The Sun.
London, England, 1855-02-14 00:00:00

BIRTHS IN THE WEEK.

Alales
Females

Total ..

..................... 1,832

- -
PIMPOSED BANK OF LONDON.—The prospectus of this
Bank has been issued, with a capital of 600,0001., and a
power of extension to 2,000,0001.
RUSSIAN TRAM—The Correspondence has
the following from Tilsit :—" According to a letter from
Russia, material interests are beginning to feel the effect
of war more and more. Raw produce must be got
rid of, at first hand, at the lowest prices, on account
of the cost of transport from the interior, in order
to enable it to meet with purchasers abroad. Many
Russian factories are also at a standstill, in conse-
quence of a want of raw material and fuel (coal),
because the supplies conveyed to them by wheel are
insufficient, and the prime cost is enormously increased
by those of transport. For instance, as regards exports
of tallow from southern Russia to Konigsberg (now the
principal point of concentration and export, via Pillau),
30 days are required. The convoys generally consist of
50 waggons (or sledges), under the charge of 12 men,
who receive 1,400 roubles for carriage and delivery at
Konigsberg."

In the life of every man there are certain periods when,
overcome by soma bodily weakness, led aside by some
strong passion, or engrossed by some favourite pursuit,
he seems to lose his grasp over his destiny, to relax his
efforts after the end at which ho is straining, and to sink
back into ease, indolence, arid self-eomplaceney. Much
such a period has this country passed threugh since the
establishment of Free Trade in 1816. Immersed in the
pursuit of material wealth, proud of the extension which
our noble principle gave to our commerce, and happy in
the relief from pauperism and the increased facility of
finding employment, we have been only too well content
with things as they were, and too little disposed to in-
quire what they should be. The revolutions of IS4B,
and the crimes, iniscrie, and absurdities to which they
gave rise, had produced a reaction agaiuut liberal sym-
pathies and opinions, and a tendency to submit without
inquiry to whatever authorities might be placed over us.
The election of ISS was a struggle for a principle vir-
tually condemned already, and practically obsolete, and
the nation only sought to strengthen the hands of those
in whose adhesion to Free Trade they felt entire confi-
dence. From different circumstances it came to pass
that at no period since the Reform Bill had the aristo-
cratic families obtained so firm a hold on office, place,
and patronage as in the commencement of the year 1854.
They had conducted our business for many years with-
out any extraordinary miscarriage or misfortune, and
we were content to leave them the field of politics as
their peculiar vocation and monopoly. But war has al-
ways been noted as an unsparing innovator, the de-
stroyer of conventional respectabilities, and the over-
thrower of all manner of snug and comfortable cliques
and coteries. The experience of the last few months
has awekeued the people of England from their dreams
of wealth and prosperity, from their traditional self-gra-
tulations over the naval and military exploits of the late
war, and from the supposition that mea invested with
high rank and clothed with great office are possessed of
faculties equal to the direction of our affairs whenever
there is more than an ordinary strain on the vessel of
the State. Our eyes are open, and we behold that we
are naked. We ask for talent sufficient to conduct great
affairs to succeesful conclusions, and instead of talent we
are offered titles and pedigrees. We ask for merit, and
we are offered in exchange high connexions, or, at best,
seniority. The cold shade of aristocracy is over us all,
and nothing can grow beneath it except the offshoots of
the tree itself. Up to the middle of November this
country believed itself to have armies, generals, states-
men, departments, all equal to their several duties, all
of the very best the world could afford, and now, in the
middle of February, in three short months, all is changed,
or rather all is reversed. 'We have awoke from our
dream of hope, prosperity, and success, to disaster and
dismay. Our generals have turned out worse than use-
less our Ministers something more than incapable, every
public department has been crushed into hopeless im-
becility by the weight of unbending routine and worth-
less formalities, and on no one occasion that we are aware

of has the right man been selected to fill the right place.
Everything has been mismanaged to a degree which, if
predicted, would have been deemed incredible ; yet, so
fUr as the public are aware, no single official has yet
been recalled, and, after a week's interregnum, Govern-
ment has been reconstituted and strengthened only by
the omission of three of its leading members, and the
promotion of one who is at least as guilty as any of those
omitted.

The people of England have remained quiet under all
these things. They have felt—as how should they not
feel ?--the mortality which has brought mourning to
every hearth. They have noted—as how should they
not note l—the incredible and inexplicable confusion and
stupidity which have presided over every department,
giring reality to absurdities such as the most extrava-
gant imagination could never have painted, and occa-
sioning miseries such as the gloomiest prophet could
never have foreboded. Why the people have been so
long silent has been to most reflecting men a matter of
wonder and astonishment. They feel most acutely, but
they have remained hitherto passive spectators of the
method in which their best hopes and dearest interests
have been squandered and betrayed. Perhaps they have
cherished a hope that at the meeting of Parliament all
things would be well. Perhaps they have been content
to read their sentiments faithfully reflected in the co-
lumns of the press. Whatever be the cause of the
silence, that cause exists no longer, and ve have to look
for an expression of public opinion from one end of this ,
country to the other which will convey to our governinm.
classes a most clear and intelligible warning that the
patience of the nation is exhausted, and that the neces-
sity for widening the area from which our Executive is
es i, te.t.oe. ;e 5t-cab and rare.mouni.. The enthuciaatic
meeting at the town of Derby has led the way, and the
remaining towns of England wilt not be slow to follow.
The cry is for practical statesmanship, for opening a tree
career to talent, for pl icing our resources in hands equal
to the emergency. The Derby petitioners hold no ex-
travagaat or exaggerated language ; they declare their
confidence hi the justice of the war, they txpiess their
humiliation and regret at the disasters which have oc-
curred, they pray for a searching in qn;ry into their
causes, and suggest remedies adequate to the eintr.4eney
we have to meet. While MinisttrA are debating how to
fill up the most important offices with Vie Iraq competent ,
persons, and consult ring the claims of rank, of family,
and if connexion—of everything except merit and capa-
city—while the friends of "rising young statesmen"
of the true breed are indefatigably so:iciting their ad-
vancement from office to office, the people of England,
who care for none of these things, are gravely taking the
matter into their serious consideration, and coming to
conclusions but little favourable to the stability of the
present governing classes. We have been ready to
allow place and patronage to be monopolised by a few
great families. We have been content to live in our
own country, strangers to our own Government, ex-
cluded from the working of our own institutions, but it
was only on condition that our national pride should be
respected, and our interests and position in the great
family of nations remain inviolate. This our aristocracy
have failed to secure to us, and therefore the people of
England will, we hope, demand, in no spirit of wild and
theoretical levelling, in no spirit of hatred Cr animosity
to any portion of the community, but in the spirit of
practical reform of an urgent and intolerable grievance,
that the system which excludes plebeian talent from
high office shall henceforth be discontinued, and that in
the army, at the desk, and in the council, those men
clod! be called to the public service who are best able to
serve the public. \Vc wish all success to this movement.
It has been our painful lot to witness more nearly than
others and to obtain more ample information as to the
manner in which this war has been conducted, and wed;,
not hesitate to express the opinion that without an entire
change of system, a substitution of youth and energy
for age and decrepitude—unless some plan can be hit
upon by which merit shall be the only criterion in the
filling up of civil and military offices—without, in fact,
a complete abandonment of the claims of wealth, of
family, and of interest, in favour of that higher nobi-
lity which the hand of God has impressed on the fore-
head of every man of talent, it is vain for us to continue
the present contest, and better to accept any conditions,
however degrading and however humiliating, since n•
degradation and no humiliation suffered at the Laude
the enemy can exceed those which our own servility and
meanness have inflicted, aad are about to inflict, upon
ourselves.