The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-28 00:00:00

alai alliteratively, "limo AVerks -Wonders." Our
Government seems to have accepted some such
axiomatic device, as at once the symbol and the
guiding principle of their Foreign Policy. In this,
their Home Policy and their Foreign Policy are,
no doubt of it, very much alike. They harmonise
so far very wonderfully. Their Home Policy is—
to Da Nothing. Their Foreign Policy is—to
Do Nothing. It is a very easy policy
in its way too—apparently. Bat only appa-
rantly. For it is quite impossible it can last.
Even a great and popular minister like Lord PAL-
MF.RSTON would find it impracticable to persist in
it; although he continued to ho aided and abetted
in so doing by colleagues as able as the pick of those
occupying the foremost place in his Administration,
statesmen, it will be sufficient to add, such as Earl
RUSSELL himself, or such, again, as Mr.
GLADSTONE. As to Earl RUSSELL—who ifit
as a matter of course, at the heart of all
these recent proceedings—it is amusing, it is
really and truly nothing less than amusing
to find that in the very thick of the late difficulty
as to whether England should or should not take
part in the European Congress proposed by the
French EMPEROR, that Completest Letter Writer
(in his own estimation) in all Christendom grasps as
at a wholly new and utterly unheard•of idea—an
idea that, if acted upon, might, he thinks, be a very
clover and admirable evasion of the whole difficulty
—grasps eagerly and almost breathlessly at the
following notion, a notion it will be acknowledged
quite his own. Reluctant to take part
• in the Congress proposed by the Emperor NAPO-
LEON—,what is it that Earl RUSSELL gladly and
graciously
suggests in lieu of it ? " Her MAJESTY'S
▪ Government," he writes on the 12th inst. to Earl
COWLEY, " would be ready to discuss with France
. and other Powers, by diplomatic correspondence,
any specified questions upon which a solution might
be attained, and European peace thereby more
securely established." Truly, a wonderful pro-
position ! Among all the Governments of Europe
—A Diplomatic Correspondence ! And this, in re-
gard to "any specified questions upon which a
solution ?night be attained." Altogether—so very
lucidly expressed and clearly defined a pro-
position ! In the great diplomatic loom of
Europe —so vast, so complicated imagine
all those " shuttles set a-flying !' It gives
one vertigo to thick of it. Conceive the inter-
minable and voluminous outpouring from all the
official presses—at London, at Paris, at Vienna,
at St. Petersburg, et cetera—of 13lue Book,
Litres Jamaica, and so forth ; stores of
diplomatic literature purchasable by the pound
weight, by the hundred weight, by the ton—
by any one who might care to purchase it.
Truly, again, we say a wonderful proposition.
Another passage in this recent cot respondence we
cannot but regard as especially worthy of some
passing consideration. Again, it is a passage
in one of the Complete Letter Writer's
letters—the last in this little cluster of
five. It is expressed—the particular passage we
are here alluding to—in a single sentence: not this
time as a proposition, simply as an inquiry. Earl
RUSSELL, on the part of England, that is, on the
part of the British Government, asks--.' Is a Gene-
ral Congress of European States likely to furnish a
peaceful solution of the various matters in dispute ?"
M. DROUYN DE L'Huers' answer, the EMPEROR'S
answer, the answer of France, might have been
expressed thus, monosyllabically—Try !

We are glad to see that the attention of our
Admiralty officials is at last being turned to a sub-
ject of great practical importance, and that they
are now taking steps to remedy a very serious
deficiency in our Royal Navy. We allude to the
want of lifeboats, a want which we have often
dwelt upon as urgent and imperative. The argu-
ments in favour of the addition of these useful

companions to our men-of-war are so obvious as to
be almost truisms, but trite as they are they have
hitherto produced but little effect on the official
mind. It is a perfect marvel how vessels bearing
about such a precious freight of human life as we
despatch to every part of the globe should have
been allowed to sail from oue port to another with-
out the means of security in case of disaster. How
often have our feelings been harrowed by reading
the details of the wreck of some large vessel, the
rush to the boats, and the miserable discovery that
they were too small, too few, or too unseaworthy,
to give a chance of life to half the requisite num-
ber P How many a tale of heroic daring or equally
heroic endurance have told us that courage and
patience have both gone down in the deep waters
for lack of the most ordinary provision for the time
of sudden danger. Our advertising columns still
tell us of the efforts being made to assist the
widows and orphans of the crew of her MAJESTY'S
ship Orpheus—widows and orphans who might
now have been looking to loving husbands
and fathers for their support, had that
doomed vessel possessed so simple a means of
rescue. Had the Royal Navy been earlier supplied
with these boats, the Manukan Bar would not be
the only spot that lost its tragic associations, and
the firmness, the discipline, and presence of mind,
which usually distinguish shipwrecks of this class,
would serve for something more than to point a
moral or add poignancy to the regret of the sur-
vivors. It has been justly said that " the duties
which men-of-war crews have suddenly to fulfil—
to pick up men overboard in stormy weather, to
land important despatches through any surf, and al
almost any risk to render hazardous service to out
wrecked merchantmen in the wildest and least
cieilisel parts of the world ; any and all of these
duties may come upon them in a single day, and day
after day, and have to be rendered in boats, which
"5 not only not fit, but aro the worst fitted for such
these
1307P°Rea." The great services rendered by lifeboats
r Coasts, under the management of the National
Litels,nt '
public, andulh
of the
Institution,llttf have of late years brought
boats more prominently before the
Oil forced their merits upon the notice
Admiralty,
as has been
Orpheus for want
of
some share in The terrible loss of life which,
a°la, Occurred at the wreck of the
expeait, lifeboat, has probably had
in
Its the movements of a body
that every
of improvements.
no question
by no means rapid
provided with the
very large vessel ought
to b 3 pro
"` me
crew and , Qns of saving the
lives of her
There is
passe in case of
accident, and ,e_ .
a sudden the tact that this
or never the
case,
does not is seldom
reflect much credit on our her,,a,"„.
its- The rea-
son advanced for leaving our
met-QC-war
with essa s°
long unprovided this very nec ry equip-
ment is that it is difficult, or in fact hitherto
eboa
im-
possible, to find a lifeboat suited in all respects
• i'
for service on board ship, fight and handy, simple
uoqa to bear rough
in its fittings, strong eno ~,
stowage. The
handling, and capable of easy
Admiralty, however, having fully determined upon
remedying the existing deficiency, have with more
asked
sagacity than often attends their enterprises 7
the officers of the National Lifeboat Institution to
superintend the building of a lifeboat adapted for
service in a man-of-war, the boat not weighing
more than a ton. From the result of the trials
made on Thursday, however, it appears that they
would do wisely to extend this margin a little
t
urther, and raise the limit scwt. The difficulty