The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-15 00:00:00

WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

TUFA DAY—Morn. 55 min. aft. s—Evening 24 min. aft. 6
To-Itoßiteci—Alorn. 52 min. aft. 6 —Evening 23 min. aft. 7

THE 'WEATHER—SUN OFFICE, Dec. 15.
THERMOMETER, IN Tag SHADE.
48 - highest since noon yesterday.
43 -towest this morning and during the night.
49 -this day at noon.

BAROMETER. 30.09—rising.
DINT, W. to W. N.W. —Light, with mild, dull weather.

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LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1855,

The cross causes of Guards v. Line, and Line
P. Guards, have occasioned very considerable ex-
citement. The high personages who have lent
their name to the discussion, as well as the strong
interest entertained on the subject of Army
Reform, have given greater piquancy to the dis-
pute, and led to the interference of a vast number
of sympathisers in the shape of public journalists,
and numerous correspondent; some of whom
supply valuable information on the points at
issue. We must say that the weight of evidence
greatly preponderates in favour of the Line, and
tht,,t if the verdict were now to be pronounced, it
would be, without a moment's hesitation, in
favour of the less aristocratic, but not less gallant,
branch of the service.

Objections have been freely urged against the
form and substance, the manner and matter, of
the memorial to which we alluded yesterday in
our leading columns. It has been shown to be an
ex-parte document, one that was cautiously kept
from public inspection, which none but interested
parties were invited to sign, for which there might
have been some reason, as no others could be sup-
posed to take that side of the question, but it was
"strictly privat3." The object was that it should
be heard in Chamber, the public being excluded,
so that no unseemly questions might be started
until the fitting time, when the decision should
also be announced, and no amount of clamour or
just indignation could procure a rehearing. The
public have, however, albeit very unintentionally,
been made parties to the cause, and judgment
must now be given on the real merits, and in
accordance with the voice of public •
opinion.
A very clear and able writer, who not only
possesses much practical experience, but has also
the art of distinctly expressing his meaning, has
addressed an admirable letter to a contemporary
on the interesting subject. The fact that a gen-
tleman has served " six years in the cavalry, and
six years in the infantry,'' must have afforded full
Opportunities for acquiring information, and none
of these opportunities seem to have been ne-
glected or thrown away in the instance alluded
to. The Hon. and Gallant Gentleman enters into
the entire question. He refers not merely to the
solitary grievance of which so much has been made,
but strikes at the very root, from the a to ".
Ab ovo usque ad male." lie is thus enabled to
show the true state of the case, and to explain
not only what may be the results of the warrant
so secretly e°mPlai"ecl of by the
Guards, but also
what has been the effects of the previous regula-
tions, and what may probably be anticipated if
remonstrance should be favour-
the complainants'
ably listened to.

From this unexceptionable authority we learn
at entrance into the Brigade is effected " partly by

interest and partly by money ;" that " these two
form the double hedge by which the brigade'
is kept alike free from the taints of plebeianism
and of poverty." Mere money will not do with-
out aristocratic connexions and aristocratic influ-
ence—connexions which will be recognised by,
and influence available with, the high-born com-
manders. It is not merely that Prince ALBERT,
as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, receives
3,0001. per annum, and H.R.H. the Duke of
CAMBRIDGE and the Earl of STRAFFORD 2,0001.
each, but they also have the nomination or ap-
pointment of the respective commissions—the
Commander-in-Chief having only nominally to
confirm their several "fiats." We may then
easily jadge respecting the nature of the "in-
terest" that may succeed in obtaining admission
within these strictly-guarded portals to the exclu-
sive and highly-favoured class. The result is not
surprising that there should be so much of what
the talented writer denominates " the upper
crust," the men with "handles to their names,"
which render the gentlemen of the "yellow
plush" attentive, in the favoured list.

Much money is also required. The first
step in the Guards, according to the "regulation"
scale, costs 1,2001., while that in " the Line" is but
4501. But, per contra, as business men say, it
must be taken into account that the first step of a
guardsman ranks with the second of " a mere
officer," and that he may forthwith exchange with
a Lieutenant in the ether branch of the service,
and thus obtain a striking advantage at the very
first stage in the proceedings. The next stage is
proportionately expensive. The Lieutenantcy in
the Guards costs 2,0501., while that of Lieuten-
ant iatli Line is but 7001., and that of Captain but
1,800/. 'Then comes:the third step, in the one case,
the fifth in the otter. The Captain and the Limit.-
Col. of Guards costs 4,340/., the Majority 8,3001.,
and the Lieutenant-Colonelcy 9,0001.! We may
thus perceive the amount of interest and capital
required, when the merely regulation prices are
such as we have above set forth, and we need
scarcely say how greatly the actual exceeds the
nominal price of those valuable commodities, a
difference that will be greatly enhanced, if not
more than doubled, should the memorial to which
the name of the Prince Consort is appended elicit
a favourable response.
We must say, however, that we also prefer
" the baptism of fire" to that of s. d. that we
desire that those who have really earned renown
should receive its legitimate rewards, and that
ten or twelve years at Windsor or London should
not give higher promotion than double the MID -
her spent in climates the most trying to the con-1
stitution, and arduous labours while encoun-
tering formidable dangers. We do not say that
the officers of the Guards may not be constitutionally
as brave as their rivals. Bravery is, we believe,
the characteristic of Englishmen ; there is nothing
very exclusive in its possession, and, therefore,
nothing on which the Guards can found any ex-
traordinary claim. If, however, they think
themselves badly used, or wish to be placed on a
footing in every respect with their more "fortunate
brethren of the Line," let the matter be fairly
tarried out, so as to place them on an equality in
all respects, and we venture to assert that there
will be no opposition to their reasonable
requests.

Austria the friend of England and France !
Austria in their interests, theirs the cham-
pions of liberty and civilisation ! Austria sincere
in desiring a peace that will be safe and honour-
able for them ! Austria neutral ! Austria a
mediator they should trust I Austria, whose wis-
dom is chicane, whose valour is braggadocio, whose
faith is perfidy, whose sway is brutal suppression,
whose instincts are those of the vulture, whose
progress is retrogression, and whose policy to this
hour has utilised all the vices that can degrade,
so that they might but profit, a nation making
pretensions to civilisation !
Never believe it. In the very nature of things
Austria is not to be depended on. All her sym-
pathies, all her interests are in opposition to those
of the Allies. A crumbling despotism whose very
being is under protest, whose people have been
sold body and soul for bare life, and that totters
beneath the curses, loud, deep, and prolonged, of
oppressed nations, cannot but favour Russia—

cannot bnt recognise in the rescue of that Power
from humiliation a pledge for the perpetuation of
her own ill-omened and unwarrantable existence.
Turn to the earliest pages of the history of the
War, and follow the course of events up to the
present time, and the truth of this will stare you
in the face. The dullest perception should be
equal to the recognition of the most palpable
facts. What was it, or who was it, that e
us to drift instead of sailing boldly, as became us,
into war ? What was it, or who was it, that
caused us to suffer our Turkish Ally to
contend single-banded with the preponderating
forces of the CZAR, while the heroes of Alin'

listlessly basked in the summer glow of Gallipoli,
Scutari, and Varna? What was it, or who was
it, that kept the Allied Fleets from the task of
scouring the Euxine ere the heroes of Sinope fell
beneath the shot and flame of the dastardly 6.
What, or who was it, that stayed the tide of
Ottoman success, and relieving the Russian army
of the Danube from a succession of disasters
enabled it to march to the Crimea ? What, or
who was it, that exposed our gallant army to all
but overwhelming odds at inkerman, that has
branded the Allies with shame in the Principali-
ties, and made our statecraft the mockery
of the world ? That has never been beard of
but to our humiliation, and never deviated from
neutrality but to our loss ?

Who or what else but Austria, with her perfi-
dious counsels Austria, with her pretences of
sympathy and friendship ? Austria, with the in-
terests of Russia at her heart, and sympathy with
us on her lying lips ? Austria, with her unwar-
ranted proffers of mediation, her treaties, her
contingent promises, her Four Points, her wily
Statecraft, her brutal mercenaries, her utterly
selfish instincts Austria, too cowardly to incur
the risk of openly aiding Russia, and too subtle
to withhold from her the rascally assistance she
could lend Austria, dastard and knave, that
would head the great Germanic Confederation,
yet carries her brains in her heels. That would
arbitrate as an equal between the greatest
Powers of Europe, yet has openly sold herself to
be the bond slave of the POPE ! Do we not well
to be angry
when we think of all this 7

Yet would to HILI.Vit; this were all ! She is
at her work of intervention. She is playing the
mediator again. Led as easily by the nose " as
asses are," there is a tribo of politicians both here
and in, France, that, acquiring larger credulity
the oftener they are duped, would have us once
more recognise her title to a position she has
utterly forfeited, if she ever was entitled to it,
and avail ourselves of her good offices. What can
be thought of such men ? Knowing all that we
have described, with the perfidy of yesterday—
we mean the return of Baron DE LINGENI.U, the
Austrian Minister, to Stockholm, notoriously to
undo all that General CANROBERT has done.—

fresh in their remembrance, they would have us be-
lieve in Austrian good faith, and accept her media-
tion. What right has she to play the mediator at
all ? There is none needed, and if there were, why
should she be chosen ? Prussia, even, degraded
as that power is, almost to the lowest level, has
better claims than she. The very fact of her
attempting to bring about a peace at the present
time is all but absolute proof that such a peace as
she could compass is not desirable, that her
only aim is to stave off the utter prostration await-
ing Russia at our hands, that with the keenness
which selfish cunning lends the base, she perceives
what the result of a campaign in the Baltic next year
must be, and would do anything but be bold or
honest to prevent it. To listen to her were folly,
to be led by her madness—a madness we cannot
believe for a moment Lord PALaLERSTON would
willingly be guilty of. He is one of those who
profit by experience, and cannot, therefore, but
feel that the peace the Allies want is not forth-
coming, and that the results of another campaign
will be of priceless value.

Nothing displays more plainly the universal
interest taken in the War than our agricultural
meetings. If anywhere we might look for obli-
vion of the subject, or for pacific sentiments, it
would be at these rustic gatherings. The plough-
share and the sickle are the very emblems of
peace, and they furnish text enough for any num
her of speeches. The agricultural mind, however,
is in ardent sympathy with the general mind ;
and when landlords and farmers meet to award
prizes for the best stock and implements, this
business is no sooner over than the ploughshares
and sickles are beaten into spears and swords.
The morning is spent in promoting the growth of
food, and the afternoon in encouraging the de-
struction of corn-stacks by the mile, and of the
life to sustain which is the sole use of food.
There will not be wanting those who attribute the
interest of farmers and county members in the
War to its supposed influence on the prices of ag-
ricultural produce. Such a view has, how-
ever, nothing to do with it. Farmers
know that the high prices began before the War
began ; and they know, too, that if they con-
tinued long, it would result in such an advance of
rents, and certainly of tithes, as would be slow in
finding a lower level with lower prices. No, the
whole tone of the speechifying reported in yester-
day's Sun, at the Guildford and Bath Agricul-
tural dinners, like that at similar meetings all
over the country, is quite unselfish ; the honest
sentiment which commands universal applause is
" Russia had pushed her aggression on liberty
and civilisation till the danger became intolerable,
and now we have undertaken to avert it we
must do our work thoroughly."
One speaker, Mr. MANGLES, the Member for
Guildford, alluding to the floating nonsense about
the Emperor of the FRENCH peculiarly desiring
peace, and the danger of our being left to fight
out the battle alone, truly enough remarked
that the EMPEROR was doubtless very desirous
of peace, and that all of us were equally
so ; but that it were absurd to imagine
that he, any more than we, desired a peace
without securities of such a kind, that it
should not easily be violated again by the wanton
aggressor. This is, indeed, emphatically the
question of the hour. We have not much faith
iu any intention on the part of Russia to nego-
tiate honestly ; still we own that we all ought to
know what would satisfy us if she were to come
forward with pacific proposals. We ought to have
a minimum for each stage of the War ; and we
confess that the minimum which would satisfy
even our War Statesman now, is not that with
which this contest ought to conclude. Poland and
Finland ought to be restored to independence or
to their original connection, and the Caucasus
and the Kuban ought to become the Asiatic
boundary of Russia, if we are to conclude with a
peace worthy of the Allies and of the War.
When the disgraceful Four Points were under
discussion, we earnestly demanded that peace
should not be conceded for a moment, ex-
cept on the terms now enunciated by
the Times itself as the lowest worth
thinking of ; while we held that' much
more ought to be demanded. Our demands ought
to;be regulated net merely:by what we have already
seized, but by what we are manifestly in a posi-
tion to get. We can certainly, if the two Govern-
ments do their duty this winter, denude the Baltic
of every maritime defence next spring, and rouse
Poland to an unmanageable condition. We can
as certainly complete the Bankruptcy of the Rus-
sian Exchequer. Under these circumstances why
not make demands worthy of ourselves ? Why not
say Poland for itself, Finland for Sweden, Bessa-
rabia (at least on the Danube) for Turkey, Cir-
cassia for the Circassians, Armenia for the Arme-
nians, the Crimea for the Sardinians, and two hun-
dred millions at least towards the expenses of the War,
are our present terms; if you don't like them, then
use up half a million more serfs, make, as you
once did before, a three-rouble note worth half a
rouble, and accept the same or harder terms after
all. We are glad to see that the rational pro-
posal of making Russia pay is coming more and
more before the public. We enforced it from the
first, not only as a reasonable punishment, but as
a political security. Russia made Turkey, al-
though the injured party, pay, and joined in
making France pay for the War to eject her Firs

Napoleon ; Austria made Sardinia pay for pa-
triotism ; even we made helpless China pay. If
her pride will not accept the measure sh• has
meted out to others, she must be humiliated till

it will. The difference of incurring the expense
of another campaign ought to be that we should
save the whole cost of the War.

The hitherto incurable mischief has been that
our Statesmen have looked on the War through
diplomatic spectacles and the people with the eyes
of common sense. The former also have had un-

Worthy aristocratic *cots to serve; the latter have

only wanted the right man for the right place,
and the right means for the right ends. Hence
all the two years' waste of money, men, aid time.
Hence the puerile endeavours to gain as an Ally
the hateful Prince who would have done us more

service as an avowed enemy. Hence all our
Eastern parades and our Baltic exhibitions
of big ships in shallow waters. Hence
our always warning Russia to fortify every
point in time for our attack, while we could,
by more easy promptitude, have made an easy con-
quest of these places—witness Odessa, Nicolaieff,
Kherson, Sweaborg and Helsingfors, and St.
Petersburg itself. At length our statesmen begin,
or seem to begin, to see what the people have long
ago seen. Our gun-boat and ammunition pre-
parations begin to look like, what we demanded
last year, " war in earnest." May it be so !

But there is one thing as essential as guns and

gun-boats, and that is men. And of men one of
the best qualifications is an indomitable life and

death hatred of the aggressor ; and this quail&

cation no men possess like the Poles. Matters

ought not to be minced for these four months.

SiLTAN's Cossacks are all very well for a make-
shift ; but every consideration of humanity to our
troops, economy in our Administration, effect