The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-13 00:00:00

said to be :---In local prisons, £35,300 ; convict

prisons at home, £lll,OOO ; ditto Bermuda and
Gibraltar (?), £90,000; total, £236,300. On the
whole, we cannot state the cost of convicted

offenders to England and Wales at a lower
figure than two millions and a half annually. The
average cost of a prisoner in local gaols is £26

a year, in convict prisons it is £33. We believe
that very few thieves and ruffians at large spend

much less than 20s. a week. But we will take
a more moderate estimate, and calculate their cost

at 125., or the same as their incarcerated fellows,

say £3O a year. At this rate the 90,800 regis- I
tered pilferers and rascals at large cost us not
less than £2,724,000 per annum. If we add this
to the figures previously given, we shall arrive
at the startling but undeniable result that our
criminal classes cost us—in guarding against
them, in detecting them, in punishing them, and
in supporting them in idleness in and out of
prison—not less than Five Millions a year, and
this without including either Scotland or Ireland
in the calculation. Now, £5,000,000 is about half
the sum we expend upon our navy, and about a
third of that assigned to our army. It is about
the yield of the tea duty, the tobacco duty, and
the sugar duty respectively.

TimEs.—The Speech with which the Emperor of
the French has opened the last session of his first
Parliament is such as we might rather have ex-
pected at its close. It embodies no programme of
new measures, and few anticipations of the future.
Instead of these it contains an elaborate review of
the home and foreign politics of France during the
last five years, and undertakes to show that the re-
sults of Constitutional Imperialism have been con-
formable to its grand principles. It is not, however,
on the character of his Government abroad, but on
the reforms which it has accomplished at home,
that the Emperor has most reason to pride himself.
We have never been among the flatterers of the
Imperial system, and even where the ends professed
by its supporters were laudable we have often had
occasion to find fault with the means. Still, though
liberty in France is even now trammelled in a way
which appears to us childish, we cannot help seeing
how much has been gained. "It is an usual thing
to suspect in the acts of Sovereigns some secret mo-
tive or some mysterious combination." Far be it
from us to admit that the Emperor has any right to
complain of this tendency. His language has not
always been so clear, or his policy so free from re-
serves and afterthoughts, as to justify him in claim-
ing the confidence due to transparent simplicity.
Perhaps he has not been unwilling to profit by the
reputation of profound cunning which men are wont
to ascribe to those whom they hate or fear. Per-
haps he has slowly learnt the supreme value of
plain speaking and the danger of over ingenuity in
the conduct of State affairs. " Time, which changes
men as well as things," and above all the conscious-
ness of a secure position, and the hope of leaving a
good name to posterity, may have insensibly
moulded his public character into a more constitu-
tional type. If there be still a powerful party in
France which distrusts him and obstinately refuses

to discern any difference in spirit between the First
and Second Empire, we do not blame them. To

them we leave the task of criticising this retro-
spect of domestic policy for the last five years.
For ourselves, as Englishmen, we have no fault to
find. So far as he has interfered in the concerns
of other Continental States, the Emperor has but
followed the example set him by those who have

reigned over France under different titles for cen-
turies past. So far as he has assiduously cultivated,
and risked some popularity to maintain, a good un-
derstanding with this country, he stands almost
alone. We are, perhaps, too apt to forget that
until the interests of all nations can be shown to be

identical a certain degree of opposition must be ex-
pected from the most friendly of foreign Sovereigns.
Every nation has its prejudices and its favourite
objects; these lannot be neglected by its rulers, and
in gratifying them the vanity and even the interests
of other nations must sometimes be sacrificed. When
Lord Russell :praised Lord Palmerston as pre-emi-
nently the Minister of England, he gave utterance
to a sentiment which would probably have grated
on the ears of a French audience. What he meant
was no more than that an English Foreign Minister
should take English, and not French or Russian,
views of European questions; that his primary
duty is to this country, and that it is not his busi-
ness to please others at our expense. From this
point of view we are bound to judge such Sovereigns
as Louis Philippe and Louis Napoleon when they
ascend the Throne of France. They can have uo
higher or more legitimate ambition than to leave
France better than they found her. If this result
be attained, it can hardly fail to follow, by a happy
necessity, that she will be a more amicable and less
suspicious neighbour to Great Britain.
- •

HERALD.—Goethe tells us "the great thing in
life is to know on which side we stand, and where."
What a pity Lord Russell does not study the pro-
found German writer; our position might not then
be so very undefined as it now is with respect to all
our foreign relations. Some of our contemporaries
are anxious to know what possible subjects of dif-
ference can arise in Parliament. It must be that our
easily-satisfied friends do not cast a glance on the
map of Europe, or they would marvel how one night
should be permitted to pass, after the open-
ing of the session, without Lord Russell being
called upon to explain his strange, incon-
sistent, weak, and vacillating foreign policy.
When Lord Palmerston was at the Foreign.office
there was no mistake about his views ; he was at
least consistent in his destructive energy. The red
hand was in the shield ; the revolutionary steam
was kept up all over the Continent ; coals were
heaped on the republican flame. He acted the part
of the bold, dashing agitator, until the name of
Palmerston was terrible to monarchical ears as
Marlbrook to French children in the days of Blen-
heim and itamilies. Thus we can well imagine the
consternation at Broadlands altveeachallfroefshuesscahpaavdee
of the Foreign Secretary.
laughed over the
Bfoaxre,ewohfen‘:
fromßo
dreadand Cox,"
dainsd-
sympathised with
turbance, he invites Cox into his apartments, and
then groans over the mischievous, meddling, fid-
getty qualities of his guest. So Lord Palmerston,
to keep things quiet, welcomed Earl Russell at the
Foreign-office, and ever since that hour must have
mourned over his own want of forethought and
sagacity. Of all annoyances in life the greater is to
have to deal with a man of whom it can be said,
" You do not know what he will be at next." We
will defy any one to predict Lord Russell's policy.
Ordinary men would have supposed that the time
when the heir to the Crown was about to marry a
Princess of Denmark would have been selected for
the manifestation of a sincere and earnest interest
in the fortunes and welfare of that ancient Royal

I--
house—but great minds like Lord Russell's take a
very different view of our relations. He is the evil
fairy of the nuptials, and writes a despatch, not only
inconsistent with all he had hitherto written or
expressed, but conveying opinions so injuries and
insulting to the Throne of Denmark
acceptance of the Minister is
That the the
compelled to reply--"
propositions made by Lord Russell would lead to
the destruction of constitutional life in Denmark,
and would soon even imperil the existence of the
monarchy." This is a pretty good rap over the
_.knuckles for Lord Russell, but this does not satisfy
him. Anxious to be busy at something, be turns
to Montenegro, and here mirabile dictu, all his
,
theory of rights of
natitiounpspodritsearppears
of
monarchy i
l
and the
stern, uncompromisingsprings to view. What must have bEen Prince
Gortschakoff's feelings
when he received a folio of
sentiments entirely opposed to all Lord Russell's
principles. What in the name
of fortune has be-
come of the cause for which Sidney b
den fell? Where are the rights of peoples?ledand
Ramp
n it Ac.
cording to the doctrines professed by
says the Prince, " we ought not to contest the rightlan
England,"
of Montenegro to the independence which that.
country has maintained for above a century with ,
unconquerable energy." This is excellent—Lord
Russell taught a lesson on constitutional principles
by a Russian Minister; and Prince Gortschakoff
does not mince the matter at all, and tells Lord
Russell quite distinctly that he has now adopted
views-entirely opposed to those which he formerly
propounded.