The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMES.--The first of July, if one may so speak
of an immovable: feast ill i fitoincial calendar, b
fallen upon evil days. It comes like a rainy Whit-
suntide, or a snowed-up Christmas. Witnessing,
as we do, a great act of oppression suffered by a
weak neighbour, and not able to justify interference
in his behalf, we are hardly in the mood to enjoy
the contemplation of our growing resources. What
avail health and wealth, industry and skill, if we
must sit by and see the world go to the bad ? But
there is a time for all things, and we may reconcile
ourselves to the present task of fostering our
industry and husbanding our resources. War,
always costly—happily costly, for we need not
quarrel with the law of Providence that makes
money flow with blood—is most costly in our case.
Whenever it comes, we must subsidize; we must
even purchase allies; we must sow money broadcast ;
we must supply all the material of war—ships, arms
clothing, everything. We must penetrate gulfs, we
must wake up nationalities and call contrubandis s
to our aid, ever preceded by the " ass-load of gold."
We must replenish empty exchequers, guarantee
loans otherwise unmarketable, and repeat all the
inevitable follies ever done before. This is one
light in which we are now compelled to look at
our ever-buoyant Revenue. True, there is no posi-
tive accumulation to feast our eyes upon ; no piles
of gold representing so many ships and piles of
ammunition into wniela they are convertible. But
we see that the Revenue is absolutely at the
command of Finance. We reserve its waters as
in a vast reservoir, for we can bid these waters
flow to any volume we please. We do not starve
industry toe augment the national income ; so in-
dustry is grateful, and answers the call when we
make it. This is wealth and power—not to possess
an accumulation, but to command a ready supply.
The Customs show a decrease of £411,000 en the
quarter; the Property Tax a decrease of £449,000.
, These are the results of the two great reduc-
tions last year, divided between direct and indirect
taxes—viz., the reduction of the Tea Duty by sd.
per pound, and of the Property Tax by 2d. in the
pound. The good barley harvest of last year,
together with the revival of trade and the increase
of consumption, has made the Excise of the quer.
ter produce £459,000 more than it did last year.
The " Taxes" have produced £42,000 more. On
the whole, the net decrease on the quarter is
£216,004; the net decrease on the year,X690,902. of
course it is too early to tell by the Returns the whole
effect of the reductions last year; but thus far we
have a net decrease of less than seven hundred thou-
sand pounds, against an estimated decrease of more
than three trillions. Tne Revenue of the year just
ended is within a trifle of seventy millions,—a sum
which only a few years ago it would have been
thought impossible to squeeze out of the nation
except by the most ruinous pressure under the
stiwu us of war, yet now raised easily in a time of
peaceful and fi,cal reduction. Little as we like to
think of the possibility, there is hardly a tax or
duty represented in these Returns that might not
be doubled, if the occasion required, with a fair
prospect of raisins nearly double the present sum,
and so enabling the country to carry on a great war
without contracting a loan or adding a pound to the
debt. It would not indeed be wise to do, nor would
it be just, since wars are undertaken for posterity
as well as for the living generation, and posterity
must help it to pay for them. Such. however, is
the mighty body of this great stream of wealth, and
such its working power. Only say the word, and
it flows at our feet as deep as the utmost needs of
weir or of peace may require. Within these twenty
gear's it bas been assumed as a self-evident maxim
that a revenue of fifty millions was about as much
as the _Empire could ever be expected to pay, and
that all above would be found a sensible impediment
to industry (end thrift. We are now paying
seventy millions, and there never was a time
in which money was more easily obtained
for large undertakings of any kind whatever. It
a railway is to be made Otrough the thickest and
wealthiest parts of the metrope'lla ; if the Thames is
ro be bridged over in half a-dozen places at once;. it
a viaduct is to be thrown over a vah'°y if an nn-
.
mense edifice is to be raised for commerce, fer plea-
sure, for public offices, or any other purpose; it the
managers of a private business wish to hand it over
to a company ; if a new invention is to be tried ; if
a new pack, t line is to be opened ; if a house is to be
built, a gallery lined with pictures, or a stable filled
with good horses ; if money is to be lent to a new
Republic or a new Empire ; in a word, whatever is
to be done, the money is instantly forthcoming, and
not even the warning voice of the 'Change prophets
wilt deter rich and poor from scattering with lavish
hand the wealth they have, or think they have, or
hops to have. No drain seems sufficient to exhaust
the annual profits of industry and enterprise, and
wealth is driven to amuse and enjoy itself from mere
want of objects of a more prefirebie Character. The
art of spending well has yet to be taught the Eng-
lish, at once lavish and parsimonious, enterprising
and timid, over-confiding and suspicious. Cannot
the metropolis have the benefit of an abundance
which refuses to be kept down, and which is only
stopped in one place to break out in another ? It is
the destiny of England to be rich—it cannot be
added to use her riches uniformly well, to be wisely
generous and judiciously magnificent. As it is, we
attain not the glory either of peace or of war. We
might have a nobler metropolis; we might do much
for art and science ; we might make ourselves more
respected in the councils of Europe. A State that
collects seventy millions a year from its subjects
cannot excuse itself on the ground of weakness
from taking a high part. It may plead the divi-
sion of its resources, the distraction of its interests,
and the diversity of its aims. These, however,
are not a sufficient excuse if it do notbing well,
or nothing in proportion to its means. We have
many " irons in the fire"—too many ; but, it may
be asked, as of many a private gentleman who frit-
ters away his income in a thousand trifles, what
have we to show for seventy millions a year ?
HERALD.—The organs of the Administration are
certainly content, and we think they are wisely
content, to take up very low ground, and offer a
very humble and apolegetic defence for the policy
of the Government. They do not pretend to argue
that that policy has been wise or sound ; that it
has proceeded upon consietent principles, or has led
to satisfactory results. They allow that the Con-
ference was a blunder, and that the whole course
of England, from the beginning to the end of
these negotiations, has been a deplorable failure.
We have neither maintained our own dignity nor
the independence of Denmark ; wa have neither
preserved the public law of Europe or prevented
a breach of its peace. Everything that our
Ministers undertook to do is left undone; and
the only result of our efforts has been to expose
our weakness, isolation, and timidity in the face
of the world. It is prudent on the part of our
Ministerial contemporaries not to insult the public
sense bv pretending that this is a consummation
whereof we can be proud, or even satisfied. They
put forward a more specious plea. " It is useless,"
they say, " referring to the past. Tell us what we
ought to do now. Do not go harping on the errors
that can no longer be retrieved ; but tell us, aye or
no, do you approve of the present determination of
the Goverment nut to go to war for Denmark." This
is the sense of Mr. King lake's amendment; and we
must admit that the author of "Eothen" has
shown some skill in devising a means of escape
from a difficult and damaging position. On Mr.
Disraeli's motion, a man of sense and honour who
wishes to vote with the Government, will find
himself in a painful dilemma. He must, if he
adhere to his party, give a vote obviously false upon
a matter of ascertained fact. Mr. Kinglake comes
to hie rescue, and proposes an amendment which
would prevent the question from being put in this
form, and substitute for it an expression of opinion
in regard to the future, upon which men may rea-
sonably differ. He will not answer the question
whether or no the podcy of the Government has
lowered the just influence of England in the coun-
cils of Europe; because that is a question of fact
which can only be answered in one way. Instead
of this he proposes a form of judgment which shirks
altogether the duty of pronouncing sentence upon
the past, and undertakes the much less appropriate
function of giving advice for the future. And there
is an obvious disposition on the part of the Liberals
to apply this salve to their consciences, and, under
pretence of voting for peace, virtually to condone
dishonour. It seems clear to us that to accept Mr.
Kinglake's amendment would be, on the part of the
House of Commons, a gross dereliction of consti-
tutional duty, most serious and most culpable at
a juncture like the present. It is the most ini
portent function of that 'effuse, in regard to foreign
affairs, to pronounce judment on the past conduct of
a Government. Wnile negociations are pending
nothing can be done; the Administration are for the
time omnipotent; and if the House of Commons de
clines, when the negociations are c'osed, to express
its opinion of their management on the ground that
their errors are past and irretrievable, the Foreign
Office becomes virtually irresponsible and Parliament
torfeits altogether its constitutional control over the
foreign policy of the Crown. It is only by deciding
aye or no on such motions as that submitted by Mr.
Disraeli that this control is maintained. And, if it
were ever right for Parliament to condone the mis-
management of Ministers who have been allowed
to act with that absolute freedom and affectation of
secrecy which the Foreign Office enjoys—if ever it
could be right to forbeste to p-iss after the fact
a judgment which is of necessity suspended
until alter the fact—.the present conjuncture
would still be one to which condonation and fore
bearance are utterly inapplicable. For, if Parlia-
ment
.do. not pass a censure upon the conduct of
the 1%1111134y, England, by the mouth of Parliament;

assumes the responsibility of that conduct. And
what a responsibility that is I If the Government
remains uncensored, it is by England, and not by
Lord Russell, thet Germany has been msnaced
with war ; it is England, and not her Ministers,
that locked the courage to fu.fll that menace. It
is by England, not by Lord Palmerston, that a
pledge was given to Denmark that, if attacked,
she should not find herself alone ; and England,
not Lord Palmerston, has left her alone in her
agony. If the Government remains uncensored
England accepts for herself the gibes and taunts,
'tie contempt and the ignominy which the officious
interference and complaisant submission of Lord
Palmerston's Administration have incurred. In
reply to all these reproaches from Denmark which
have wrung our hearts, in reply to all these seoffa
and sneers from Germany which have galled our
pride to the quick, each of us has been wont to say
aloud or in his heart :—" No ; this is not England
--that England of which I and my order are con-
stituent elements—it is Lord Russell, who happens
to be in the Foreign Office by virtue of some parlia-
mentary arrangement or party necessity, but who
no more represents England than does John Bright."
We console ourselves for Lord Russell's shame by
repudiating Lord Russell. But we cannot repo*
diate the House of Commons ; and if that house
accepts Lord Russell's shame, that shame becomes
national—and personal to every man who by vote,
or speech, or pen helped to fix it on the nation, per.
sonal to every man who did not do his utmost to
repudi to it by repudiating the Government: The
house has no escape from this responsibility. It is
asked to pronounce judgment by one whose official
station, not his personal partisanship, prompts and
ne3essitates the appeal. The leader of Her Ma-
jesty's Opposition moves for judgment on Her Ma-
jesty's Ministers ; and if the house refuse to pass
teat judgment, it accepts and fixes upon itself
and upon the nation the shame of threats nnfols
fii ed, and of promises broken, ce cowardice avowed
—in fact, of that whole Ministerial past on which it
declines, in this, the proper season, to pronounce
the censure invoked by Mr. Disraeli's resolution.
In negativing Mr. Kinglake's amendment, on
the o her hand, the house does tot pronounce in
favour of war. It simply passes to the order of the
day—the consideration of the past course of the
Government, on which it is the duty first to pro-
nounce. But, apai t from this consideration, we
cannot but think Mr Kinglake's proposal, at the
present moment, peculiarly ill-timed, After a long
period of incertitude and vacillation, which can
only be attributed to a want of internal decision
in the Cabinet itself, a pJlicy of peace at any
price has been announced by the Administration,
and expressly roueded on the assertion that we
dare not fight ; that Austria and Prussia are powers
so great and formidable that England,' single-
handed, or even backed by Sweden and Italy, is no
match for them. Now, it may be true that there
are many good reasons for not fighting. It may be
that it is contrary to our hereditary policy to quarrel
with the German Powers. It may be that we shrink,
honourably and conscientiously, so long as a credit.
able peace seems within the hounds of hope, from
firing the shell which must inevitably explode
moral powder magazine anc light up an European
conflagration. But it cannot be that England is
afraid to fight Austria and Prussia ; and it must
not be that, by affirming Mr. Kinglake's resolution,
following as it does upon and deliberately confirm•
ing the Ministtrial plea of weakness and avowal of
cowardice, the House of Commons should let go
forth to the world that we—not Lord Palmerston,
Lord Russell, and Mr Gladstone, but the English
nation— are afraid. Tne policy of peace at any price
is the policy at last adopted by Lord Palmerston's
Cabinet ; adopted, however, not trom the first, but
after many promises of aid to Denmark and many
i.hreats of war to Germany ; and that policy rests
avowedly on simple fear. That is the policy ap-
proved by Mr Kinglake's motion, and condemned
by Mr Disraeli's. The policy of the Conservative
party is not a policy of war nor yet a policy of
peace; it is the old traditional policy of England.
Peace if we may ; war if we must ; peace with
honour, or war for eonour." That a Conservative
Government might, even at this eleventh hour,
realise the better alternative, is more than possible;
that. England should be in such terror of the worse
as to proclaim her terror to the world by adopting
Mr Kinglake's motion, is what we will not, without
proof, believe.