The Sun.
London, England, 1852-12-08 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1852,

England may now be regarded as secured from
the perils of invasion. Her National Defences
can at length be viewed by the multitude with
some degree of complacency ; and this, be it now
said, under thanks to the energetic patriotism of
the DERBY-DISRAELI Government.
Additional sums of money have been frankly
and ungrudgingly voted to defray the increased
expenses of the Royal Navy, by the Lower
House of the British Parliament. Besides the
magnificent amount of 100,0001. to be devoted
to the necessary outlay-
required in the steam ma-
chinery for maritime purposes, dating from the
present moment to the E.th of April, 1853, the Com-
mons have cordially acceded to another proposal
of the Cabinet by augmenting the number of our
men by 5,000 sailors: and 1,100 marines—ob-
taining, moreover,
in consequence of this supple-
mentary'7 enlistment
a,9 11/. for additional wages,
clothing, and other
unavoidable expenses up to
the 31st of March,
:1,2001. for additional medical
stores, and 37,9294. for additional victuals. No-
thing could be more; creditable than the whole of
these arrangements ;and it is gratifying to re-
member that they :have not been more promptly
suggested by the A.dministration than they have
been eagerly acceded. to by the Legislature. Ac-
cording to these new regulations the complement
of our Navy will not only be sufficient for the
full manning of our Meets, but will actually leave
,a reserve. For our selves we cannot but regard
the circumstance of this expenditure over and
above the regular total of the marine estimates,
with the most
unalloyed satisfaction. Yielding to
no one in a regard for judicious economy, we,
nevertheless, exult in this application of 113,1001.
additional to the purposes of manning the Naval
Forces of England, and of 100,0001. additional
for the expenses incur red in the development of
the powers of our steam machinery. It is pre-
cisely what we have for many years
past argued for
with all earnestness a: ad pertinacity. We have
long insisted
upon then absolute necessity of in-
creasing the number of our seamen ; and now in
the December of 1852 we have the gratification of
seeing 5,000 more sai:ors added to the previous
complement by the decision of the popular branch
of Parliament. We have long proclaimed the
imperative need of applying to our men-of-war,
more and more gener ally,
the indisputable and
almost magical advantages secured by the employ-
ment of the screw propeller ; and now in this
same December of 1852 we have the honourable

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pride of witnessinc, the recognition in the Legisla-
ture of the truth we have ourselves so long recog-
nised---)iy the dedication of 100,0001. more for
the enhancement of the marine steam machinery.
This is well. We exult in the occurrence with
what we believe may be regarded as a very par-
don able exulation.

Gratified as we are by the maritime develop-
ment resolved upon by the Administration, we

must- be permitted to refer in deserved terms of

comr aendation to the very lucid statement of
the proposed changes submitted to the House of
Corn: mons by the Secretary to the Admiralty.

Thrc iughout the whole of that statement, it must

have , been remarked by the more observant how
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sedulous were the endeavours of Mr. AUGUSTUS

STAJ TFORD to conciliate the attention of the veteran

member for Montrose—a remarkable and well-
' merited tribute to the services of that distin-
guished economist. The value of those services
we to the full appreciate. Yet while acknowledg-
ing them, as we have ever done most cordially, we
quite as cordially bow to the justice of the opinion
expressed the other night by the Right Hon. the
CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER in the course of
his memorable Budget, to the effect, that
Efficiency and not Retrenchment is the true Parent
of Economy ! Accurate in its application to all
the various departments of the administration,
that wise principle is especially and peculiarly
judicious in its application to the ordering of our
maritime armaments. Economy, true economy,
we consider to be more strictly compatible in the
Royal Navy of England with prodigality of ex-
penditure than with niggardliness. Better in
that direction to be ever open-handed than close-
fisted in our periodical disbursements. Illustra-
tions almost innumerable might be adduced in
testimony of the propriety of these assertions.
Here is one, however, amply sufficient for our
present argument, and one the force of which
was not overlooked the other evening by the Sec-
retary to the Admiralty in the course of his WE-
. 'cial statement to the British Parliament. A sail-
ing vessel of 90 guns is estimated to cost at first
somewhere about 108,300/.—thus making, with
the annual expense of 44,355/., a total of just
152,6551. A 90-gun screw-steamer, furnished
with engines, • say of 500-horse power, is, on the
other hand, estimated to cost at first 151,800/.
(merely 8551. less than the total cost of a sailing
vessel of a similar magnitude), this 151,800/.
added to an annual expenditure of 51,6781.,
making an aggregate of 203,4781., or actually
50,8231. beyond (so to speak) the same vessel
un supplied with the screw propeller. Yet—
enormous though the increase in the cost un-
doubtedly is, we regard the application of that
additional 50,8231. as immeasurably more than
compensated by the advantages accruing from the
employment of screw-steam-machinery. Instead,
therefore, of desiring to see the nation content
itself with a fleet of sailing vessels of 90 guns at
the cost of 152,6551., we would prefer, as econo-
mists, to witness the construction of the same
number of 90-gun steam-ships at the cost' of
203,4781. each, because of the inestimable benefits
resulting from the application of the screw pro-
peller. What those benefits really are we have
in these columns repeatedly intimated. After all
we have said, year after year, upon that subject
in the midst of an otherwise unbroken silence
upon the merits of the screw, we can scarcely dare
to say how glad we were to find the Secretary of
the Admiralty talking upon the merits of this
admirable invention the other evening in the
House of Commons in such fervent terms of com-

mendation—eulogising it " because " he said (as
we ourselves had said years ago again and again)--
" because being under water the screw was not
so exposed as the paddle-wheel to the fire of the
enemy, because it did not take up so much space,
and, more than all, because it was impossible with
paddles to place and work the guns with anything
like the same advantage ; but whether it were
expensive or whether it were economical, the com-
bined power of the screw and the sail must be
regarded as the future of our navy, and indeed of
our mercantile steam marine." Happily the truth
has at last pierced through the fogs almost always
enveloping the Admiralty.
It would have enhanced the satisfactiOn with
which we view these innovations in the ordering
of the Royal Navy, if we had seen them accom-
panied by some more rational change in the mode
of manning the fleets of Great Britain. Fortu-
nately, it is true enough that the complement of
our seamen has been increased by 5,000, and that
of our marines by I,loo—leaving a reserve, as we
have already remarked, after all arrangements
have been completed. But, unfortunately, three
years still constitute inexorably the period of
maritime enlistment. There may be a great deal
of reason in the observations made by the SECRE-
TARY of the ADMIRALTY, to the effect that it is
absolutely necessary to arrange matters, so that
everything should be done which could be con-
ducive to the comfort of the sailor ; but that no-
thing should be left undone that can tend to
make her MAJESTY'S service an attractive one for
him—more particularly at a period like the pre-
sent, when the British sailor is, as Mr. STAFFORD
observes, " the most precious article in the mar-
ket," and when " there is not a single nation in
the world that does not gladly accept the services
of the British sailor." But it was not thus, we
conceive, it was not by this indifference to the
method and duration of enlistment, that the re-
presentative of the Admiralty should have re-
sponded to the recommendation made on Friday
night by the Right Hon. the CHANCELLOR of the
ExcHE@uEß—•a recommendation implied by his
regret that we should always, under the existing
system, be deprived of the energies of the sailor
precisely at the very time when he is most effi-
cient in his duty, through continuous practice and
recent experience. Upon this matter we feel so
strongly that we do not hesitate to aver that
until the particular evil complained of be re-
medied, notwithstanding the admirable augmenta-
tion of the number of our seamen—notwithstand-
ing, also, the laudable increase of attention to our
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steam machinery—we shall remain convinced that
the most advisable and necessary of all the re-
forms in the Royal Navy has been overlooked in

.e course of our energetic efforts to secure its

improved organisation..

We have no kind of sympathy with the sneer-
rig observations of a liberal contemporary on the
Irish reforms proposed by Mr. WHITESIDE and
Mr. NAPIER. As the measures themselves cannot
be attacked with good grace, it is insinuated that
they are merely baits for popularity. They can-
not possibly be fully and fairly considered during
the present short supplementary Session—a Ses-
sion called by universal consent for a special pur-
pose—and hence it is asserted to be mere claptrap
to bring them forward now. It is even insinuated
that they may not mean to carry them after all.
Now, Liberal Reformers as we profess to be and
are, and with no prejudices assuredly on behalf
of a Tory Ministry, sharply as we could censure
their evasions (for which, after all, some allowance
must be made, from the state of their own camp),
we think attacks like those we have mentioned
utterly unworthy of a good cause. The proposi-
tions of the Ministry are thoroughly liberal as far
as they have gone ; the most liberal Cabinets
before them have proposed nothing in the same cate-
gory so liberal. They are therefore popular ; and
we should like to see the Minister who would not
bring forward, as early as he could, measures
which were deservedly popular. That a Ministry
should truckle to popular opinion—that it should
propose, for instance, ad captandum fixed duties ,
on Corn, or Reform Bills, on the eve of a dissolu-
tion—this may be reasonably open to sinister con-
struction ; but that a Ministry which has made
the beginning which the present one did this
spring, should offer in some respects yet more ex-
cellent measures of the same kind in the autumn
of the same year, ought not to be traduced as
mere hunting for popularity. In a word, we only
wish that all our Cabinets for generations to come
would court popularity, provided they sought it
by measures as unexceptionable in their main
features as those now before us. As to the Minis-
try enunciating their plans now, and leaving them
till next February—seeing that they all relate to
no party measures, and that no reforms need more
careful examination than legal reforms, seeing,
moreover, that the most candid consideration has
been cordially promised to all suggestions,—we
really think that they deserve credit for giv-
ing all hearty Law Reformers such full
opportunity for contributing their aid. The
very same parties who indulge their partizan ,
grumbling on this occasion, have been amongst 1
the foremost to grumble that not a hint could be
got beforehand touching the nature of the finan
cial plans now developed. Verily, they are like
'the children sitting in the market-place. If
:Ministers will not disclose ther plans, 3jthey
grumble,—and if they disclose them, they grumble
still I

We have already had occasion to commend the
admirable propositions of the ►SOLICITOR-GENERAL
for Ireland ; we have now, We may say, equal plea-