The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-23 00:00:00

serve "party interests and electioneering purpose,"
and even the redoubtable Reform Bill itself was, he

considers, an incomplete measure adopted by the
Whigs, in order to secure a long lease of office to
themselves and political discomfiture I o their rivals.
In this, if such was their object, they have un-
doubtedly succeeded. The Whigs have held a long,
almost an undisputed, possession of political power
since that day, and when real Liberals look for the
results they are mortified and ashamed of their
leaders. The truth is told in Mr AYTOUN'S search.
ing phrases, when he declares that neither party
are sincere in a d esire for Reform, and that the
independent liberals are as bad as either, since they
will not exercise the irfluence which has fallen to
their share by refuting to support any Ministry
who does not pledge itself distinctly on the question
of Reform. If the Ballot members of the House of
Commons were, says Mr AYTOUN, distinctly to in-
form the Government that they would only support
them in consideration of their making the Ballot a
Cabinet question, and that if they declined to do so
they must, forfeit the assistance of the 150 or 200
members who advocate the Ballot, in all those mis-
cellaneous party encounters which so often affect
the fate of a Government, the Whigs would be
forced to adopt the Ballot or any other Reform
brought before them in the same way. But this
bold, straightforward course is never adopted by Mr
BERKELEY and his followers. Nay more, on the
occasion of the last general election, when Lord
JOHN, the present Earl RUSSELL, was canvassing
the City of London, and ingeniously concealing his
" Rest and be thankful" opinions, the Ballot Society
issued a recommendation to the electors to waive
their principles on this occasion, 'and to support
Lord RUSSELL against the Tories. Does MrAYTOUN
give the real explanation of this when he says—
" The great majority of the members who vote for
the Ballot do so against the grain, because they
are obliged. The Whig Government, knowing
this, takes care to accommodate them by making
the Ballot an open question; thus allowing the
Ballot men to accept place and emolument under a
Cabinet directly opposed to that great reform which
they have been principally pledged to support."
This is plain speaking, and language which is not
likely to be popular, but it carries its moral never-
theless. As for the party cry of supporting a Libe-
ral merely because he calls himself a Liberal with-
out any regard to his actual conduct, Mr AYTOUN
declines any such unreasoning prejudices. He
argues, as we have always upheld, that "measures
not men" must be the motto, if any real good
is to be effected, and contends that more has
been done by Tories than by Whigs to amend
our institutions since 1831. He cites, in support
of this assertion, the repeal of the Corn-laws, the
emancipation of the Jews, and the abolition of
the property duty, all obtained under Conservative
auspices. And yet, he says, when two men appear
together on a hustings, the electors are told to
support the one who calls himself a Whig, regard-
less of his character, conduct, and abilities. Of
Mr. BRIGHT'S conduct at the time of Lord DERBY'S
Reform Bill he speaks strongly. A really sincere
reformer would have suffered the bill to go into
committee, there to be amended, instead of bring
ing in a Whig Government unpledged and untram.

melled,save with the condition of including some
representative of the Manchester school. The re.
form question is at a low ebb, but that, says the
critic, is the fault of its so-called advocates, At
any rate, the public have now heard some plain
speaking, and it is their own fault if they are not
a little more on their guard at the next election.

The labours of the committee appointed to deter-
mine the practicability of protecting ships against
the impact of shot cud shell have been brought to
a conc:u,ion. After protracted and expensive ex-
periments the guns have proved triumphant. It
is admitted that it is impossible to construct a ship
which shall be proof against heavy artillery at that
range. The Lord Warden target, which has been
recently returned to Chatham Dockyard after being
experimented upon at Shoeburyness, is completely
riddled. Out of eleven shots which struck one
plate eight penetrated it, passing completely through
the target. There are, according to the report,
upwards of one thousand tons of these plates at
Chatham ready to be bolted to the sides of the Lord
Warden and the Bellerophon, and the question Low
naturally suggests itself to those who take the
trouble to consider the matter, whether it would
not have been better to experiment upon the tar-
gets before constructing the ships. As it is, the
constructor of the navy, with no doubt the best in-
tentions and every hope of success, has introduced
certain alterations in the structure of ships e war.
He has the ccefldence of the Board of Admiralty,
and no doubt at a time when everything appertain-
ing to naval matters is in a state of transition great
latitude must be allowed to those in authority. At
the same time, when so much money is being ex-
pended on the contest between armour-plates and
heavy artillery, it would be well to look before we
leap. The Ordnance Select Committee, for fear
that our ships should be furnished with any but the
best possible rifled gun, has provided them with
none at all. We have thus the two extremes.
Our ships are constructed upon the most approved
principles, the armour plating is of the best iron,
and the engines are manufactured by the best ene
gineers in the world. Yet for actual warfare our
navy is useless, unless by good fortune the enemy
will permit our seamen to board him. The armour
plating is not proof against guns such as the French,
Russians, or Americans bring to bear upon it. Our
old smoothbore sixty-eighths would not penetrate
the sides of La Gloire even at close quarters, unless
served with steel shot, an article unknown in our
service, except at Shoeburyness; and although the
Bellerophon is said to be superior as a ram to any
ship yet constructed, it is more than doubtful
whether she will be able to overtake a hostile
frigate, preparatory to running her down. It is a
peculiarity he Mr. REED'S plan of construction that
his ships shall not sail fast. Whether it is his
patriotic determination that his ships shall not run
away from an enemy, or a humane wish that they
shall not destroy him, we shall not decide, bat cer•
tain it is that he has contrived to provide all his
recently constructed ships with the minimum horse
power compatible with their tonnage. Since the
first introduction of armour plating various schemes
have been promulgated to render ships invulnerable,
some practicable, but many more impossible.
A correspondent of a contemporary gravely
suggests that armour-plated ships should
be encased in a shell of timber, in other
words that a wooden ship should be built around
the iron one, which, he remarks, would prove a
great protection to the iron one against shot. We
do not expect the Board of Admiralty to take cog-
nisance of suggestions such as these, but we do think
that they ought to take advantage of all available
means of offence and defence. The success of our
artillery engineers has Tendered iron plating come
paratively useless for the navy, at least as far as
experiments are to be trusted ; but it is a very
different thing to hit a target fixed at a known dies
tance, and to strike a ship in a seaway between
wind and water. If it be impossible to keep out
the enemy's shot, then the best thing to be done
is to board him, or else to get cut of range; in
either case a superiority in speed is necessary, as