Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-12-15 00:00:00

of the relations between this country and France,
it is well to remove it on to a more general and
permanent basis. It is not to be denied, that it
was our grave suspicions of the state of feeling
existing across the water, and especially in the
mind of Louis NAPOLEON; which gave the first
impulse to the present patriotic movement ; and
it can be as little denied on the other hand, that
any passing apparent change in the dispositions
of our vivacious and variable neighbours is no
adequate reason for relaxing the vigour of our
preparations. No man has ventured to rest the
justification of the rifle movement upon any
prediction of the time that the destined descent
is to be made upon our shore, or scarcely of any
immediately definite danger. If the inflamma-
ble temper, and the anti-Anglican feeling of the
French nation are used as a plea for our own
watchfulness and preparation, they aro referred
to as a chronic, not as an acute state of mind.
There may be intermissions in the complaint,
and now and then the wound may be grown over
with a skin-deep covering, but there is a strong
under-current always ready to come to thestir-
face,—a fund of envy or moroseness, or indigna-
tion, or revenge,—whatever it be, which is always
at hand, to be drawn upon as circumstances

suggest.
But it is not with any special feeling of the sort,
or with regard to the French nation only or chiefly,
that England is now assiduously putting a rifle
into the hands of her hardy and generous sons.
Let it never be lost sight of, amidst the changing
phases in French politics, the accidental acces-
sions of courtesy to French writers, or even—what
we do not yet see, and which is the only possible
re-assuring feature in the whole—a reduction
in expensive armaments, and a less unnatural
activity in naval dockyards, that the present
volunteer movement is a national and permanent
necessity; that skill in the use of the rifle and
facility of military organisation is the fitting
normal capability of a nation of freemen. It is
well that we should look less towards France
with feelings either of animosity or of suspicion;
and confidence in our own strength is the surest
means of inspiring confidence into our relations
with the French people. The English volunteer
movement is the 'sovereign remedy for anti-
Anglican demonstrations among the French, and
for Gallophobian nervousness among ourselves.
Has Mr. COBDEN come home brimful of every-
thing American, but of that spark of patriotism,
and the American mode of fostering it, which
were the most worth bringing away ? Had- he
in him a point of affinity for the low standard of
political morality, the depravation of public jus-
tice, the unnatural elevation -of vulgarity and
ignorance into high places; which too much
abound in the midst of American society,—and
none for the more manly expression of courage
and patriotism which has made every American
a soldier, and zealous for the honour of his
country as well as for the prosperity of his trade ?
Pity that Mr. COBDEN missed the most useful
lesson of- all for his Rochdale admirers. Pity
that he chose a subject on which prejudice im-
pelled him to be uncandid, and omitted the one
of all, others on which patriotism would for once
have involved him in a glorious unanimity with
his countrymen. We should have had more hope
of Mr. COBDEN if he had not painted for the
satisfaction of a Rochdale audience an imag.inary
election scene in America—if he had told them
i that in America every man thinks it necessary
I to be a RIFLE.MAN

IT has struck us all along that one great objec-
tion to the system upon which most of our Rifle
Corps have been organised has been that it was one
of a too exclusive character,—one which did not
afford the classes of the people below a certain
grade in society the opportmnty of joining in a
movement in which we are quite sure that the
great body of them must feel as deeply interested
as any other class 'of their fellow subjects. 'lt is
a patribtic movement, and never for a moment -let
us suppose; that there is no patriotism among the
humbler classes. On the contrary, we have
every. reason to believe and to' rejoice in: the .fact
that .our artisans and operatives are as much
concerned in the defence of the country, and
have as much, patriotic spirit to actuate them in
defending it as have those above them in society,
be their rank what it may. Indeed, if we are
ever,to have any formidable invasion, the country
must look not to this class or the 'other, in
particular, but to the masses of the people.
And when the poet, in those well-known glowing
words, imagines such a rising as there ought to be
to meet the invading foe, and exclaims•,
A virtuous populace shall rise the while,

And stand a wall of fire around our much loved
he means, of course, that the people at large are
to be aroused to action, and to be organised in
that defensive movement which the occasion must
call forth.

The prospectus we publish to-day, of the
Childwall Volunteer Rifle Corps, would seem to
have, this great object in view. It is a Corps in-
tended for one• extensive district, with separate
companies in each locality, and separate drilling
grounds,—each company choosing its own
officers,—but the whole constituting • one Corps
with the • same 1 dress, the same funds, the same
arms, and under one head commanding officer,
but with this distinguishing feature, namely, that
the paying companies carry, as it were, the non-
paying on their shoulders. Now Here we hkve an or-
ganisation admirably adapted to secure the services
of those who, under most of the other organisations
of a similar kind, are virtually excluded. No one
expects the working classes to be able to.main-
tain themselves as a Rifle Corps without some
assistance. They will be called upon to make a
sacrifice of their time, as it is, without being sub-
jected to the expense of arms at. ti -uniforms. It