The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-14 00:00:00

THE ARMY.

In consequence of the treacherous nature of the soil on
which the fortifications on the Isle of Grain, commanding
the entrance to Chatham harbour, aro being constructed, a
very serious settling of the foundation of the largest battery
has just taken place, which, it is feared, will necessitate the
taking down and re• erection of a considerable portion cf
those already completed. In the other portions of the works
no signs of weakness have yet appeared.
It appears that the total amount of stock bought and
transferred by the Commissioners for the Reduction of the
National Debt on account of the fund for military savings
banks, pursuant to the Act 8 and 9 Victoria, cap. 27, sec. 5,
was as follows from Sept. 19, 1815, to Jan. 5, 1861:
Consolidated 3 per Cents, £119,457 Hs 3d ; Reduced 3 per
Cents, £79,303 is 9d; and Now 2 per Cents, £221,068 13s
7d, making an aggregate of £19,829 lOs 7d. The total stock
sold by order of the Secretary of State for War in the same
period was :—Consolidated 3 per Cents, £66,313 13s ; and
New 3 per Cents, £16,118 Os Bd, making an aggregate of
£82,431 13s Bd. The total stock at the account of the fund
for military saving-hanks on Jan. 5, 1814, was therefore—
Consolidated 3 per Cents, £53,144 3s 3d; Reduced 3 per
Cents, £79,303 is 9d ; and New 3 per Cents, £201,950 Its
Ild, making an aggregate of £327,397 lfis 11d. This no-
minal amount of stock was obtained by an actual definitive
cash receipt from Sept. 19, 1815, to Jan. 5, 1864, of
£303,721 Os 9d.

The freight ship Avon arrived at Spithead on Saturday
from Ceylon, with the following officers and troops on
board from various regiments:—Lieut. Macgregor, 50th
Regiment, in military command ; Lieut. Richmond, 50th
Regiment ; Assist.-Surg. Stewart, in medical charge ; 63
invalids, 9 time-expired men, 5 women, and 3 children.
Three men and six children have died since the embarca-
tion of the troops at Ceylon on the 21st of November last.
The troops will disembark this morning from the Avon
under the supervision of Colonel E. Somerset, C. 8., the
invalids being sent to the Royal Military Hospital at Netley,
and the time-expired men to the depots of their respective
regiments.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

SATURDAY REVIEW.—The moment seems to have
arrived when the country may fairly claim that the
Government should state distinctiy what is its
policy with regard to the quarrel between Germany
and Denmark. Hitherto, great indulgence has
been shown to the Government, and very rightly.
The origin of the quarrel is obscure, the facts on
which it rests are complicated and disputable, the
sympathies of England are divided, and there is no
certainty on which side the interests of England
lie. Any Ministry, therefore, that set itself in such
a business to maintain peace, and to preserve the
national honour, would be sure of a fair amount of
support. In difficult negotiations, much weight
also is sure to be given to the claims of personal
character and reputation. If we have got the ablest
men we can get at the head of affairs, it seems
natural to trust them with the management of a
delicate and intricate matter. The strength of the
present Government lies in the extreme difficulty of
saying precisely what ought to have been or to be
done at any one stage of this quarrel about the
Duchies, and in the general conviction that, if Lord
Palmerston and Lord Russell have made mistakes,
Mr. Disraeli and Lord Malmesbury would have made
twice as many. If there were not such a marked
disparity in ability and reputation between the
heads of the present Government and the heads of
any Government that could be found to replace
them, it is impossible to suppose that the House of
Commons would have been so long-suffering, not
to say meek, as it has been. But the present state
of uncertainty cannot ge on much longer. The
Ministry is beginning to trade on the reputation of
its leaders, and on the unwillingness of Parliament
and the country to quarrel with the Premier. It
is adopting the very line which we have been
taught by bitter experience to detest most thou.
roughly. It is sliding into a boundless Dead Sea
of fruitless negotiations, relieved by denunciations
which it knows to be as safe as they are unheeded,
and by menaces which frighten nobody. Beyond
a certain point it is very undesirable that negocia-
tions should go on at our instance. It is not for
England to run about for ever, like an old hen,
cackling to the foreign chickens, and begging them
not to do anything dangerous. If we cannot get
listeners we can at least hold our tongues. Nor is
it at all probable that these frantic adjurations
to the combatants in the name of peace are likely
to do much good. England as a calm, resolute
Power can do much to promote peace.—she has then
got her navy at the back of her arguments ; but
England as a fussy, irresolute Power, is much more
likely to stir up strife than to effect a reconciliation.
Perhaps nothing has given the Germans so much
pleasure in the whole business—not even the glory
of a battalion of Prussians engaging in a fierce pro-
longed, and ultimately successful struggle with a
couple of Danish sentries—as the discovery that
England may be safely provoked to fume and blus•
ter, and write and argue in vain. The account of
of their policy which Ministers give is some-
thing like this :—" We wish to keep out of the
war, and to bring it to an end; and we go
on trying to effect this by talking to all
the parties who, however remotely, are inte-
rested in the matter. Our own view is that the
Treaty of 1852 should be upheld, but no one agrees
with us who has any power of giving effect to an
opinion. Nevertheless, oar arguments appear to us
unanswerable, and are constantly repeated. If this
treaty—which France has declared impotent, and
which has been completely set aside in, as we think,
a most disgraceful manner by Austria and Prussia
—is to have no further effect, we can form no notion
what ought to replace it. We are not prepared to
say that the Germans in the Duchies ought to have
a:foreign Sovereign forced on them, and still less are
we prepared to say that a foreign Sovereign ought
not to be forced on the Germans in the Duchies.
It appears to us much more iniquitous to 11:11 Danes
in Jutland than in Schleswig, and it would be in-
finitely worse still to kill them in Funen or Zaaland,
but we cannot see either that we ought or ought not
to prevent this last stroke of wrong. At the same
time, it is a great comfort to us to have the Channel
Fleet in so handy a station as Plymouth, and to feel
sure that, although we do not intend to employ it,
yet, if we did employ it, we should employ it effec-
tively." This is the Ministerial programme, and
because some Peers, most of whom are, on ordinary
occasions, very good friends of the Government,
have hinted that there is something weak and in-
consecutive in it, the House of Lords has been
soundly abused by the daily press, and al! sorts of
dreadful responsibilities have been heaped on its
shoulders. If a Conservative Government had been
in office, the same critics would have been the first
to point out that Peers of good standing and inde-
pendent position are the very persons to whom the
country ought to look when a warning has to be
addressed to a Ministry that has so many claims
on the regard and confidence of English-
men. Lord Harrowby, more especially, is
exactly that sort of respectable, amiable,
esteemed friend who can gently let his old associates
see what others think of them ; and he would be a
very bold man—unless indeed he were a young
Whig, if there is :such a being—who would deny
that the country has begun to dislike the endless
purposeless flux of diplomatic talk, accompanied by
allusions to the Channel Fleet. No amount of
despatch writing will alter facts, and that Schles-
wig is in the hands of the Germans is a fact. The
English Government must accept it, if it does not
intend to reverse it by force of arms. But the re-
sistance of the Danes still continues, and they still
hold a fragment of Schleswig. The English Go-
vernment may say that it will offer no opposition to
the attempt of the Germans to dislodge the Danes
from this corner of the Duchy. But, if so, neg.°.
tiations are obviously useless. France takes this
line, and takes it consistently. For France does
not object to see the Danes driven out of the
Duchies ; and it only concerns France to see how
the Duchies, when once obtained by Germany, are
disposed of by her. She may think it worth her
while to demand a compensation if they are given
to Prussia, but at present she can afford to sit still
and not say anything. We have had our say, and
had better end it, unless we are prepared to do more
than France thinks it her interest or duty to do.
Or, if we are prepared to draw a subtle distinction,
and to say that although the Germans may attack
the Danes by land, which we cannot prevent, yet
they shall not attack them by sea, which we can
prevent, nothing would be so sure to prevent this
sea attack as to announce openly that the Channel
Fleet would be at once sent to the assistance of the
Danes if an Austrian man-of-war has appeared in
the Baltic. As it is, we shall some day hear that
an Austrian man-of-war has appeared in the Baltic,
and we shall scarcely know whether this is an in-
sult to England or not. We shall remember that
Lord Russell threatened dim horrors if this were
done, but we can never be sure whether Lord
Russell utters threats on his own account or in the
name of England.

EXAMINER.—Most people well acquainted with
foreign poEtics express astonishment that the Danes,
whilst showing a hostile and defiant lace to Prussia
and to the Northern powers of Germany, should not
have at least have conciliated and kept well with
Austria and with the southern states of the German
empire, who have really so little interct in the
sovereignty and government of counties upon the
Eider. All the small states in and about Germany
have always had the same policy, noyer to quarrel