The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-13 00:00:00

Commence at 7.

ROYAL STRAND THEATRE.
Manager, Mr. W. H. Swanborongh.
THIS EVENING, MY PRESERVER.
after which, the Grand Christmas Burlesque, ORPHEUS
AND EURYOICE : Messrs. Honey, Wood, James Fenton,
Mesdames Swanborough, Marie Wilton, Hughes,
Concluding with TURN Hill OUT.
Commence at'.

COALS.—The LILLE S HAL L COMPANY'S
COAL 3.
Direct from their own Collieries.
Marquis'. 26s. per ton. Double.. ....... 21s. per ton.
Top 255. „ I Nut 5........ l9s.
Deep 228. „
Well screened and delivered within five miles of their Dc-
Pots, Westbourne Park-road, IV., and 17, South Wharf,
Daddington, W.
Best Core
Terms cash.

JOIIN SCOTT, Sole Agent,

The 'Weather—Sun Office, April 13, 1864.

THERMOMETER.
This day at Two o'clock
Barometer-30.20.
Wind—LE ; fresh breeze, and very fine.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE._
Tsis DAY—Morning, 6h. 30m.—Afternoon, 6h. 56m.
ro.xoßßow.-Moraing, 7h. 21m.—Afternoon, 7h. 52m.

•
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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 13, 1864.

Between the reception of GARIBALD/ and the
exciting debate in the Lords but little attention or
interest was paid to the proceedings in the Lower
House last evening. Owing partially to the thin.
ness of the House, a very useful and practical niea.
sure, which certainly deserves a fair trial, was
thrown back a stage. The Government Annuities
Bill was referred to a Select Committee, which,
however, we may hope will improve its efficiency,
and remove some of those exceptions which are
now taken to it in so many quarters. We only
trust that the formidable opposition which has been

organised against this bill will not succeed in mak-
ing so many changes as to defeat its purpose or limit
its power. It is worth notice that the objections
raised to the measure are mainly based upon the
anticipation of its wide and speedy pcpularity, It
is not intended to make the subscription to such
annuities compulsory as to existing societies. If
the plan be really sound and beneficial to the work-
ing man there can be no just ground for withhold-
ing it from him. If, on the contrary, the working
classes are foolish enough to enter upon a really
objectionable and profitless arrangement for
choice, that is a strange reason why the State
should trust them entirely to societies of
their own framing. No man is bound to
draw out his savings from the savings bank, and
invest them in deferred annuities; but if he choose
to select perfect security and moderate interest in
preference to the more captivating programmes held
out by friendly societies, it is surely fair that he
should have the chance. Many of these already
existing societies are no doubt conducted on strictly
honourable principles. Still it is no secret, as rev
vealed by the applications to our magistrates, that
there are too many designing persons who, under
the guise :of agents to some mythical association,
contrive to defraud the poor of their hard earnings.
The knowledge that there is such a safe investment
in existence may prove of some service in checking
these unprincipled imposters, while there is little
doubt that a very large proportion of those whose
savings are invested in respectable societies will
prefer to have the higher rate of interest which
private associations are enabled to give, and to
have their money more under their own control
than it would be according to the Government
scheme. Another serious drawback to the measure
in its competition with private companies, as Mr.
GLADSTONE pointed out in his able explanatory
speech, is its inability to insure lives under
the age of sixteen. It seems that a very
large proportion of the insurances effected
among the lower classes came under this
category, so that the existing societies will retain
one formidable advantage over the Government.
The bill is at all events one which should have a fair
trial, and it should be remembered that working
men's savings are not a legitimate object of specu-
lation or a fair field for making profit. The one
great object of all such associations should be the
advantage of the working men, not by giving him
a larger interest than can fairly be claimed for his
money, but by securing him and his family against
those dark days that are only too common among
the vicissitudes of a toiling life. The question should
not be how is the society to make the best returns;
how are its managers and promoters to reap the
larget profits, but on what terms can the invest-
ments be best secured from risk, and how can the
affair be conducted at a reasonable profit with the
minimum of expense. It is to be regretted that
Mr. GLADSTONE, in his anxiety to make out a strong
case in favour of his measure, should have excited
so much hostility by his personal remarks, but there
would probably have been in any case a vigorous
opposition to the measure, of which it can only
be said that its merits are too apparent to
be altogether overlooked by working men. There
is no reason why meetings should be organised
among the working classes, and the moral liberty
of the subject declared to be in danger. If the
Bill is really so full of faults it is paying a poor
compliment to our artisans to suppose that they
will not perceive and avoid them. If it really
trenches on their privileges, and interferes with
their independence, they have only to mark their
sense of its vices by withdrawing their support
from it. As we have said, no one is forced to
enrol himself among its subscribers, and it does
not hinder any person from investing his money
where he likes. We shall look with some anxiety
to its passage through Committee, hoping that
some advisable modifications will be all the changes
that it will undergo.

The intelligence received from India by the Bom-
bay Mail is on the whole satisfactory. There is
little news of note, which is perhaps the most fa-
vourable sign of the progress and tranquillity of
the country. It appears that the outbreak on the
frontier, which has fortunately been so promptly
and effectually suppressed, is now looked upon as
something much more serious than a mere disturb.
ance among the hill tribes. It is thought to have
been part of a vast organised conspiracy among the
Mussulmans for the overthrow of British rule.
The mutiny of 1837, which owed its origin mainly
to Hindoo fanaticism, has taught us what to fear
from such a source, and if these surmises prove to
have been actually well founded, we have good
reason to be thankful for having escaped an immi-
nent danger. As it is all is tranquil, and a power-
ful auxiliary of civilisation and order is now called
into existence, the railway line being carried
from Calcutta to Delhi, a distance of 900
miles ! Such a triumph of skill and
energy will work wonders in our behalf. The Pun-
jab will no longer be a world of its own, cut off from
active and rapid communication with the centres
of European civilisation. Late ligence will be trans-
mitted by the telegraph wires with a celerity that
will baffle all Mohammedan calculations, and coun-
teract the plots and intrigues of the disaffected.
Traellers will find their way to the bills with an
ease and rapidity that will tend to benefit trade and
divert the thoughts of the people from wars and
insurrections to the more profitable channels of
peace and industry. Already when the mail left
the first engine had travelled from Mirz3pore to
Allahabad, and by this time the company is proba-
bly booking passengers for the whole distance from
the City of Palaces to the ancient capital of the
Moguls. It is some satisfaction, remembering the
tenacity of the three Whig families in office, that
the present head of the India office looks
with a favourable eye on the extension
of Indian railways. The noble lord takes great
credit to himself for this happy exception to
his general policy. Why the same reasons
that apply to laying down railway lines do not
apply with equal or even greater force to the cutting
of canals and other works of irrigation, which are
even more remunerative than the land traffic, it
needs a Whig statesman to discover. Perhaps it is
on the famous " Rest and be thankful" policy that
the works at Godavery, which are pouring in money
to the treasury and saving from famine a parched
and barren coantry,have been stopped halfway. At
aey rate, Sir ARTHUR COTTON is insensible to the
merits of the system which has paralysed his best
efforts. The tidings of the cotton crop are generally
satisfactory, but the obstacles in the way of transit
are a great hindrance to business. This difficulty
will of course be gradually lessened, and in time dis-
appear altogether. Two accidents are chronicled by
the mail, both from fire. The one occurred on the
Great Indian Peninsula Railway, in which five
loaded waggons were burnt. The other, which was

of a more serious nature, took place at Calcutta, in
the river where a ship loaded with saltpetre burned
for five hours before it could be scuttled. The moat
noticeable part of the affair was the utter ineffi-
ciency of the engines, and the risk that was conse-
quently run before the vessel could be got out
and prevented from doing further mischief.
It seems that the fire brigade is quit:: at a discount
is Calcutta, which, in a large as i wealthy city

entirely under British rule, is not a little re-
markable. The Calcutta Englishman expresses a
hope that this affair may lead to some effectual re-
form, and it is surely the duty of the authorities,
no less than the interest of the inhabitants, to see
this carried out. With her valuable ship-
ping, Calcutta ought to be well sup•
plied with steam floating engines, in addi-
tion to a proper and well manned supply
on shore, else we may chance to hear in some
hot, dry season the tale of some startling catas-
trophe. However, things are mending so rapidly
i❑ India, and public effiirs are now presided over
by so energetic and capable an administrator,
that we may look for speedy progress in
of all such matters.; This generation will
have seen more changes in the internal organisa-
tion of India than all the years that have passed
since we first set foot on its soil ? The memory
of the oldest inhabitant must carry him through
startling changes. An interesting instance of such
a career is cited in the record of the death of a
British soldier. General AIIMUTY, the oldest officer
of the Indian army, died lately at Lahore. He
entered the Bengal Artillery seventy-five years
since in the palmy days of TIPPOO SULTAN, and
remembered the glories of Mysore and Assays.
He took part in the siege of Delhi, in 1803, and
lived to share the perils of its second, and no lees
memorable siege, half a century later. Such a

life recals us to the tact that the time of our
sway is as yet brief, and if we have cause to
deplore much neglect and error we may reason•
ably hope, under Providence, for opportunity to
do all we have left undone.

Lord DERBY'S speech on the debate in the House

of Lords on Monday is a very suggestive one, and
may serve to throw some light on the very intricate

and complex question of our foreign policy. The

noble earl on the first night of the session signalised

the course pursued by the Ministers as the meddle
and muddle system and the experience which
we have since gleaned of these manccavres has only
served to confirm that opinion, and ratify that deci-
sion. In no concern in which they have been en-
gaged have our Government come out creditably,
and there is no nation, great or small, powerful or
insignificant, which can now feel any confidence in
the assurances of our protection or any dread of the
veracity of our threats. Earl RUSSELL must have
been mortified at the satirical allusions made to his
plodding and persevering assiduity in framing de-
spatches which no one paid head to, and whose
grandiloquent asseverations were totally disre-
garded. Who can refrain from coinciding with the
humorous description of the futile efforts of our
loquacious but inert Foreign Secretary. " The
noble earl has gone on spinning day after day his
political cobwebs, utterly regardless of every
single thread being swept away one after
another, spinning, spinning on, but at the
same time not making the slightest progress
towards the completion of his net, and not having
been able to catch a single diplomatic fly." This is
a droll bat a decisive sketch of the proceedings
which have distinguished the course.of affairs at
Downing-street for months past, and bitterly must
the magnates in that precinct regret the recarrence
of the session which tears the veil from those ex-
ploits which can hardly afford to bear the light of
day, and holds up to scorn and ridicule the insincere
and insufficient mode of procedure that there reigns
supreme. It is very derogatory to the dignity of
a statesman, and not at all consonant with the posi-
tion of a Minister of the foremost country of the
world, that he should exhaust himself in utterances
that are of no avail, that fall on unwilling ears, and
are quickly consigned to the limbo of things for-
gotten. Vox et preterea nihil is not the motto
which should be prefixed to the missives which
emanate from the councils of our rulers. Lord
DERBY'S rebuke to the noble lord regarding his
notions of peace was also very excellent and well-
timed. It was not surprising that one so high-
spirited as the Conservative Chief should be
amazed and aghast at the low standard
and grovelling motives which seem to actuate and
inform the Cabinet. It is truly the lowest ground
on which to place the policy of peace, that of pecu-
niary considerations, and also there are, as Lord
DERBY said, evils greater than war, " the sacrifice
of the honour of the country and the abandonment
of a friend who has placed himself in your hands."
It is really quite contemptible to go on preaching
of the horrors of war, and the inconvenience to
which it would put the subjects of this country.
o Those who have an opportunity of reply might well

retort on the ardent advocate of peace at any price.

that the re3ponsibility must rest heavily on those
who make no efforts to rescue or relieve other
nations from the horrors of war, and especially
those which are weaker, and have relied on the
good will and good faith of the Government of this
country, and thus what may be loss or annoyance
to us is death and ruin to their enterprise and corn-
merce. It is the same in public as in private mat-
ters, nothing great can be achieved, nor solid
services rendered to others, if the nation or indi
viduals be actuated by sordid motives, and if the
ruiing spirit be not so much to prevent loss to others
as to secure gain to itself. Such is not the
way to impress the nations of the world with our
sense of honour or our love of justice, and it is not
the way to foster the growth or to encourage the
desire among all our people of public virtue or of
publio spirit. A more shuffling speech than that of
Earl RUSSELL'S cannot be conceived, and we see
the insincerity of his promises and the shallowness
of his arguments in a startling manner when we
compare his writings with his speeches, and his
words with his acts. If there is the slightest truth
or the smallest foundation for the assertion which
closed the statement put forth by the noble lord to
ha House that, for his part, he thought "a pacific
policy" was our true policy, he should have guarded
against misleading others, and not have attempted
to arbitrate among nations who had not fors worn
the sword. We are no match for the lands that
have armies ready for the field, and fleets that wait
the signal to weigh anchor, and set out to accom
plish the behests of their ruler and fulfil the policy
of their statesmen. When the decisive moment has
arrived no one will wait for the bungling diplomacy
of England to stay their march or supersede their
measures. There is more spirit in a sentence of
Lard DERBY'It than in a page of Earl RUSSELL'S
diatribes, and there is no impartial reader that can
fail to notice the difference and mark the contrast
between the speakers. It resolves itself into this,
that in one instance we peruse the sentiments of an
independent witness, and in the other are presented
with well-dressed statements and principles so care
fatly promulgated that it requires but a moderate
amount of ingenuity to read them either way.

The Countess de Montesquieu, an elderly lady,
residing at a chateau near Vendome (Loin.-et-Cher),
had a narrow escape lately while returning in her
carriage from that town. The coachman, being
taken suddenly with a fit, fell from his seat, and the
horses, no longer feeling the check of the reins,
dashed off at a great pace. It so happened that M.
Maubert, agent of the lady, was accompanying he:
in the carriage. He climbed to the driving-hos,
and then getting down on to the pole, succeeded, at
the risk of his life in recovering the reins, which
were dragging on the ground, while the horses wert
still rushing on. He then again remounted to the
coachman's seat, and in a short time brought the
horses under control.