The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-14 00:00:00

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

Mr. AUGUSTUS SMITH obtained leave to bring in a
bill to amend the mode of taking votes at municipal elec-
tions, which was read a first time.

The house then adjourned, at ten minutes past seven
o'clock.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

DAILY NEWS.—The whole aspect of Continental
politics has been totally changed within the space
of a fortnight. Never was there a fairer prospect
of tranquillity than that which shone forth in
January, 1863; so strong was the tendency to
quiet, that no provocation seemed likely to destroy
it. The King of Prussia's outrage upon the Con-
stitution, the French pressure upon Italy, the Sul-
tan's autocratic freak—events which would have
been serious under some circumstances, caused not
more than a ripple in the current of 1863. But all
this has been completely changed by the duration
and gravity of the Polish insurrection. Previous
to that event the " parties of movement" in every
country had been forced to admit that the present
was no season for action. There prevails annually,
we know, through the unsettled portion of Europe,
a belief that something great and wonderful is to
take place in spring. It is always given out that
discontented populations are to rise at that season ;
and, seldom as the prophecy is fulfilled, there are
whole populations who live in expectation of it.
For the present year such announcements were too
absurd to gain credit. When suddenly a spark,
which Russian tyranny most wantonly struck
forth, has caused an explosion in Poland which
threatens to set fire to the combustible matter
heaped plentifully in every country and every race
around. The effect in Germany has been electric.
The Duke of Saxe Coburg, who had at first been
gladdened by the prospect of leaving the scene of
German politics during the syncope of Prussia, felt
at once that no German, much less a liberal Prince,
could abandon the fortunes of his Fatherland.
The King of Prussia took the alarm, and, true
to the retrograde policy on which he has embarked,
went to consult, not his Chambers and his people,
in such a catastrophe, but the Russian autho-
rities. There has been, indeed, and still might be
under other circumstances, antagonism between
the Slavonic and Teutonic races on the Oder and
Vistula. But both are now indignant with their
despotic Monarch, who threatens nothing less than
prolonged servitude. Patriotic Germans will never
be brought to join a war-shout for maintaining the
partition of Poland. And those who are for nation-
ality at home must commence by recognising it
abroad. The King has other sentiments, and will
no doubt, in obedience to them, concentrate his
army in the Eastern Provinces. All this opens a
wide field for the contingent and unforeseen, and
at the same time entails on the leaders of the Ger-
man Union duties which they cannot ignore.
Meantime Austria has assumed an attitude by no
means hostile to the Polish revolution. Whatever
Lord Palmerston may say, Austria, even the Austria
of Metternich, by no means showed itself the foe of
Polish regeneration. Living under the shadow
and the menace of Russia, Austria, under any Go-
vernment or Minister, must welcome so salutary a
re-establishment of the balance of power in the east
of Europe as the restoration and reunion of Poland
can alone effect. The Court of Vienna might not,
indeed, be prepared to cede Galicia without a ter-
ritorial indemnity, which was far more easy to
point out and promise in 1831 than it is now. But
a resuscitated Poland, which would at once relieve
Austria from the pressure of Russia, and deprive
the Czar for ever of the pretension of being chief
of the Slavonic, and which would at the same time
separate Russia from Prussia, and leave the latter
power dwindled, disgraced, and unpopular, would
augment Austrian preponderance in a degree which
would more than counterbalance even the loss of
Galicia. The effect of a Polish revolution upon
France would, however, be far more serious than
any effects which it might have even on Austria
and Prussia. The sympathies of the French
people for Poland are far greater than any
which existed towards Italy. And to maintain the
Russian alliance, on condition of frowning upon
the efforts of the Poles, would beget an amount
of unpopularity in France, which we may be certain
the Emperor will not face. The ends for which
France first sought the Russian alliance have been
attained. The attitude of the Court of St. Peters-
burg end of its army certainly aided Napoleon in
his Italian campaign. But Russia, crippled as she
is and must be, could never, at least not for a life-
time, render any efficient support to French
schemes of ambition whether upon the Rhine or in
the Levant. Such schemes, moreover, there is every
reason to believe, are for the present abandoned.
There is but one power with which France could
take counsel in so weighty an affair, and that is
Engand. Downing-street, to be sure, can be neither
adventurous nor lavish. But its adhesion to any
great act of European policy is a tower of strength.
The opinion and something more than the opinion
of France and England united might, for example,
prevent the Court of Berlin from rushing headlong
into a contest which may involve it, too, in serious
difficulties. And Austria might receive from the
same quarter encouragement to persevere in the
neutral attitude which it has taken up. At all
events the conditions of the Treaty of Vienna ought
to be invoked for Poland, and Russia called upon
in the name of Europe to give up its system of
oppression and extirpation.
HERALD. Lord Ravensworth made out a very
clear case on Thursday night for the construction of
refuge harbours on the exposed parts of the coast ;
and the Duke of Somerset will do well to expunge
the contradictions from his speech when the proof of
it is furnished to him from the office of the Messrs.
Hansard. The Duke of Somerset is in favour of
refuge harbours, and thinks it would be wise
economy to construct them rapidly, but is of opinion
that private efforts should only be assisted by the Go
vernment, and that refuge harbours would, after all,
fail in saving any considerable amount of life and pro-
perty. Lord Ravensworth knows his subject well.
He reminds the House of Lords that it is 10 years
since the question of refuge harbours was brought
before Parliament ; that inquiry, both by committee
and commission, has been exhausted, and that be-
yond
promoting one minor recommendation—

namely, that of faeilitating the improvement of ex-
isting harbours by loans from the public loan com-
missioners, nothing whatever has been done by the
Government. The House of Lords is then furnished
with a lucid statement of the case. The annual loss
of property on the coast on an average of six years
is £1,500,000, and the annual average loss of life for
the same period is 800 human beings. Within 12
years 7,640 lives have been lost on the coast ; and
during the last six years 16,119 lives have been
saved on the coast by the lifeboats and other appli-
ances of the National Lifeboat Institution. These
facts, Lord Ravensworth says, prove incontestably
that something more than the efforts of private
benevolence are required ; and what in his opinion,
and in the opinion of the select committee of the
House of Commons and the Roy al Commissioners,
remains to be done, is the construction of refuge
harbours. His lordship then notices the objections
which have all along been urged to the construcrion
of these harbours, and it is impossible to follow him
without being persuaded that Parliament in this
matter has a great and urgent duty to discharge.
Some have thought these harbours useless and un-
serviceable, that they would speedily silt up, and
that they would afford no substantial protection to
our shipping. Against these opinions Lord Ravens-
worth pats those of the Royal Commissioners.
Another objection is, he says, the apathy of the
shipowners. The shipowners fear that their ships
might seek refuge when they ought to keep the sea,
and that thereby time and money would be
wasted. This objection, he admits, is not without
force ; but he asks, are 800 lives, and property to
the value of £1,500,000 annually, a proper and
becoming set-off to any inconvenience the ship-
owners might has eto suffer ? Last of all, ho says
it is objected that shipowners send unworthy ships
to sea after protecting themselves by insurance
policies, and that by so doing much of this waste
of life and property is occasioned. Here again
he grants there is some truth; but how, he adds,
are losses like that of the steamer Lifeguard to be
accounted for but on the supposition that when
disabled there is nothing but an iron-bound coast
to bear up to, and that ship and every soul on
board therefore perish ? Lord Ravensworth then
points to our convict prisons swarming with well-
fed, idle convicts, and suggests that as these con-
victs are fed for doing nothing, they might be as
well employed constructing refuge harbours. So
we think ; so, no doubt, thinks the country ; and
so, we believe, ought to think Parliament. Employ
these men in the construction of refuge harbours,
and instead of these harbours costing the £4,000,000
or £5,000,000 stated by the Duke of Somerset, it is
capable of demonstration that a few thousand
pounds expended on spades and wheelbarrows, if
the Secretary of War cannot spare enough of these,
and on the fitting of hulks, are nearly all that is
required. These convicts will eat no more at work
than when idle, and there is nothing that has to
enter into the construction of refuge harbours but
solid rock and labour. Construct refuge harbours
by convict labour, and these harbours will be a sub-
stantial return for the food, clothing, and supervi-
sion of the convicts, and the only possible new out-
lay will be the tools of labour, the piles and plank
required for barrow walks and cofferdams, and fit
receptacles for confinement over night. Sir Joshua
Jebb will no doubt remind us of the " hells" the
convict hulks were some years ago; but in turn we
must tell him that the reclamation of convicts to
virtue and honest industry is in the main impossible.
Socie y is not, therefore, bound to maintain many
thousands of its outcasts in idleness and with all
the advantages incident to the separate system.
But, perhaps, movable iron convict prisons might
be substituted for the hulks, although the expense
of such prisons would be great. However, with
these questions of detail the Royal Commissioners
at present inquiring into the subject will no doubt
deal. Lord Ravensworth, in pointing to the con-
victs, shows that refuge harbours may be constructed
for almost nothing, and the necessity for these har-
bours he has not left in any doubt when he tells us
that so much property and so many lives are lost
annually on the coast.

LONDON GAZE T TE—Yesterday.

WAR-OFFICE, PALL-MALL, FEB. 13.

4th Regiment of Dragoon Guards—John Sidney Bates,
Gent., to be Cornet, by purchase, vice David George
Sandeman, transferred to the 16th Lancers.
4th Hussars—William Birkett, Gent , to be Cornet, by pur-
chase, vice James William Kelly, appointed Quarter-
master.

sth Lancers—Alexander Ewing, Gent., to be Cornet, by
purchase, vice James George Hubert Fox, promoted.
6th Regiment of Foot—Lieut. Aubrey Wm. 0. Saunders
to be Captain, by purchase, vice St. Andrew Beauchamp
St. John, who retires ; Ensign James Bannatyne Blair
to be Lieutenant, by purchase, vice Saunders.
7th Foot—Captain Richard Cormick Clifford, from the 48th
Foot, to be Captain, vice William Langmead Lewes, who

exchanges.
Bth Foot—Captain George Sinclair, from half-pay Un-
attached, to be Captain, vice Daniel Beere, placed upon
half-pay from Ist January, 1863 ; Lieutenant Ashley
George Westby to be Captain, by purchase, vice Sin-
clair, who retires ; Ensign John Dawson to be Lieu-

tenant, by purchase, vice Westby ; Walter Cowan, Gent.,
to be Ensign, by purchase, vice Dawson.
23d Foot—Lieut. Thomas Nepean Edward Kenny, from
the 73d Foot, to be Lieutenant, vice Edmund Broughton
Knowles Lacon, who exchanges.
29th Foot—Lieut. Robert Berkeley to be Captain, by pur-
chase, vice Alfred Godfrey Black, who retires; Ensign
Robert John Watson to be Lieutenant, by purchase, vice
Berkeley; Jacob Henry Pitfield, Gent., to be Ensign,
by purchase, vice Watson.
48th Foot—Captain William L. Lewes, from the 7th Foot,
to be Captain, vice Richard Cormick Clifford, who ex-

changes.
61st Foot—Lieutenant Herbert Lee Hall, from the 103 d
Foot, to be Lieutenant, vice William Sydney Nugent,
who exchanges.
73d Foot—Lieutenant Edmund Broughton Knowles La-
con, from the 23d Foot, to be Lieutenant, vice Thomas
Nepean Edward Kenny, who exchanges.
77th Foot—Ensign George Augustus While to be Lieute-
nant, by purchase, vice Charles B. Knowles, promoted to
an Unattached Company, by purchase.
86th Foot—Staff-Surgeon Henry Higgins Jones, M. I) ~
from half-pay, to be Surgeon, vice Joseph Sawyers,
M.D., deceased.
90th Foot—Staff Surgeon Francis Oliver Barker, M.D , to
be Surgeon, vice William Lapsley, appointed to the

Staff.
1001 h Foot—Ensign William Palmer Clarke, to be Lieu-
tenant, by purchase, vice Louis Charles Augustus Lefe-
bre de Bellefeuille, who retires; David Stanley Drum-
mond Johnstone, Gent., to be Ensign, by purchase, vice

Clarke.
101st Foot—The Christian name of Quartermaster Farrant

is Edwin.
102 d Foot—The Christian name of Quartermaster Moore

is Thomas.
103 d Foot—Lieut. William Sydney Nugent, from 61st
Foot, to be Lieutenant, vice Herbert Lee 11 11, who ex-
changes.
UNATTACHED.—Lieutenant Charles R. Knowles, from
the 77th Foot, to be Captain, by purchase.
MEDICAL LEPARTMENT.—To be Staff Surgeons : Sur-
geon William Lapsley, from the 90th Foot, vice Francis
Oliver Barker, M.D., appointed to the 90th Foot; Staff
Assistant-Surgeon Frederick Oakes, vice William Skeen,
appointed to the 4th West India Regiment; Staff Assistant-
Surgeon James William Crow, vice Augustus Morphew,
appointed to the Ist West India Regiment. To be Staff
Assistant: Assistant-Surgeon Arthur Edwin Temple
Longhurst, M.D., from 13th Foot, vice Thomas Stephen-
son Teevan, placed upon half-pay.