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# 620 . THE LEADER. [Saturday ,
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TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION TO «' ©i)e Seafcer...
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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. During the Se...
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SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1855.
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There is nothing so revolutionary, becau...
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REALITIES. Amidst the flood of rant and ...
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SURVEY OF THE WAR. Although the Allies r...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
# 620 . The Leader. [Saturday ,
# 620 . THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
Terms Of Subscription To «' ©I)E Seafcer...
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION TO « ' © i ) e Seafcer . " For a Half-Tear £ 0 13 0 / To be remitted in advance . ^ S" Money Orders should be drawn upon the Stbakb Branch Office , and be mad © payable to Mr . Aifeed E . QajdlowjlT , at No . 154 , Strand . . . No notice can be taken of anonymous communications Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenticated by the name and address of tho writer ; not necessarily for publication , but as a guarantee of his good faith .
Notices To Correspondents. During The Se...
NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . During the Session of Parliament it is often impossible to find room for correspondence , even the briefest . Communications should always be legibly written , and on oneside of thepaperonly . If long , itincreasesthe difficulty of findingspaceforthem . . . We cannot undertake to return rejected communications . * * * The Leader has been " registered" at the General Post-office , according to the provisions of the New Act relating to Newspapers , and it has , therefore « he privilege of transmission through the post beyond the United Kingdom , if the proper postage in stamps be affixed on a conspicuous part of the wrapper enclosing it .
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Saturday, June 30, 1855.
SATURDAY , JUNE 30 , 1855 .
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There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Becau...
There is nothing so revolutionary , because thereis nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to Keep things used when all the world is by the very law o its creationin eternal progress . —De . Arnold .
Realities. Amidst The Flood Of Rant And ...
REALITIES . Amidst the flood of rant and bluster which Is pouring from the contemporary press , we are sure we cannot do a better , though we might do a more popular service to out readers , than bj endeavouring to keep before them the practical objects of the war . A true sense of that object must sustain our efforts , measure our sacrifices , and , we must
add , regulate our conduct towards an enemy who , if things go well , may soon have to cry for quarter . Technical diplomacy is to us simply a mystery of folly and iniquity . To go to war , or to remain at war , for any of its objects , is a folly and a crime . The objects which it puts forward on this occasion are on the face of them
hypocritical and absurd . It is hypocritical to go to war for the integrity of an empire which we are ourselves morally dismembering . It is absurd to go to war for the purpose of "binding Russia , by a paper treaty to dismantle her fortresses or reduce her fleet in . the Black Sea . To restrain by such treaties the natural expansion of a great power is an
attempt which , as history ought to have taught us , is perfectly chimerical . The restraining treaty will only lend increased energy and some justification to the intrigues of Russian diplomacy in the West . It will give the Czar the strongest interest in disturbing the peace of Europe for the future ; and directly no succeeds in doing so , all the direct fruits of this war will be lost in an
hour . But , as we have said before ( and proud we are to say it ) , the nation imagines itself to be fighting for nobler objects . The people forced their rulers into war , as they believed , to vindicate the liberty and civilisation of the world . They did not see that with Western despots for our allies and Turks for our
clients , civilisation and liberty were not to be advanced . Lord Aberdeen , to do him justice , perceived tins , and will get credit from history for having perceived it . lie knew that the war into which he was being driven was a diplomatic war . Ho discerned , and shrunk from , the consequences of an exclude alliance with French absolutism . But he ha 4 nqt strength to saye himself from
plunging in . The Whig members of the Cabinet promised themselves a safe and popular Whig expedition . The Times ordered its sub-editor to prepare a plan for the campaign . The people shouted madly , and the Tories rejoiced with better reason . Had we gone to war in 1 S 49 for Hungary aud Italy , we should have been indeed fighting in a great cause , and a cause in which the greatest nation in the world need not have been ashamed to fall . It would have
been a great cause , and , like all great causes , a rational cause , too ; and its fruits , if we had won , would have endured for ever without any paper treaty to secure them . We do not know what to do with the Crimea when we have taken it . The thriving and progressive Turkish Empire , as Lord Paimeestok liolds it to be , with all its vigorous vitality , is not equal to the annexation ( or rather the reannexation ) and defence of a singularly defensible
province within eighteen hours' sail of its capital . We shall reproduce for an instant the political vacuum which existed in the Crimea and all the neighbouring regions till Russian enterprise flowed in . This vacuum will probably be guarded and guaranteed by the most elaborate efforts of diplomatic pens . Had Hungary and Italy risen from the grave not a line need have been written . "V ^ ithout protocol or guarantee there would have stood , as a rampart to freedom and a curb to despotism for ever , the unconventional barrier
of two free nations . But it was not etiquette to fight for insurrectionary republics . Lord Palmekston and his anti-Russian diplomatists wasted in paltry and aimless intriguing the hour of which every second was precious to humanity . The nation stood by in stupid inertness , while llussia did the last of all wrongs to liberty and civilisation . And journals which now find it convenient to outbluster Falstaff , slandered Italian and Hungarian patriotism , and triumphed at the entry of Pasktewitch into Pesth and of Kadetzkt into Milan .
Lord Lyndhttrst may talk . about our riveting the bonds of Germany if we fail ; but , if we succeed , how shall we loosen them ? The Emperoe of Austria and the Kixg of Prussia will be left masters of the situation ; and Russia will be as ready to assist them against their subjects as ever , and not much less able . Nay , her arms and her designs will be more concentrated on the West , if we succeed in closing against her for the future what has hitherto been the great outlet for her ambition—her India—in the void places of the East . What was the attitude of Lord
Lynuhurst and his party towards German democracy when it did rise and endeavour to strike a blow which , in freeing Germany from despotism and aristocracy , would have also freed it from Russian influence for ever ? And n ow , out of our extreme zeal for German liberty we are pouring our blood and treasure on the Crimea , leaving the subsidised despots and bureaucrats of Germany itself in peace . Surely the shortest way of putting down treason in 3 our own camp is at once to strike the traitor .
If the Czar can be made distinctly to feel that the blow ho is now receiving , though dealt at the wrong time and in tho wrong place , is intended by tho moral senso of the world as a punishment for his wickedness and insanity , in attempting to propagate or prolong in nations ripe for freedom tho despotism which is still a real necessity to his own , something will bo gained . Bui ; tho sooner wo give this turn to tho war tlie bettor . At tho present we stand before liberal Europe and America as fighting , not in tho cauao of nations , but for tho fiction of Turkish
independence and the conventional differe nce between the two senses of the Vienna note This at present is our profession to the world , and our bearing at home corresponds to it . Never was there so much treason talked against liberty , such abject homage paid to usurping despotism and sabre sway so little public spirit shown by the parliame nt tary rulers of this country as in this war which people flatter themselves is being waged for the freedom of the world . The position assumed by the constitutional government of Sardinia is the only tangible gain which has yet resulted to the good cause .
There can be but one thought now Victory—hearty support to our heroic armyhonourable co-operation with our brave allies . But we are pouring out the blood of our best an d noblest ; it must not be poured out in vain ; we must not drift on without an object into an interminable war ; we shall never make Turkey 3 'oung and strong ; we shall never make Austria heroic ; and if we could throw back the Russian people a centurv in
their social and commercial progress , we should simply inflict an unmixed evil on humanity . Let us look before us , then . England herself may be risked in a great cause , but she is not to he wasted in a petty one . If we are really going to struggle against the political and spiritual despotisms of the world , let us gird ourselves for that work . If we are only going to rectify the diplomatic status of the Black Sea , let us be satisfied with , an early rectification .
Survey Of The War. Although The Allies R...
SURVEY OF THE WAR . Although the Allies received a serious check at the moment when , confident in their prowess , they dashed against the strongest bulwarks of Sebastopol ; although hundreds of the bravest soldiers of both armies , including two generals , fell under the murderous lire of the enemy on . the 18 th of June ; although the fall of the southern side of Sebastopol was thereby deferred , yet , upon a calm survey of the relative position of the enemy and the Allies after that fatal morning , we do not find that the prospects of the former are in any degree positively improved . The Allies failed to take what they desired ; but the Russians recovered nothing they had lost . Our reverse was positive , because it involved a loss of valuable lives ; their success was negative , because they simply frustrated an assault , and inflicted a" wound from which we have rapidly recovered . Success was adjourned , not sine die , but until tho next
opportunity . The reader is sufllciently informed of the position won on the 7 th . The fire that preceded that assault , which gave us the Maine-Ion , the Quarries , and Mount Sapoune , proved our great superiority over the enemy in gunnery . Tho destructive effect of the brief cannonade upon the Mamelon , which , strong as it proved , was rent , and smashed , and reduced to a shapeless mass , the
embrasures crumbled into heaps , tho traverses overthrown , the guns broken or dismounted , is to some extent an index of the eft'ect ot our lire on the other works . It is clear that wo can beat the enemy in a cannonado , ana that his real superiority now alone consists in the cover afforded by the mighty "lo j ™ of earth which girdle his position . Xm & superiority being fully established , on the 7 th , it is difficult to conceive how tho assault could have failed on tho 18 th , unless wo suppose that unlooked-for obstacles wore interposed between tho onomy and the storming columns ; that , as at Badujos and San Sebastian , it was found , on reaching the point oi attack , that unlooked-for advantages rc-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 30, 1855, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30061855/page/8/
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