and threatens a formidable diversion in the north, especially in the disaffected Austrian provinces. But after all, in the distribution of blame, for there ia nothing else to be awarded, we must bear in mind the possibility that Austria may have been better informed of the designs of her enemy than our Government hasbeen of those of its special ally, and that her forward move to war has been mado for the advantages of the first blow, knowing that war was the fixed purpose of France, backed by Russia, and that the negotiations and Congress were only expedients of delay to allow of her enemy's necessary preparations for the field. She would not wait like a penguin to be knocked on the head. Our Ministers and Diplomatists seem to have been duped throughout, and Lord Derby's blame of Austria's last step is probably as little borne out by the real circumstances as his praiseof her previous conduct.

In the commencement of the Russian war we were told by the Prince Consort that representative institutions were on their trial. la this most causeless, wicked war, it cannot be said that despotic Governments are on their trial, for they are actually condemned by the honest verdict of mankind as scourges of humanity. The report of the treaty between Russia and France is denied in certain quarters, and perhaps there may be no treaty, but an understanding between the two Powers, without which we do not believe that Napoleon 111. would run the risk of involving France and Italy in a war with all Germany. There has been so much duplicity in this affair, that we incline to believe the worst of all concerned in it, but it is a comfort that Russia is not in a condition for much active mischief. Spain, too, it appears, is providing herself with gunboats built in our own yards. She is doubtless preparing to pay her debt of gratitude to us for driving the French over the Pyrenees. It is thus only that ahe acquits herself of hep obligations.