The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-20 00:00:00

GENERAL GOUGH.

Col. BARTTELOT asked the Under Secretary for War
on what principle Lieutenant-General Gough, C. 8., had
been appointed to the 2d Dragoons ; and moved an address
for papers. The hon. gentleman laid great stress en the
circumstance that General Gough had never served in
ina
cavalry regiment, for, though ho had been for some time
the 3d Light Dragoons, he never did a single day's duty
with that gallant corps.
Col. DICKSON would not say one word either for or
against the appointment of General Gough, but ho consi-
dered that discussions in that house on military appoint.
ments were very much to be deprecated. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. B. OSBORNE said General Gough's services almost
comprised the history of the successful campaigns of this
country during the last 42 years. During 40 years of that
period, indeed, he had been engaged in active service abroad.
and his appointment to the 2d Dragoons did equal honour
to the Horse Guards and to the general himself. (Cheers.)
Mr. P. DAWSON expressed his approval of the ap-
pointment.

The Marquis of HARTINGTON observed that, after
what had fallen from the hoe.. member for Li.keard (Mr, B.
Osborne) it would be unnecessary for him to trouble the
house by enumerating the eminent services which General
Gough had rendered to the country. As for the rule sup-
posed to exist to the effect that infantry officers could not
be appointed colonels of cavalry regiments, he could state

that no such rule existed either at the Horse Guards er the
War-office.

After a few words from Sir J. SitELLBY, the subject was
allowed to drop.
CAPTURE OF A SHIP UNDER THE CONFEDE-
RATE FLAG IN BRITISH WATERS.

Mr. HALIBURTON asked the Under Secretary for
Foreign Affairs for information relative to the capture of
a ship under the Confederate flag by a Federal vessel of
war, within the harbour of Pankbar, in Nova Scotia, and
under the guns of the fort ; and whether complaint had been
made of the outrage to the Government of the United States,
and with what result. The hon. member stated that the
people in the North American colonies were alarmed for
their safety in consequence of the inroads which were con-
stantly made upon them by parties belonging to the United
States—parties who cared nothing for law and order, and
who thought they were privileged to commit every sort of
outrage with entire impunity. He did net wish to inquire
whether this was a piratical act, or whether it was a lawful
capture, nor did b e want to inquire into the subsequent pro-
ceedings of the Court of Admiralty at Halifax; but simply
to call the attention of her Majesty's Government to the
state of alarm which prevailed in the colonies, and to ascer-
bin if any proceedings were taken to prevent outrages of
this character.
DENMARK.—TREATY OF LONDON.

Mr. KINGL AKE called attention to the way in which
the operations of the treaty of London of the Bth May, 1852,
was effected by a note addressed on the same day by Baron
Brunnow to the Danish Minister at the Court of St. James's,
and asked whether the communication of the note to her
Majesty's Government hed been received by them with ac-
quiescence, or had been the occasion of correspondence
which could be laid upon the table of the house. The hon.
gentleman said that, at a time when the Treaty of London
was a matter of complexity and confusion, he might be
pardoned for endeavouring to bring to:the knowledge of the
house a transaction which had occurred on the same day
the treaty was sigaed, but which, so fer as ho knew, had
not yet been communicated. This was a treaty which could
have no application until the King of Denmark had taken
the necessary measures for changing the succession, not
only to Denmark Proper, but to the two Duchies which
were subject to all this dispute. He believed there was a
growing opinion among the people of this country that it
would be grievous indeed if there were any words in that
treaty which could lead Great Britain to force by diplomatic
pressure upon a reluctant people a ruler chosen by diplo-
macy. His present object was to bring before the house
the true tenor of the arrangements which had been entered
into on the Bth of May, 1852. To make this clear, it was
necessary to give the house the report of the Warsaw pro-
tocol. The protocol of Warsaw, far from being a conces-
sion by the Emperor of Russia, was rather a retractation of,
the concession formerly made by the Emperor Paul. But
whether that was the true interpretation or not, it was quite
certain tnat the protocol of Warsaw did carefully seek to
keep alive the rights and claims of the Emperor of Russia,
in the event of the failure of issue on the part of the King
of Denmark. There were at the time as many as 17 lives
intervening between the succession to Denmark and the
Emperor of Russia ; but by the protocol of Warsaw 14 of
those intercepting persons were put aside. He had heard
the noble lord at the head of the Government had approved
of the Warsaw protocol, but that he had ceased to be a sup-
porter of it. The treaty of London dealt only with the sue-
cession, and in a general way indicated how Europe should
act in case of failure of issue on the part of the King of Den-
mark ; and it dealt with it in this manner, setting forth
that, in the event of the failure of issue on the part of the
King of Denmark, it would be competent for the King of
Denmark to propose new arrangements to Europe, and this
new arrangement was to be taken into consideration by the
parties to the treaty, by which the initiative was given to
the King of Denmark. Accordingly the second article of
the treaty had been relied upon as a safeguard, and Lord
Clarendon, when speaking on the subject, declared that the
second article of the treaty guarded against the dangers
arising frost a failure of issue on the part of the King of
Denmark. Butlon the very day when the treaty wee signed,
and while the ink of the treaty was lot yet dry, another
paper was prepared, which was signed by Baron Brunnow,
and addressed by him to the Danish Minister at the Court
of London, which, if acquiesced in by the several parties of
the treaty, would positively annul the second article of it,
and would do more, for it would bring into force and make
obligatory on the King of Denmatk the stipulations of the
Warsaw protocol. The hon. member road a translation of
the note, the purport of which was that the terms of the
protocol of Warsaw hold good between Russia and Den-
mark, and asked whether a similar note had been addressed
to her Majesty's Government and acquiesced in.

THE Stirq, LONDON, SATURDAY EVISNING, FEBRUARY 20, 1864.

officers has rendered it unnecessary for me to insist upon
the questions which, under other circumstances, it would
have been my duty at once to instruct your lordship to dis-
cuss with the Government of the United States, namely,
the wilful and flagrant violation of her Majesty's territory
by the officers of the United States cruiser Ella and Annie.
" Tho Government of the United States having subse-
quently made, as reported in your lordship's dispatch of
the 12th of January a full apology for the violation of
her Majesty's territory, committed by its officers in the case
of the Chesapeake, it is only necessary for me to authorise
your lordship to state to Mr. Seward, that her Majesty's
Government accept tho apology in the same spirit in which
it has been offered, and are truly glad that the matter has
been settled in a manner honourable to both parties, and
calculated to improve the friendly relations which her Ma-
jesty's Government are always anxious to maintain with the
Government of the United States: ---I am, &c.,
(Signed) "RUSSELL.

"The Lord Lyons, G.C.8., ecc.,
He (Mr. Layard) trusted that the apology and the answer
wculd prove satisfactory to the hon. member end to the
country. (Hear. hear.) His hon, friend behind him (Mr.
Kinglake) had made an extraordinary dise:,vory in a mys-
tei ions manner, (A. laugh.) He was at a loss to know what
mysterious sources of information his hon. friend possessed;
but he had taken the trouble to make a translation of a
document which, with that readiness to assist which was
never wanting in the librarian of the house, he could have
immediafely obtained in the library. That document, and
the translation of it, had been laid on the table of the house
in 1856 on the motion of Mr. Hutt. The hou member would
find the protocol of Warsaw and the note from Baroi
Brunnow addressed to the Danish minister. That note and
the enclosure were communicated to the Earl of Malmes-
bury when at the Foreign Office, and acknowledged by him.
No correspondence has taken place except by way of simple
acknowledgment by the Earl of Mahnesbury. It would not
be proper for him to follow the honourable gentleman in
his view of the nature and value of the Warsaw proctocol.
That was a question of great importance, which it would
not become him at the present moment to enter upon.
Mr. ROEBUCK said that the discovery made by the
lion. member opposite belonged to the family of mare's-
nests. It was indeed a very large one, but it was large
only on account of the inflation which it had received on
this occasion. Suppose a contract were entered into be-
tween A and B ; and A, behind B's back, wrote a note to
C ; could any one suppose that that note would alter the
contract between A and Bl' That was really the nature of
the transaction as stated by the hon. member. A treaty
was made between five Powers. The Minister of one of
them chose to mite a note to the Minister of the King of
Denmark about it. But the treaty remained just as it was ;
and the note remained waste paper, which the hon. gentle-
man had amused himself by translating. (Laughter.)

The house then went into committee of supply.
BANK ACTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.

This bill was read a second time.
INSANE PRISONERS' ACT AMENDMENT ACT.
The house then went into committee on this bill.
Clause 1 was agreci to.
On clause 2,

Mr. G. HARDY moved an amendment to the second
clause to the effect that in the cage of pi ;goners under sen-
tence of death, and certified by twn or more visiting justices
to have become insane ai'.er conviction, the truth of such
certificate should be inquired into by three commissioners
to be appointed for that purpose. The amendment led to
considerable discussion, end upon a division it was nega-
tived by 32 to 26. The several clauses of the bill were then
agreed to, and the bill was ordered to be reported to the
house.

The Warehouging of British Spirits Bill was read a
second time.

Mr. H. BRUCE obtained leave, to bring in a bill to con-
firm certain provisional orders under the Land Drainage
Act, 1561; also a bill to authorise the inelosure of certain
lands in pursuance of a report of the Enciosure Commis-
sioners of England end Wales; and a bill relating to the
importation of diseased cattle.

.Tb e other business on the paper haling been disposed of,
the house vdjourned.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

POST.—Speaking a few days ago of the Army
and Navy Estimates, we said that we felt no alarm
at the amount of expenditure which they involved.
What we said of that portion of expenditure we
say still more emphatically of the general and
entire expenditure of the empire. Of the many
Fears which create nights of puzzled worry, and
days that produce consequential publications of
prophecies, essays, and petitions amongst a parti
cuter class of political econcmists and the statesmen
of parochial vestries, there is none more illogical
nor built on narrower basis than the Fear of Ex-
penditure. There are not a few of these people :
of whom some are under a persuasion that a coun-
try, ancient, and complicated in its systems of long
groWth, can be administered to in accordance with
the principles of abstract dogmas, and of whom
others believe that all knowledge of finance is to be
gathered in the counting-houses of traders, and all
capacity for managing the resources of a great em-
pire is to be obtained by practice in the manipula-
tion of a parish rate. The one class generally emits
pamphlets or papers at social science gatherings,
and the other takes pleasure in giving voice to the
political ideas of financial reform associations. Both
are rather active just now ; the latter the more so of
the two, for its task is the easier. To acquire suffi-
ei3n t to take la degree in the art of loose agitation is not
a hard matter, and requires nothing like the applica-
tion and labour undergone by a graduate who pants
to become an acrobat of the Alhambra, or a conjuror
who occupies St. James's Hall and the wondering
attention of Christmas and New Year holiday-
makers. The process of graduation is very simple.
Nothing more is necessary than to fix, after the
manner of some great prototype, as Mr. Cobden,
upon two particular periods, one of small expendi-
ture and another of larger; buy, for three half-
pence a piece, the abstracts of revenue and expen-
diture of each intervening year at Hansard's ;
put the figures at the oottom of the columns in a
string like the blown birds' eggs of a schoolboy, or
the names and titles of a petty German prince;
commit the figures to memory, and give them forth
dressed up in phrases which may be obtained in
abundance from among the properties of
any plat-
form, and the master of which demands no gter
mental effort than is made by an average preacher
of sermons every Sunday; add to these acquisitions
a strong voice, and the thoughtless iteration of a
parrot, and you have a model speaker on financial
reform of perfect efficiency, and as invulnerable to
the lance of truth or the sword of reason as our
friend the parrot. Indeed, nothing would stop such
a man but treating him as the overwearied do the
persistent bird, namely, throwing a cloth over him,
and enveloping him in the darkness of night.
With political economists of this description we
will net attempt to deal. But it may not be useless
at this moment to say
a few words about this bug-
bear expenditure to those who, from dislike to
troublesome examinations, or from facile belief in
the pedlar, might not distinguish paste from dia-
monds, or aluminium bronze from gold, and be
cheated into faith by their Autelycus as easily as
the Corydons and Phillises of " Winter's Night
Tale." It is perfectly true that the expenditure of
the country has, in the last 20 years, increased with
a steady rapidity, and in a large ratio. It amounts,
no doubt, to what, in the unmeaning economical
jargon of the day, is called war expenditure ; a mode
of phrasing which really expresses nothing but a
barren fact—a fact from which, presented naked,
there can be evolved neither truth for the present
nor warning or guidance for the future. The ten-
dency of expenditure depends not upon its amount
merely. It is beneficial or detrimental, it aids pro-
gress or leads to ruin, just as it is the result of bold
and thrifty foresight, or of impulsive or timid ex-
travagance. Parsimony deserves the epithet of-reck-
less as often as expenditure. We were, for instance,
parsimonious in a high degree in Mr. Cobden's mo-
del financial year, the year 1835 ; and never was
parsimony so extravagant, and never were its ulti-
mate results more costly. In that year, 1835-6, the
theft Chancellor of the Exchequer, in deference to
a cry for what was deemed to be economy, cut down
expenditure largely, and in so doing silenced the op-
position of a loud, if not strong, party. Of income
little thought was taken. The desirable was con •
sidered to be effected when expenditure was by
any means brought below it. We had a surplus,
and the country gave itself credit for thrift and
foresight. But what was the ultimate result of the
fear of expenditure that was operative in 1835 ?
From 1837 to 1842 what ought ever to be the rela-
tive positions of income and expenditure were
inverted ? Expenditure went first, and for five
dreary years Income panted and laboured after it,
like a dismounted sportsman after a runaway horse
in a ploughed field ; and the further the two went
the further was Income behind, till in 1842 they
wire so far apart that we had an annual deficit of
nearly £4,000,0U0. Nor was the fact of that deficit
the least remarkable nor the least alarming feature
of that period of financial desolation. Concurrently
with the deficits taxes were augmented, while, not-
withstanding their augmentation, their produce
became less. The resource of the country were
strained, yet income dwindled Thu wealth of the
country diminished. The years, as they rolled on,
gathered nothing. The enenditure of the.n country
iwnatshlaetssepboychtwwenhticyhmthilelioCnobs denschool
than
it is ow,
helplessly on the path that leads to insolvency.
h .
We ad been recklessly exiravagant in economy.
foeot
Let the admir,::: et' the then ayotem of finance
n pine
ite.nt d after
t
y
the nation was paralysed, tud had planted
turn his attention from that period
see? An expenditure large in the ebsTract,
, Whatto the year
lie
no
doubt—largor by twenty milliom than it was twelve

or fifteen years ago ; and he is alarmed—alarmed
because he sees only one fact, instead of perceiving
a whole truth. Had he true perception he would
sea that, in advance of Expenditure, is marching
Income, with a certain and still larger stride, And
such is the increase in the wealth of this country,
and such, by the judicious manipulation of the
Finance Minister, the availability and elasticity
of its resources, that, concurrently with this state of
things, taxation is subjected to yearly remission,
instead of being strained, as in the years to which
we have referred, to the point of unproductiveness.
Under such circumstances our expenditure now can-
not be justly described as either dangerous in ten-
dency or extravagant in fact. A man who spends
three hundred a year may be more truly extrava-
gant than another who spends fifty thousand. And
as it is with an individual so is it with a nation. A
truth which we the more earnestly desire to impress
upon the public, because although some reductions
may bo effected by care and skill in administration,
we do not anticipate that there ever can be, at
least so long as the country continues to advance
in wealth at its present ratio, such a retrenchment
of expenditure as would satisfy the so called Fi-
nancial Reform School. Every year the commu-
nity adds to its functions, and every yenr, as the
wealth of the eonntry becomes greater and the
profits of professions and trades are augmented,
the discharge of these functions becomes neces-
sarily more costly.
TIMES.—The Australian colonies are finally re-
lieved from the doubts and uncertainties by which
they have been tormented during last six months.
They have received an explicit assurance from the
highest authority, and in the most public manner,
that it is not the intention of the Government to
give effect to that recommendation of the Commis-
sioners which contemplated an increase of the num-
ber of convicts annually transported to Western
Australia. The controversy has ended as it was
sure to end, and as persons of much less experience
than the Royal Commissioners ought to have anti-
cipated that it must end. When people are so fond
of pointing to the great and free colonies of Great
Britain, established by the potent agency of liberty
—that pearl of great price, as Mr. Burke said, of
which we only have the monopoly—they ought to
remember the means by which they have created
and the tenure by which they hold this mighty em-
pire. It is not our fleets and armies, it is not our
parental care, it is not the bonds of commerce, it
is not the community of language, literature, and
tradition that mainly attach our colonies to us;
it is because they can enjoy under the sceptre of
Queen Victoria a liberty equal to our own and
superior to that which can be obtained elsewhere.
It is of the very essence of this liberty that it re-
fuses to be constrained within narrow bounds or
cramped within technical fetters. It is apt to de
mend not only all that is, strictly granted, but all
that is necessary in order to give that grant full
enjoyment. It is of course strictly true that no
colony has a right to interfere in any portion of the
Queen's dominions beyond its own limits, and it is
equally true that the British Parliament has a right
to transport convicted offenders to any part of the
Empire. But these two rights together make one
grievous wrong, if the result is that the criminals so
transported really find their way to the colonies
which are unwilling to receive them. In such a case
the technical law is on one side, and the substantial
merits entirely on the other. The price of labour
is much higher in the eastern colonies of Australia
than in Western Australia. The climate is suitable
to a European population, and under these circum-
stances it is impossible to doubt that as fast as sen-
tences expire the prisoners will find their way from
the barren and stationary West to the wealthy and
prosperous East. It was not likely that communi-
ties founded on the principles of liberty should ac-
quiesce in this, and it was equally improbable that
England should be willing, even if she were aisle, to
coerce them. In the present state of opinion with
reference to our colonies, we have but one alterna-
tive in case of a serious difference between them and
the mother country. If a question arises with a
foreign country, there is always the last and worst
resource of war ; if any part of the United Kingdom
were to refuse obedience to authority, the civil
power, supported by the military if necessary, is
ready to enforce it. Bat with a Colony practically
neither of these resources is available. In case of
resistance to the decisions of the Home Government
we could not rely on the colonial authorities to sup-
port us, for they are responsible to the Colonial
Parliament, the emanation of popular will ; and as
for the exertion of military force, opinion in this
country has long pointed to a peaceful separation
as an alternative far preferable to a repetition in any
shape of the blunder and crime of the American war,
the darkest episode in English history. It follows
that within limits defined by the alternative of
separation from the Mother Country the more im-
portant colonies enjoy a freedom from our control
greater than is possessed by any other country in
the world, We ought not to repine at this, for it
is the very tenure by which we hold them, the
glorious tenure of a common liberty, a liberty capa-
ble of being exercised to some extent even against
ourselves. As, therefore, the success of the Colonies
in this country was inevitable from the first, we
wish that the concession which we have had to
make had been made less grudgingly, and with less
effort to prove that the apprehensions of the Colo-
nies were unfounded, or even exaggerated. If "he
who gives quickly gives twice," it is no less true
that he who gives avowedly under compulsion can
scarcely be said to give at all. Why insist that
the Commissioners were clearly justificei in mak-
ing their recommendation upon the evidence be-
fore them, although the Government is equally jus-
tified in refusing to act upon that evidence? This
might have been true if the attention of the Com-
missioners had been exclusively confined to the
wants of Western Australia, and if the case of the
other Colonies had never been brought before them.
The contrary is, however, notorious. Among the
witnesses examined we find the name of Mr.
Newland, a magistrate of South Australia, who
fully stated to the Commission the very facts upon
which the Colonies have since relied, showing the
great immigration into South Australia from
Western Australia, about half of Ni hich consisted of
" expieees ;" the increase of crime, the excitement
in consequence, and the facilities for accomplishing
the voyage. Mr. Childers, once a resident in Vic-
toria, himself served on the Commission, and sub-
mitted to it an amendment, pointing out, among
other things, the discontent which was sure to ensue
in the Colonies, which amendment the Commission
unanimously rejected. This plan of making every-
thing pleasant to everybody by showing that the
holders of two contradictory propositions are beth
in the right has, no doubt, the advantage of pre-
serving good humour for the moment, but to us it
seems much better that an error should be con-
fessed when it really has been committed rather
than that such strained inferences should be adopted
in order to conceal it. Nor do we think it
should be said that " the alarm and apprehension
of the colonists are no doubt to a great extent
" untounded." Oar whole colonial system is
founded on the assumption, which facts have
abundantly verified, that the colonists understand
their own local affairs much better than we do, and
that we are just as unfit to govern thein as they
are to govern us. Whether it is for our interest to
send our convicts to Aaatralia is a question of which
we are much better judges than the Australian
colonists. Whether it is their interest to receive
them is a question of which they are much better
judges than we. So far from their apprehensions
being unfounded, it is quite certain that they would
be fully verified as to the ultimate destination of
convicts whose sentences have expired. Western
Australia must be, from the very nature of the cam.,
a sponge to be periodically emptied into the Eastern
Colonies, for the same reasons which draw the people
of Ireland to America. All that can be said is that
the convicts who will go there will be so reformed
that they will be a valuable acquisition. On this
point also the Australians are the best judges.
Their great want is labour and population ; and, if
they refuse to receive able-bodied men, we may
be very sure that they do so for sufficient reason.
There is one part of this subject to which we
earnestly beg to draw the attention of our fellow-
' countrymen in Eastern Australia. We have a
right to bo heard, for we did not even wait for the
announcement of their opinion, but pointed out
immediately the grave error the Commissioners had
committed in menacing them with a renewal of
transportation. They have gained a com plete and, we
should think, to them moat gratifying triumph.
The debate on which we have been commenting
will show them how reluctantly the scheme of in-
creased transportation has been abandoned. Let
them use their success with moderation. They may
contend logically, no doubt, that they are aggrieved
in like kind, though in less degree, while a single
prisoner is transported to Western Australia, ; but
we hope they will not insist on this extreme view,
and we are quite sure that it is not for their interest
to do so. A very strong feeling would certainly be
excited in this country at anything which could
fairly receive the name of an attempt at dictation
on the part of the Colonies as to the manner in
which the Home Government ought to dispose of
its prisoners. Even between the Mother Country
and the Colonies it is not reasonable to suppose that
the concessions are all to be on one side. They
participate in all the advantages and they bear none
of the burdens of the Empire to which they belong,
In New Zealand our blood has just been poured out
like water for their service in a quarrel in which we
have no manner of interest of our own. Let them
be content with what they have achieved, and re-
member that to the continued union of the Mother
Country and her Colonies the goodwill of the
former is jinn, as necessary as the goodwill of the
latter.