The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-09 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—If theVolnnteers were not as a rule plain,
sensible young Englishmen, each with his daily
work to do and his daily cares beginning or begun,
they might be spoilt by the compliments which are
paid to them by all sorts of distinguished indivi-
duals and the interest taken in their proceedings by
educated and agreeable persons of both serer. Their
efficiency, their courage, the influence which their
embodiment has exercised on the national policy,
the increase of consideration which we all enjoy
since foreigners have seen 25,000 of those gray uni-
forms at a time, and know that there are 160,000 of
them in all, are never-failing themes whenever there
is an opportunity of introducing them. And what
with reviews, and rifle meetings, and field days, fol-
lowed by some species of conviviality, the opportu-
nities are numerous enough. Such praise, if not
overdone, is exceedingly just, and consequently
beneficial, for it renews any flagging energies, and
creates an emulation which brings fresh recruits to
replace those whom business or caprice or the lassi-
tude of more peaceful soldiering has seduced from
the ranks. One of the most handsome tributes of
this kind has just been paid to the force by Sir J.
Pakington, and the Volunteers will no doubt appro.
ciate the judgment he passes on them after five
years' experience. Not in the first gush of admire.
tion at a novelty, not for the purpose of encouraging
a young and doubtful enterprise, but with a full
knowledge of what has been effected by this na-
tional movement since 1859, Sir J. Pakington corn.
pliments the Volunteers as forming a permanent
institution of the country. They have, he says, given
confidence to their country and delivered us from the
recurrence of disgraceful panics. The associations
which they form bind together all classes, and en•
able them to ;act with a common spirit, notwith-
standing differences of opinion, education, or private
interests. These are praises which the Volunteers
may justly value, but a still greater proof of the ree
spect with which the Conservative politician regards
their force is his attempt to attach to it as one of its
necessary branches his favourite Yeomanry. The
belief in the Yeomanry is one of those articles of
faith which it is not give to all mortals to compre.
bend. Perhaps the progress of investigation may
enlighten us as to the reason why a certain number
of country gentlemen should think the annual
mustering for a few days of the rural cavalry to be
one of the essential elements of the national we'.
fare, Some say it is because the local regiment
furnishes a uniform for a levee less ugly than a De-
puty-Lieutenant's, and less commonplace than a
civilian's Court dress. In less fortunate times it
used to be alleged that the gentry were not sorry
to have something like a military organisation to
suppress such disturbances as were then not infre-
quent We regret that Sir John Pakington gives
some countenance to this latter assertion. His en-
thusiasm for the Yeomanry is so great that he can-
not refrain from appearing among the Volunteers in
the uniform of what he calls " a sister service, the
Yeomanry cavalry of England," and ceiling on the
Whig Lord-Lieutenant to warn his friends in Downs
ingestreet that they had better leave so gallant a
body alone. But Sir John was not satisfied with this
martial demonstration. If he had contented him.
self with awing Lord Leigh and the soberly clad
Warwickahire Volunteers with the splendour of his
appearance and the vigour of bis defiance he might
have produced a great effect, but to condescend to
reason was a mistake. We cannot but think that
the service which Sir John and the other friends of
the Yeomanry are fond of imagining for them is
unjust to them, and not likely to increase their
popularity with the country. The Liberal Govern-
ment might retort and say that if it has occasionally
" hit out" at the Yeomanry, to use Sir J. Peking-
ton's expression, it has never given them so severe a
blow as those of their admirers who represent them
as always ready to act against various classes of
artisans and labourers. It is now forty-five years
since the indiscretion of a body of Yeomanry, end.
ing in the deaths of a number of people at Manches-
ter, deepened the class hatreds of the time so much
that its effects actually remained until within the
last few years. A recurrence of such a scene on
the occasion of any political or economical dispute
between workpeople and their employers would be
the most unhappy event imaginable. No one can
foretell the evil that a collision of this kind might
produce.
The multitude is generally influenced
strongly by dramatic acts of violence, and it is not
too much teesay that the general good feeling which
prevails at present might be broken up, and the,
thoughts of the working classes turned in the
direction of organic change, by the errors of a
single Yeomanry officer. And yetfor maintaining
wehaveSir
this John
Pakington urging, as a reason
force of cavalry, that they might have been lately
used, instead of the police, to keep order among the
Staffordshire colliers when on strike. "He held
that if the Yeomanry had been called out, instead
of the police during the late unfortunate strike in
the colliery districts, the strike would have ended
much sooner than it did." On this subject Sir
John Pakington must not expect that the Govern-
ment or the majority of his countrymen will go
with him. Better any temporary inconvenience by
the transfer of the police from one district to an.
other than the sending of a number of half-disci-
plined countrymen, under amateur officers, to exer-
cise a control which requires the greatest judgment
and circumspection. The police are accustomed to
deal with popular disturbances on all scales; they do
not get nervous or savage, they do not see riot in a
few shouts or revolution in the rush of an ill-man-
nered crowd. In all these matters the Yeomanry
Cavalry would be the worst judges it would be
possible to find, and we hope the day will never
come when the regularly constituted forces for the
preservation of the public peace will be superseded
by what its apologist himself declares to be a branch
of the Volunteer army. We may ask, indeed,
whether the Volunteers to whom Sir John Peking.
ton distributed prizes would like to be called upon
to keep order among colliers. If the Yeomanry are
fit for that service, and exist especially for it,
surely their brother Volunteers are not disqualified?
But the answer of the Volunteers all over the
country would be the same, They feel that their
habits and organisation are not such as fit them to
control a discontented multitude. They are en-
rolled to protect the country, and not to act as
amateur police. If, then, the Yeomanry be a branch
of their service, it must have the same qualities
and the same defects. It must take its stand
on the services it is able to render in time
of invasion, and can only claim to prolong its
existence when it shows that it really can be made
the cavalry branch of the Volunteer force. On this
part of the subject we will not speak. Oar own
impression is that in time of war the Yeomanry or
any other Volunteer cavalry would be found of little
service, and we believe Lord Herbert was right in
endeavouring to confine the Volunteer movement
to the raising of infantry regiments. But it the
Yeomanry think they can become efficient no one
desires to discourage them, and very few will grudge
the sum annually voted for their drill if it appears
that we obtain for it an efficient force. They are
an old and respectable body, but their chiefs and
patrons should not challenge attention to their
shortcomings, or claim for them a duty the most
painful that can be exacted from the regular army,
and one which we hope will never again be intrusted
to the Yeomanry.
HERALD.—To ask a member of Parliament to
make a speech to his constituents and then to forbid
him to touch upon politics, is, in nine cases out of
ten, to ask him to perform an impossibility. What
else can he talk about, upon what else would they
care to listen to him ? It is given to few of our
senators to be authorities upon breeding and drain.
ing, and even those few hardly like to speak upon
such subjects to an audience every member of which
knows quite as much if not more about them. A
lecture upon education is all very well at the annual
meeting of the mechanics' institute or at a distribu•
tion of prizes, but would be altogether out of place
at a cattle show dinner. The consequence is that
the members break the rule, very much to the satis.
faction of their constituents of all shades of politics.
But the breach must be made with some delicacy.
A member who makes a strong party speech, sea.
Boned with violent attacks upon his opponents, will
soon be called to order. He may talk politics, he
may explain the course he has,pursued during the
session, and vindicate the action of his party, but
he must contrive to do it in such a way as not to
offend or irritate those who hold contrary opi-
nions. The task is a difficult one, and was never,
perhaps, more successfully got over than by
Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald, at Horsham, on Wednes-
day. Mr Fitzgerald knew that the company which
had received him so warmly was anxious to hear his
views upon the great public questions in the dis-
cussion of which he has taken so prominent a part,
and would have listened with ill-disguised impa-
tience to a disquisition upon fat beasts. So he
talked politics to them, but with so admirable a
tact and temper that whilst conclusively vindicating
the policy of the Conservative party in the late ses-
sion, and stoutly maintaining the true principles
which should guide the policy of England, he said
nothing which could have given offence to the
stoutest Whig who might have been present to re.
ceive a prize for his success in manufacturing meat.
If the policy of the leaders of . the Opposition, in
challenging the verdict of Parliament upon the
foreign policy of the Government, needed any jussi.
fication after debates which proved that not a single
member of the Legislature, who was not at the
same time a placeholder, disagreed in his heart With
the condemnation which the resolutions enunciated,
it would be supplied in Mr. Fitzgerald's eloquent
exposition of the duties and responsibilities of every
Opposition. An Opposition has not to look merely
to the chances of getting a mjority. It ought not
to be Aotuated polely by the greed of power, and

_
with that purpose take no action unless certain Ire,
bus
lead to an immediate party triumph. It It
bear a part in the government of the country.
has to enlighten public opinion, and to infieceti`'st
the national policy in a right direction, audit 111,nt
often do this by inviting what in a mere party P.ulia
of view may be considered a defeat, but whe,e..,st
reality is a triumph. The Conservatives dlut"eir
carry a resolution which would :lave
opponents from power, but they established thlienio'
own principles as a rule of foreign policy,whic s a
Minister can venture to disregard. Whether, a
party, they reap the fruits of the course they toe'lr.
or not, they will have rendered an irornenee;
vice to the nation, and the English Coneervat's'but
driven t.
whose objcct is not the acquisition of piece, nt
the welfare of the English nation, will be contest
enough with that solid achievement. TheTigrne•di
the abiding result of the debates upon the '-ni4-1
question is the establishment, as the rule of A.eg4
fish policy, of the great Conservative doctrine, it,
non.intervention, or, as we should prefer to nabbla;
of non-interference. The Conservative party
always maintained that England ought not to int%r
fore in the domestic affairs of other countries, Iwo
intervene in any question, whether by remonetraned
or force, except when her own interests, consttn„
in the largest sense, compelled her. Lord Painledle
stop and the Whigs, on the other hand, have ran to
it their business, when in possession of poWerfe 0.
intermeddle in the affairs of every country, tZ1,,0,
courage parties and nationalities, to bully and
va
ter upon the slightest pretence. But the Consorhis
tive doctrine is caricatured by Mr Cobden anU,
friends, who preach an impossible isolation and
most selfish egotism. In condemning the ire Per:„
five ""
nent fussiness of Earl Russell the country g Cob,
approval to the disgraceful cowardice of Mr bat
den. Its voice was pronounced in favour of thus
non-intervention whioh the Conservative party
.0d
preached out of office and practised in offee,:ve
whether therefore the resolutions of censure lives
helped or injured the chances of the Conserva,,t",;
for power, they have secured as the policy of 'fast.
land the doctrine which the Conservatives ba'-',nl
heart to establish. Mr Fitzgerald draws a glnt,ll
picture of the effects of this war upon Austria
nBOl
Prussia, and deplores that our intervention Wasffr,
more effective, not merely on account of the 011,1 e;
ings of Denmark, but of the check which freed°o
has sustained in Germany. We think his colours ;11
laid on a little too heavily. Prussia is not e%60(),0
under military rule, and her Government Yet I%rs
to public opinion and receives an immense suPli/rOO
from it. The recent measures by which Herr 0
Bismarck has trampled upon the minor Sovereign;
and even upon Austria, have excited the enthesintjo
of the Prussian people. Nor can we feel very Muds
regret for the check sustained by the Parlighluenjo
of Austria and Prussia when we remember that w"sf
these bodies showed tLemselves utterly regardirsned
law, of good faith; and justice; that they denounneir
Herr Von Bismarck and Count Rechberg for their
reluctance to defy the public opinion of Europe, °bey
quarrelled bitterly with those Ministers because t.,so,
would not ostentatiously set all decency at defisury
Whatever condemnation the judgment of Story
may pass upon the proceedings of Austria the
Prussia in this iniquitous war will not. fall 1113°"„0,
heads of the Sovereigns or Ministers of either ctio.
try, but upon the people, who have shown tu,heeir
selves far more brutal and bloodthirsty than rn of
rulers. Mr Fitzgerald's views upon the quest'°,ily
retrenchment deserve serious attention. We h,ea„"t,loo
agree with him that the real waste of money JEJT,IOI-
- army of clerks, and not upon the army "to
diers. Nothing can be more scandalous thaf,hioli
present system of military administration, by to
an immense staff of clerks is maintained 00`9cii..
render the transaction of the smallest piece of °rod
nary business a matter of the utmost difficulty -Sot
annoyance. We trust that Mr Fitzgerald well
allow the point he has raised to drop, and that La.
the army estimates come before the House of `7oot
mons he will bring before it this most rear ribld
question. Economy is very desirable, but no aeon
to
man would wish to purchase it by a reductinv-itss
the efficiency of our establishments. As Mr ;100
gerald says, we are approaching serious times.'"not
in which England may have to pay again tile,,,rieet
she has so gloriously enacted before; and trAIS et
that emergency we want not an army of 'llale
mischievous clerks, but soldiers and sailors car-beir
of emulating the glorious deeds by which
,cd 1/1
forefathers defended England against a N'an--
arms.