The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-10 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 1856.

Russia is most admirably served. She enlists
aid from every quarter, and finds. recruits even
in the ranks of her professed adversaries. Austria
condemned her, and now protects her Polish fron-
tier and augments her Crimean army. Mr. GLAD-
STONE attacked her at Sebastopol, and now vilifies
his countrymen for adhering to his policy.
Lord
Jowl. was furious against her " insatiable ambi-
tion," and went to Vienna to do diplomatic battle
with Prince GORTSCHAROFF, but finished by
taking his arm, and taking in his proposals
through the Austrian go-between. The man.
.ehester men, of course, from the time of the
Quaker mission to NICHOLAS, were fast friends to
:the policy of allowing Russia to swallow all Europe
at what rate she pleased ; but who would have
,expected Mr. COLLETT, at a meeting called to ad-
vocate the formation of a Polish Legion, to do
.Russian work as zealously as if he were paid for
it ? As to 'Mr. GEORGE THOMPSON abetting the
expulsion of the Chairman, installing himself,
'and bringing to a successful conclusion the coup
de main in favour of ' Russia; this was too bad.
Be, as a professed Liberal, ought to be ashamed

of turningloturer for Russia, and supplanting
English noblemen whnn nVering so nobly the

Ci

country.

We ,woultl go as far as any in condemning the
a•I;l-arthy foreign pt.,lizy of Lord PALMLIISTON iu
1831. We are now smarting for its baseness.
Lord PALMERSTON has always bad a Tory heart.
Fond of showing his consequence by bearding in
the small way the Continental despots, we yet do
not believe he ever had any hearty sympathy
with the rights of the nations, or probably any
sympathy at all. Poland and Hungary in his
hands and those of Lord JOHN RUSSELL, have
been disgracefully and cruelly disappointed.
Two statesmen more selfishly devoted to• their
order, and to the dynasties—dynasties fitter for
Pandemonium than for this fair earth—have
never lived. Let them be condemned. But
what we complain of, as worse than even the
" nefarious combination," is, that liberals and
friends of Poland should sell the cause of Poland
under professions of love to her. All right enough to
censure aristocratic wickedness in 1831 and 1848,
but it was surely all wrong to make that a means
for the same wickedness to triumph again in
1855. The meeting might have begun a move-
ment which should end in forcing a Polish Legion,
and the cause of Poland itself, on our Govern-
ment. Mr. CoLLETT and his coadjutors acted over
again the factiousness of the Tory-paid Chartists,
who upset every meeting, convened to get them
cheap bread, by clamouring for the five points of
the Charter. We fear Lord PALMERSTON is but
too well pleased at the generalship of his censurers.
A vote of no confidence from a howling, hooting
mob, may suit him better than an honest, busi-
nesslike, and telling meeting, adopting well-con-
sidered resolutions in favour of a Polish Legion
and Polish independence.
The Earl of HARRINGTON, Lord EBRINGTON,
and Sir ROBERT PEEL spoke well. The two latter
moved a resolution, which assuredly all true friends
of Poland must have wish to pass, and to
which censure of Lord PALMERSTON was surely no
relevant amendment—indeed no amendment at
all ; the proper business of the meeting being
Poland, not PALMERSTON. Which of our readers
would not have held up both handsfor the following
resolution, as the appropriate one for commencing
such a meeting :—" That it will afford the best
security for the preservation of the balance of
power in Europe, and the protection of its liber-
ties, that Poland should be restored as a separate
and independent State—a measure the necessity
of which has been recognised by most of the great
Conservative statesmen of Europe." No doubt
Le Nord and the Invalide Busse will very quickly
publish to all Europe that a meeting in favour of
Poland broke up in a row, and that, instead of
passing the above resolution, it merely censured
the English Prime Minister, and declared him
unworthy of confidence. Never was there a more
striking exemplification of doing the right thing
at the wrong time. What with the postponement
of the first meeting, and the breaking up of this,
we must own that it is difficult not to suspect
foul play, and treachery in the back ground.
The public verdict, doubtless, is " Wilful Rug-
sianism against some person or persons—(un-
known?)"
Notwithstanding the zeal of Messrs. COLLETT
and THOMPSON in the Russian service, we trust
they will not be able to frustrate the object for
which the meeting was called. The Polish Legion i
will, it is to be hoped, be formed in spite of them.
It would be a beginning, which might lead on to
the re-constitution of the Polish nation also. Lord
EBRINGTON well observed that just now the
question is not so much what we can do
for the Poles, as what they can do for
us. We need them to the full as much
as they need the Allies. We need the aid of
twenty millions of people, and of 200,000 soldiers
subtracted from the Russian service, and brought
over to ours. We need an ally which, unlike
Austria, hates the Russian despot, and which,
reversing her conduct, would detain Russian
troops from the theatre of war instead of sending '
them to it. Poland is the noble compensation
offered us by PROVIDENCE for the perfidious Haps-
burgs—the one condition of speedy success and
of permanent security. Dare our statesmen trifle
longer with English treasure and blood, and breast
English opinion much longer to please all the
Coburgs and Hapsburgs and other despots of
Europe, or even to please President POLE and
his Southerners themselves ?

Notwithstanding the energetic opposition offered
to its progress, the Limited Liability Bill has
passed through committee, and is appointed to be
read a third time on Monday. We hope; and
believe, that this simple instalment of justice,
having escaped the shoals and quicksands by
which it was surrounded, having been steered
past the " Scylla" of the standing order and the
"Charybdis" of the select committee may now be
considered as safe from further danger, and
virtually carried. Some amendments were ac-
cepted by the Government rather from the desire
to avoid a division than any notion that they
would prove real ameliorations—but, the most
important of all, relating to the amount of capital
and shares, and that which proposed a public
audit similar to that some time since attempted
to be forced ou the railway interest, werebrejected.
There is, therefore, nothing calculated to produce
a collision between the hereditary and represen ta-
te branches of the Legislature, or to prevent
much-required measure from receiving the
Royal Assent on Tuesday next.
Their Lordships have exhibited sound sense
and judicious patriotism in receiving the present
measure at so advanced a
p
and pardoning the slight to
of thet session,t'heiramatrpropre
evinced by according so brief a
period
to a
mea-
sure of such vast importance to the
community.
It is the first recognition of the great principle of
free trade in money, that every man should be
I permitted to invest his capital as he thinks proper,
without being liable to unlimited "pains and
penalties," to the chances of not only being
his property of every kind, but of
stripped of all
being cast into prison and made a bankrupt or
insolvent, because be had invested a portion of his
funds in an unfortunate or injudicious specula-
tion—a virtual prohibition, the real effect being
to prevent any such investments, and to force
men who were not contented with the scanty in-
terest obtainable in savings banks, or in the
public funds, into the bubble schemes, of which
so many struggled into existence notwithstanding
the existing.difficulties.

One of the main objections to th,coemmp n,,
measure was
that it would produce considerable ,
and prevent small traders from being enabled to
exercise a monopoly in their respective districts,
as has hitherto been the case. A Noble Lord,
for whose opinion we entertain unfeigned respect,
instanced the cases of the butcher or baker,
" who, trading with limited capital and unlimited
esstablished next door to him a butcher's
orliabibatkyBavfhop,e,r's
supported by the subscribed
capital of all his neighbours, and underselling him
by the sacrifices which a limited liability would
enable the association to make." We gladly ac-
cept the issue which th© Noble and Learned Lord

bas tendered,. and are contented to Jest the entire
case otsi tlie very po-ini wfiieh he has selected.

Le'.; us, thOu; • look to its .effect (dn t

ie butcliers

anr ar.d afse on 4_11'3 community at lar,;
first having respectfully beard his LDrdship's
statement, we shall call "paterfamilias," the man
with a (very) limited income, and as he conceives
an almost unlimited family, the unfortunate indi-
vidual who, looking to the number of mouths he
has to fill, trembles at the expenditure of an un-
necessary farthing, and is therefore by no means
contented to pay 2d. per lb. for his meat and ld.
per lb. for his loaf more than a remunerative
price, in order that the blue-frocked and white-
visaged gentry may obtain exorbitant profits, or
that the grocer may be enabled to despise any re-
monstrances at the adulterations in which it is his
pleasure to indulge.
The unfortunate citizen who, having given
hostages to fortune in the shape of a blooming
wife and numerous family, is entitled to claim
that honourable title, ought to be happy, and
would be so but for the magnitude of his weekly
bills, which, in one way or the other, whether
from overcharge or adulteration, are from 2(3' to
25 per cent. more than they ought to be. He
looks to his butcher's bill, and he finds the leg of
mutton charged 9d. per lb., while the inferior
parts are proportionately higher ; his loaf is 101
or perhaps 11d., and looking at the wholesale
prices at Newgate-market or Mark-lane, he per-
ceives that he is scandalously overcharged, but
that he has no remedy, while the parties can tell
him to go elsewhere, well knowing that he cannot
be served on better terms from the combination
of the neighbouring tradesmen. Again, when
asking, if not for prime old mocha or good
mountain, he obtains what is not even coffee or
pure chicory, can we wonder if he complains of
the atrocious system that prevents him from ob-
taining fair value for his money ?
The fair dealer need not dread competition.
He knows that there are advantages to be derived
from unity of management and diligent attention
to his own business, with which no company
under the direction of paid servants can success-
fully compete. If he doubt the fact, let him try
the experiment of neglecting his business for a
single week, and leaving it even to the best dis-
posed clerks. The master's eye is known to be
woith a " mint of gold." Every fair trader will
find that so long as he merits the confidence of his
neighbours he will have nothing to fear from
joint-stock competition. When he does not, it is
for the public interest that he should no longer
be encouraged in setting public opinion at defi-
ance, by the concession of a virtual monopoly, or,
in other words, the power of plundering his neigh.
bouts with impunity.

The important topic last night brought before
the House of Commons by Captain SCOBELL is one
that must speedily receive the attentive considera-
tion of a Government, bound no less by its own
professions and promises than by the unanimous
resolution of the House of Commons, to the
advancement of administrative reform and to
obtain the exertions of the best men in every
department of the public service. Those who
acknowledge the propriety of getting the right
men into the right places can scarcely object to an
inquiry into the system of promotion and patron-
age in the Navy, which is so bad that many men
have supposed it might be improved by the intro-
duction of the " purchase system" (!) It is diffi-
cult to conceive a greater slight or reproach that
could be offered than that the regulations which
have been so universally complained of, and which
are doomed to an early extinction, are even bet-
ter than the rules by which promotions are made
in the
,sister service. But so it is ! Despite the
abominable system of venality, there is a better
prospect for unaided merit in the Army than in
the Navy. A deplorable fact, probably arising
from the political character of the source whence
promotion or even employment can alone be so-
licited.

The Honourable and Gallant Member, who so
clearly and efficiently explained the imperative
necessity for an alteration in the system, only
asked for a select committee. Inquiry was all be
demanded. Inquiry—which might lead to very
important results, and which, at all events, could do
no harm. It was obvious that no progress could be
made with the investigation before the re-assem-
bling of Parliament. But the fact that the committee
had been granted would stimulate the Govern.
ment to decide, during the recess, on the nature
of the required modifications and alterations, and
possibly by being prepared with practical mea-
sures to forestall the inquiry' and dispense with
its necessity. We fear, however, from the nature
of the speech of Sir CHARLES WOOD, as well as
from his known character and devotion to the
•cause of red-tapism, that we cannot look ,for any
valuable reform so long as he remains at the head
of the Board as political First Lord. Public
opinion must therefore be directed to the point,
and the " pressure from without," which has
generally proved so effectual, brought into ope-
, ration.

rte teterrinia causa mali, the fertile source of
evil with regard to the navy, has been the politi-
cal character of those to whom patronage has been
entrusted, and which has consequently rendered
promotion not the reward of merit, but of family
or political influence. The entire constitution of
the Board is objectionable, and was protested
against under very remarkable circumstances by
one of its leading members, Sir GEORGE COCKBURN,
who was for many years First Naval Lord, and
who yet when dying left a paper under his pillow,
or, as others assert, locked up with his will, ex-
plaining the causes of the inefficiency of the
Board, and an earnest recommendation for its
abolition.

. " Melius est petere fontes quant sectari rivulos."
It is better to strike at the fountain and origin of
all these acknowledged evils than to hunt up the
details. The first point to be aimed at is the
Board itself, which, according to the suggestion of
Sir G. COCKiiIIRN, should be forthwith abolished,
and the management of the navy transferred to a
naval officer, thoroughly conversant with the mat-
ters which he is authorised to control, and capa-
ble of judging of the qualifications of the officeze
in employment and looking for promotion. He
may be assisted by a council. But it
is of vast importance that none of the
persons selected should be chosen for politi-
cal consideration, or that they should be in
ae
inty degree
h er House
of influenced
Parliament. by the
state
Theof
They
eh
epualrdtihees in
e
completely exempted from all such influences
as the judges of the land—whose conduct is
beyond reproach. There might be a political
secretary to manage accounts and regulate expen-
diture ; but those responsible for the efficiency of
the fleet should be placed, so far as practicable,
beyond the suspicion of partiality. This is the
first and the indispensable step—others naturally
follow, to which we shall direct attention on some
future opportunity.

Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent left Frog.
more )esterday, for Osborne, on a visit to her Majesty.
Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester con-
tinues, we are glad to learn, in good health.