The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMES.—It is very satisfactory that a subject
which has been so long in men's minds as the re-
spective merits of public and private manufactories
should have been brought before the House of
Commons by a member like Mr. Cobden, who may be
trusted to say all that can be said against the system
which has lately received the preference of the
Government. There is, we presume, no one who will
refuse assent to the chief propositions which Mr.
Cobden lays down. There are valid objections to the
too great assumption of industrial enterprises by the
Executive of a country. Where the stimulus of pri-
vate gain is wanting there must be in some degree a
tendency to slowness, to indifference, to routine and
poverty of invention. Time is likely to be wasted
by those who do not see their direct and immediate
interest in alacrity; improvements must come slowly
when the duty of each man is only to work under a
system already settled, and to satisfy official superiors
who are rather irritated than gratified by discoveries
which involve troublesome changes. it is quite
true that the existence or great Government facto-
ries checks private competition—that it tends to at-
tach the Admiralty and the War-office to certain
inventions and certain mechanical theories, instead
of leaving their mirth open to the reception of what-
ever is best, come from whatever quarter it may.
Then there are the favour shown to official designs,
the difficulty which outside merit has in gaining the
ear of the Departments, the jealousy, the complaints,
and the suspicion on the part of the public that it is
not served in the best manner—a suspicion which,
whether well or ill founded, is productive of no little
harm. These objections must have occurred to the
mind of every one who has thought on the subject,
and as they are ever and anon urged in Parliament,
besides occasionally appearing in print, it is quite
worth the while of the House of Commons to make a
searching investigation of the system, to discover its
weak points, to 2ee how far the public interests are
really neglected, how far the private manufacturer
suffers injustice, haw far the inventive power of the
country is discouraged. Mr. Cobden and those who
think with him are entitled to demand that the Go-
vernment shall fully prove the advantages of the
system which it has developed to so very great ex-
tent within the last few years. The result of such
an examination may possibly be to show that a
greater reliance on private enterprise is possible and
that a greater readiness to accept the suggestions of
the outside world would be becoming. But taking
the manufacturing establishments of the Government
as a whole, we are not prepared to say that the na-
tion would be a gainer by abolishing them, and by
depending entirely, as Mr. Cobden advises, on con-
tractors chosen by ordinary competition. It, must, in
the first place, be admitted as an argument in favour
of Government works that they have been the result
of experience dearly earned in a calamitous war.
Mr Cobden dwells on the circumstance that these
establishments were founded or greatly enlarged
since the Crimean campaign, and he compares the
free-trade system of buying cannon and muskets
which prevailed ten or twelve years ago with the
monopolies which the Government has now estab-
lished. But so far from this being an argument on
his side, it rather tells against him. What means
this general abandonment of the contract system,
this setting up of workshops where everything can
be made by Government hands t 3 Government
order, except that in the opinion of those most
conversant with the former system it was no longer
sufficient for the wants of the country ? Does it
not seem to indicate that those responsible for
the safety and honour of the conntry, acting upon
the best scientific advice and receiving the
sanction of the Legislature, established Go'.
vernmeut factories because they found that the
materials of war obtained from these works were bet-

ter inequality, and could be more regularly and
rapidly produced than by private contractors ? We
believe that this is the real state of the case, and that
it furnishes a reasonable and valid defence of the
present system. On the system, we must repeat, we
do not look with especial favour. We quite recog.
nise its advantages, of which the greatest, no doubt,
is the temptation to persist in the use of antiquated
models because the Government establishment has
been fitted to produce them, and to reject or ignore
the suggestions of the outside wurld. Nor can we
without further evidence accept the official assur-
ance that these establishments are more cheaply
worked than private firms. We think that, if the
capital sunk in them and every outgoing were taken
into consideration, the result would rather confirm
the views of Mr. Cobden. But when the nation,
after the Crimean War, extended the principle of
Government manufacture to the greater part of what
was wanted for the public service, it did it well '
knowing these objections. It did not believe that
the establishments would teem with original genius;
it did think that they would be marvels of economy.
Bar it had other objects in view, and, looking at the
subject calmly, we believe that these have been at-
tained. The first was to insure excellence in every-
thing that was supplied to either service, whether it
were a cannon, or a rifle, or an article of clothing,
or food. Now, on this head we have never heard
two opinions. Every one conversant with the sera
vices will admit that, whether cheaply or not, the
B itish soldiers and sailors are now provided with
the best. When a chip of war goes to sea it has
the best wood, the best iron, and the best workman-
ship that can be applied to anything that floats.
The bills may be heavy, but the work is not
" acamped ;" no one has to fear unsound timbers
or a leaky ship. Now, with due respect to the private
shipbuilders of the country, we do not think that
their work would be so generally excellent, particu-
larly when vessels were required in a hurry. We
need only remember the gunboats built by private
firms in the Crimean war. The same may be said of
minor articles. In time of peace no doubt all would
go well. Things would only be wanted in moderate
quantities and at regular intervals. There would be
time to examine and reject, and to check the con-
tractor in the approved way. But it must be re-
membered that armies and navies are not wanted
for peace. It is the hurry and push of a war which is
the real test of a system, and unless it can stand
that it is useless. The contract system is we suspect
essentially one for peace. It is when large quanti-
ties of munitions are ordered on a sudden, when
there is no time to examine and reject them and
wait for others that the country might suffer greatly
from having no establishment on which to rely. Re-
collect one or two incidents of the Crimean War_ A
large quantity of boots was ordered for a regiment
then setting off for the East. They were to be sent
to nalta, and, in due course, the cases would pro-
bably only have been opened on Turkish ground.
But the troops for whom they were destined were
detained here, and the boots were delivered before
they left England. It was found that they were
wholly useless. They would have fallen to pieces
in a day's march. What would have been the fate of
a body of men who had been supplied with them in
presence of the enemy ? A week's campaign would
have laid up three-fourths of them. Do not let us
forget, either the intrenching tools furnished by con-
tract about the same time,—how the iron of spades
and picks bent double in the hands of our men, em.
barrassing to the utmost the ooerations of the siege.
Turely, the conviction that we can always have a
good article and plenty of it at the hour of need
may well be purchased by a little extra expense.
The Government establishments insure the nation
not only excellence of materials, but independence
in the supply of them. They enable almost any
amount of whatever is wanted to be turned out on
any sudden emergency, and preserve the country
from being left at the mercy of any trade at the
hour of need. As regards the production of articles
for which there is a great demand in the Army or
Navy, and which are not likely to be superseded
by the progress of science, we think that Govern..
went•works, producing them regularly, rapidly,
and of the best materials, are advantageous to the
nation. Where, however, the manufacture is in a
state of transition, and the model of to-day may be
superseded by that of to-morrow, there is undoubta
edly much to be said in favour of Government
heaping itself unpledged to any particnlar system,
and free to choose amid the workshops of the

country.
POST-—lt is now just three weeks since we pub-
lished a very remarkable series of despatches be-
lieved to have passed between the
poi Courts n
unted of Rnmis.
ussia,
These i
Austria, and t'russia.
mistakable language to the reestablishment of the
Holy Alliance. The authenticity of the documents
was denied by some of the Governments from whom
they were supposed to have creceeded, and those
who regard afield denials as conclusive were
doubtless convinced that this singular etorrespon.
(fence was spurious. But there were others who
were not prepared to accept without reserve the
asseverations of the Cabinets of Berlin and Vienna.
If the documents in question were forged, it was
impossible to deny that the forgery was so
effected as to defy detection, except when submitted Ii
to the searching glances of Count Rechberg and
Herr von Bismark. But, indpendently of that air
of genuineness which an examination of their con-
tents did not fail to discover in these despatches, it
so happened that surrounding circumstances tended
to corroborate the cecelusion to which their perusal
irresistibly led. It was not merely as if the Goy
vernmen to of Austria, Prussia, and Russia had inti-
mated a desire to form an alliance for the protection
of their common interests, and for the establish-
ment of a pure despotism in Central and Western
Europe, but those overt acts which they were daily
committing, and which were patent to all the
world, by a curious coincidence pointed to a pre-
cisely similar result. In Northern Europe a war has
been raging since the beginning of the year, which
the chief adviser of the Prussian King, in a moment
of unaccountable frankness, declared v,,as mainiy
directed age.lut instituti=. `jlong,"

said Herr von Bismark to Lord Wodehouse
in December last, " as democratic institutions exist
in Denmark, peace cannot subsist between that
country and Germany." As the Dano-German war
proceeded, attentive observers saw that this state■
ment of the Prussian Minister furnished the key to
the real motive of the hostilities. All that the
German Powers ostensibly demanded was granted,
or at least guaranteed, before the Anstro-Prussian
army crossed the Eider ; but, nevertheless, the tide
of invasion pressed on unchecked. Alarmed for the
safety of the sister kingdom, as well as for her own,
Sweden thought seriously of assisting Denmark,
when at once, without a note of warning, Russia--
the friendly counsellor of the Danish monarchy--
threw an immense army on the frontier of Finland.
The concert between Russia and the German Powers
then became apparent, and in Denmark Western
Europe was justified in believing that she saw her
own liberties threatened. Under these circums
stances the despatches which we felt it to be our
duty to publish, and which it is needless to say we
should not have done if we did not feel perfectly
assured of their authenticity, disclosed facts which
bore all the stamp of credibility. By one statesman
they were at all events regarded as genuine, and the
testimony of so veteran a diplomatist as Lord Strat-
ford de P.edeliffe may fairly be balanced against the
doubts of those who are officially bound to attach
implicit belief to the assurances of persons having
the strongest interest in proclaiming them to be
spurious. Believing, as he does, that in truth an
attempt is being made to revive the Holy Alliance,
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was right in bringing
the subject formally before the notice of Parlia-
ment; and it is not the first occasion on which s
solemn protest has been made in the House of
Lords against those principles of government
which the Holy Allies would fain lay down for
the guidance of European States. Into the ins
trinsic evidence of the genuineness of the
documents which we published, and on which
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe based his obser-
vations, it will not be necessary to enter at length;
but we may observe that the reply given by Earl
Russell tends rather to confirm than to remove the
opinion which we have always entertained. Lord
Stratford de Redeliffe pointed out that in Prince
Gortschakoffts private communication to the Russian
Minister at Berlin, accompanying a despatch dated
February 10, 1864, the Vice-Chancellor stated that
its contents had been privately communicated to the
English Ambassador at St. Petersburg, to which
the only reply that it was in the power of Earl
Russell to make was that a conversation had been
reported by Lord Napier which might certainly be
considered as referring to the contents of that Je"
spatch, but which also supply the groundwork for
the fabrication of the document in question. The
same answer was given in explanation of the state-
ment in another of the despatches that communica-
tion had been made to Mr Layard regarding its
contents, It is, of course, easy to meet assertions
with denials, and to argue against the presumed
authenticity of documents by showing the possibi-
lity of their being forged, but it must be admitted
that, in the two instances in which a tolerably fair
test of their genuineness was furnished by the in'
trinsic contents of the despatches, the result was
favourable to the presumption that they were net
spurious. But assuming that these despatches sr°
what they purport to be, and that an attempt Is
actually being made to re-establish the Holy
ance, has Europe anything to apprehend ? Such
was the question put by Earl Russell last evenings
and answered by him in the negative. The 1/019.
Alliance, says Earl Russell, has been inoperative
for upwards of thirty years, and it is useless to
revive it. It is true that in the year 1821 the Holy
Allies crushed a revolutionary movement in Italy'
and that in 1823 France marched her armies into
Spain, and, in conformity with the principles on which
the Alliance was originally projected, stifled the voice
of the Spanish people. On both those occasions
England protested, but b er protests were unavailing-
But in the year 1830 the tide turned. The French
nation changed its government, and those who de-
clared that the voice of Sovereigns aloes was the
voice of God made no attempt to coerce the popular
will. In 1848 revolution spread like an epideint!
across Europe, and the Holy A:lies made no effort
to check its progress. In 1860 the Neapolitan°
dethroned their monarch, and, two years later, tie
King of Greece was driven in exile from his dons.l;
nions, but in neither the one case nor the other 3"1,
any State stand forth as the champion of monarchical.
rights. The scheme of a Holy Alliance may there'
fore, as Earl Russell reasons, be considered as el°
ploded, and its resuscitation as impossible. Bat t°
our minds it seems that it is precisely because the
despotic Powers of Europe have for so many years
been unable to exercise that dictatorship which theY
at one time actually set up, that every attempt mad
°
by them to revive their ancient policy should be
most jealously watched and unhesitatingly true:
trated. It is because kingly authority has fallen 01
late years into so much disrepute that the Czar 01
Russia, the Emperor of Austria, and that champion
of Divine right, the King of Prussia, are desirous
of establishing it on a more secure basis. Bat they
may rest assured that they will fail. What i 8 new
passing in Germany ought to satisfy them
how idle
it is to suppose that Europe, in the middle of th°
nineteenth century, will consent to be governed by:
a council of crowned heads. In Southern an
a
Western Europe there is not a State which has n°l.
passed at some time or other through the throes. cs
revolution, and which has not adopted the doetri.net
so blasphemous in the opinion of the Holy Allte;',
that kings are made for peoples, and not peoples ice
kings. But, independently of these obstacles, th
promoters of a second Holy Alliance must keel
that a combination of States which threaten rct.lBs
lead to a counter combination of those which cancel!e
themselves endangered. Any attempt to real's!
the scheme broached in the despatches which we
published on the 2d and 4th of July must lead to
defensive and, if needs be, an offensive alluto'
between the Western Powers.