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

Spirit of the Public Journals.

(Prom the Times of this day.)
" When," says Mr. Henry Drummond, " are
we to have common sense ?" Never, we answer,
as long as we comprehends within. it the eccentric
old gentleman who asks the quesne tioia. Many things
can tell stories,
Mr. Drummond can do.
though seldom the purpose. He can make
jokes, from which° the subtle essence of wit is only
too apt to evaporate in the telling, but to make a
speech, one half of which does not contradict the
other, to
give a rational opinion, or to be consis-
tent to any opinion whatever, are gifts which the
gods who made him oratorical hare pertinaciously
withheld. There is just enough of him left to
make one aware of that which is lost. It is a ring
of bells jangled and out of tune—an instrument
which no longer discourses sweet music in answer
to the hand of the musician—a picture where the
colours are faded and the outline is defaced—an
unweeded garden, where things rank and gross in
nature have choked up the wholesome herb and
the beautiful flower. Is there nobody who can
whisper to Mr. Drummond that he would do wisely
to abstain from the constant exhibition of infirmi-
ties which are not ordinarily made the subject of
public display ? As long, however, as it is the
pleasure of the constituency of West Surrey to
return Mr. Drummond to Parliament, and to
cheer him when he exhibits himself among them,
so long is it our duty to comment on what he says,
though we always do so with the feeling that the
speeches of Mr. Drummond are objects more pro-
perly for medical than political examination.
At present his mind seems bent with a morbid
fixedness on a single idea—the necessity of vilifying
and traducing in every possible manner the press
of this country, and the Times in particular. He
cannot propose the health of Prince Albert without
representing him as the victim of anonymous
slander, because, we presume, we have not shrunk
from showing, with all moderation and respect,
that the position he has taken up with reference
to the invidious privileges of the Guards is one
which a person moving in his elevated sphere would
have done wisely to avoid. Then come the army
and navy, the abuse of which is, we are informed,
a lucrative commercial speculation—a speculation
to which Mr. Drummondihopes that the people of
England will put an end. Strange as it may ap-
pear, we do not doubt that these words are levelled
at this journal, through the letters of whose corre-
spondents the exploits of our army and navy have
been made known to the world—to whose exertions
it is in no small degree owing that any portion of
our troops has survived the dreadful miseries
through which the incompetence of our departments
condemned them to pass, and in whom the united
services have ever found the warmest and most
earnest advocates of their lights and interests.
" Stand by your army and navy," says Mr.
Drummond, "for the press know nothing about
it, and do not evince any readiness to go and fight
themselves." Stand by your Army and Navy, we
my ; protect them from such friends as Mr. Drum-
mond, who, if consistent in nothing else, are, at
any rate, constant in opposing every reform, advo-
cating every abuse, and bolstering up every inca-
pacity.
But Mr. Drummond's masterpiece is when ho
comes to speak upon the war, and thus it is that
he expresses himself :--s" At the beginning of the
war he thought it most dignified for this country
to stand aloof, because he had no sympathy with
tyranny on the one hand, or revolution on the
other. The Emperor of Russia in desiring Turkey
yielded only to the natural weakness which every
farmer and every landowner feels ; he wanted more
land, and, as he wanted it, be determined to steal
it. Thus far Mr. Drummond is in favour of peace ;
and now comes iu the constitutional infirmity,
which renders every speech which Mr. Drum-
mond delivers a succession of zigzags. Although
Mr. Drummond was disposed to stand aloof, and
although the Emperor did no more than was na-
tural, Mr. Drummond was not for peace all the
while, but for war, and that on principles of jus-
tice, policy, and humanity. Having qualified
himself to admonish others by this ridiculous self-
contradiction, Mr. Drummond goes on to say that
" the great guides and instructors of the public"
—by which terms he is so kind as to designate our-
selves—have changed their tone, and now say we
are at war "for the sake of civilisation." Is there
any incompatibility in these two things ? We are
fighting for Turkey, not because she is civilised
herself, but because in her case the very principles
of civilisation and of political society, the supre-
macy of right over might, and the necessity of
checking the triumph of mere unbridled will over
the conscience of mankind, are directly put in
issue. Turkey is barbarous, but her cause is the
cause of civilisation, and when we defend her fron-
tiers we are not undertaking, as Mr. Drummond
insinuates, a crazy crusade for the extension of
civilisation, but combating for the maintenaaco of
that law and order which are the foundations of
civilisation against the dangers with which they
are threatened. This is what Mr. Drummond
calls "war at any price." For ourselves, so far
from considering war as an end, as these words,
if they hare any meaning at all, seem to im-
ply, we have the greatest repugnance to it AS
a means, and have only been induced to acquiesce
in it by the conviction that by war alone can we
avert greater and more pressing evils, while every
price, except dishonour, should be paid for peace.
We will not accept the challenge which Mr.
Drummond in the full tide of his unbridled rash-
ness and folly throws out, and discuss with him
the question whether this country be ready, in case
of necessity, to carry on the war single-handed.
No doubt, a gentleman of unsettled opinions and
not very firmly established wits, is exactly the per-
son whom the shrewd and far-sighted Emperor of
the French would take into his confidence, and it
is therefore vain for us to dispute with Mr. Drum-
mond when he asserts that the Emperor of the
French is ready to capitulate on dishonourable
terms, and suddenly put an end to an alliance in
which he has hitherto acted with such distinguished
faith and honour, unless we are prepared to submit
to the like disgraceful conditions. But as this, at
present, is one of those peculiar revelations with
which Mr. Drummond is known to be favoured be-
yond ordinary mortals, lie must excuse us from
arguing on a hypothesis so insulting to our great
ally, and happily, according to present appearances,
so little necessary.
We are reproached as advocates for war at any
price because we have openly declared, not that we
are opposed to peace, but that we have little con-
fidence in any conditions that are proposed to us by
Austria. In this respect we find that Mr. Drum-
mond entirely agrees with us, and against Austria
ho is prepared to contend, because Austria
em-
bodies despotism in its grossest form. To us the
despotism of Russia appears yet grosser, and against
that we are prepared to contend. It is for Ms.
Drummond to show why his course in so immea-
surably superior to ours. To be for war because
he is in favour of peace, and to advise us to adopt
the propositions of Austria because he has the most
unbounded contempt and hatred for that Power,
are conclusions natural to the understanding of
Mr. Drummond, but it is really melancholy to read
such stuff, and, find it interlarded with cheers and
laughter. Such a spectacle ought to be painful and
humiliating to those who select as their represen-
tative a person so manifestly disqualified for a great
public trust, and seem to be totally unaware that
they are doing all that in them lies to prove their
unfitness for that influence in our representative
government which it devolves upon them to
exorcise.

(Prom the Morning Herald of this day. )
When the Times and its correspondent " gerea-
tor" consider it necessary to enter the field of con-
troversy in defence of the Bank Act of 1844 it may
be fairly assumed, we think, that a serious attack
upon
that measure is anticipated. Wo have entered
into this subject in our columns from the sincere
conviction that the measure is one that claims the
most profound attention that can be bestowed upon
it in the coming session of Parliament. There
is
not an institution in our state, or a class or indivi-
duals in the
indi-
rectly that is not directly of indi-
interesteilin:smtklieedmoney laws of the country.
Why, it may be Ido they exercise this uni-
versality of power 7.Simply because no man can
do anything without money, The law has ordained
that man may toil, labour, and drudge on through
his earthly existence, and accumulate zuwiatte
productions
without limit ; but the
this freedom to produce denies birahactlitaegpivoewserhitnol
laws of
fbe in
exchange. Can this be rational ?
strict accordance with the fundamental lan
civi-
lised society ? The introduction into our moon tcode of a system of restriction such as the eouenatriyy
very justly complains of, is based upon the narrow_
eat of prejudices ; and, like every other system
continually wages war against the interests of se_
eiety, it will give way before the growing intern-
g ',Lice of the age.
iuttoreturn to the Times and its correspondent,
"Mercator,"whose letter it re-echoes in its leading,
columns. This writer appears to have made a most
important discovery when he states that "The
trail© and
commerce of a country are carried on,
not by Means of its paper money or its circulation,
but by me
state that, a, l
n, sof
When
its capital ;" and he goes on to
pressure falls upon the trading
usually community, ityarl arises from some disturl:-
anee of the due proportion
trading operations and between the extent of
atieetob amount of capital by
which those operations
if neither the paper money oefasucsouainnted.ry, nor its
circulation, perform any part in the trade and coin- ,
mere° of a nation, of what conceivable use can
g parts of our monetary : I
either of them be as formin