The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The two leaders of the House of Com-
mons, Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disraeli, did elo-
quent justice last night, not only to Mr. Cobden's
great abilities and his eminent services, but to the
nobler features of his character. There is, indeed, no
man of our times who has more completely fulfilled
the first palpable condition of success. But the vast
mass of the English people see and feel more than
this in the man they have just lost. Mr. Cob-
den's has been an English career. He did a great
work ; it was peculiarly an English work, and done
in English fashion. He_ was English in his great-
ness, English in his weakness ; English in his achieve-
ment, English iu his shortcomings. Englishmen
understood him because it is in them to attempt
noble deeds, and the kind of deeds that this man did.
The most loved names in our annals are those of
national deliverers ; of the men who broke the yoke
of a tyrant, a foreigner, or a dominant class; of
Reformers, of Protestants, of all that fought for
law ; of those that devoted their lives to the de-
liverance of the sacred shrine, or the domestic altar,
or the prisoner in the dungeon, or the enslaved
race ; of the still more scant band of worthies who
lived to purge our laws of blood, our Legislature
of corruption, or our social state of lingering
barbarism. Whoever it was that we were to
honour, whether prince, or grandee, or priest,
or public man, the question always was " What
had he done ?" There was no question here. Mr.
Cobden was the chief, the prime mover, the spirit of
that band which devoted itself to set free labour,
which is the life of the million, from those burdens
and trammels that constituted a second curse on the
soil of human industry. This he did, in spite of an
opposition which only made the triumph greater.
He did it, not unaided by events, but with a com-
pleteness wanting to many a victory. He did it, and
he afterwards clenched it, and made the world a
partner in the act as well as a participator in its
benefits. He made the example contagious as well
as beneficent. It is this that brings Mr. Cobden so
thoroughly within all English sympathy and com-
prehension. The first debt we owe to such a career
is to recognise its ennobling character ; the second
to perceive its limits, its shortcomings, and its faults,
inevitable perhaps, but not less to be observed. It
was no fault of Mr. Cobden, but yet a calamity-and
an injury to none more than to himself, that the
victory was to be won over a class of fellow-coun-
try-men, and that a high and noble class. This was
a civil war of interests and opinions, and the assail-
ants for the time were in the position of rebels and
malignants. Every step in such a warfare was too
likely to contract the range of sympathy, and to
blind the political sense, not only to great personal
merits, but also to many rights and necessities in an
ancient, vast, and complex social system. Mr. Cob-
den, in the nature of things, became pre-occupied
with his one great work, and as the work filled every
region of his mind, so all the world became to him
the personages in that one drama. The drama might
be played out, but the personages, the plot, the
moral, the sentiment would remain; and the theme
would reappear with new places, incidents, and
names. Could England and all the world grow in
fact as they grew in Mr. Cobden's vision, and become
a grand financial problem working itself by certain
steps to an inevitable solution, then Mr. Cobden
must have' been not only our greatest hero, but
everything, all in one, the very centre of our hopes
and aspic ations. But meanwhile England and the
world have been pursuing a course of their own,
perfectly independent of Mr. Cobden's speculations,
and far away from his centre of thought. He could
not take into his account the fountains of the great
deep that have since been broken up, and the win-
dows of heaven that have since been opened. Lust
of territory, empire, and pre-eminence he had ha-
bituated himself to regard as the special sins of
tyrants and aristocracies. Wars, if not for con-
quest, were to provide ships and regiments for the
scions of noble families. It was only a State of the
Old World that could plunge into an abyss of debt
to gratify the passion of the hour. Allow men to
govern themselves, and they must be too wise to
throw away all the fruits of their industry, and
forge new chains for their own limbs by ruinous and
suicidal wars. That men of hereditary greatness or
high accidental position should hold their own and
fight for any cause that promised length of reign to
themselves was likely enough ; but the honest and
industrious millions, with liberty for their best and
only heritage, could not be guilty of such errors.
This, however, has come to pass ; and it is only one
of many events which could not possibly have entered
into the ken of the great Freetrader. The world drifts
it knows not whither ; but we all see it wants more
landmarks, newer soundings, and altogether fresh
instructions, than what seemed to suffice twenty
years ago. But it all seems to come to this—that
Mr. Cobden was not something more than Mr.
Cobden, and that he has not been able to do more
than his one great work--it may well be asked
whether any other man, of a larger nature, more
varied qualities, and a wider range of powers, would
or could have done his work. The English gentle-
man, such as we fondly imagine him, so educated,
so circumstanced, would never have dealt so rudely
with the great idols that fell before this ruthless
iconoclast. - Even if reason taught him that the
theory of Protection was unsound, and that it
sapped the foundation of that industry which is our
common life and weal, still a false delicacy and a
relenting tenderness would have unnerved his arm
and made the edge swerve from its aim. What
prince could hew a brother prince to pieces ? It
wants another caste, and that only stern prophetic
stuff, to do so dire a deed. The English gentleman,
like the patrician of old Rome, is everything, pre-
pared for every part, and with a soul open to all that
is great and good. He recognises the supremacy of
faith, loyalty, and law ; and must love, not only
his country, but all the traditional features that
from time immemorial have constituted that one
great whole. So many are the objects of his vene-
ration, so vast the field of honourable achievement,
so many parts to be performed with honour, that he
is distracted by the very abundance of his political
wealth, and cannot easily address himself to any one
absorbing task. It is not convenient that there
should be many adventurers of one idea and one aim.
That is not the way in which England prospers.
We all work and grow together in one mighty unison.
So when some great work is to be done—as ever has
been, and will be. to the end of time—when a great
error is to be corrected, or the chains of a great
tyranny thrown off, we must be content to welcome
our deliverer from some quarters least expected, it
may be least loved ; the man from the ranks, the
man of a peculiar school, the hermit in thought, the
agitator with the faults of the class he comes to
rescue. We must not complain that he is not one
of us in education and feeling. If he were, he would
only do as we do—and perhaps do nothing. But
what lays out his work for him also limits it, and
when he has done what he only would or could do
he can do no more.

Post —The Board of Admiralty is so accustomed
to being abused that the animadversionsmade upon
it last evening were accepted by its official represen-
tative in the House of Commons as a matter of
course. Nor can it be said that these animadver-
sions were utterly undeserved. A body of men
who have so many and sd various duties cast
upon them as those which the Lords of the Ad-
miralty are called upon to discharge, must, in the
necessity of things, commit occasional errors ; and
the fair way of testing the merits of those to whom
the management of our navy is entrusted conse-
quently is to inquire not whether they have laid
themselves open to censure in some respects, but
whether any other men, placed in a similar position,
would have furnished less occasion for blame. The
Admiralty have to decide on the most efficient class
of ships to be employed in the public service on the
most economic mode of providing them, and on
them is cast the responsibility of launching from her
Majesty's dockyards vessels which, in respect of
excellence of construction, 'will successfully vie with
any which may be built by private contractors.
The same observation applies to the armament
with which these vessels are furnished. But the
functions of the Admiralty do not end here. A
fleet, when built and equipped must be manned,
and when manned the crews must be supported
in a manner which will at the same time satisfy
the requirements of a wise economy with-
out discouraging the classes from which those
crews are supplied from devoting themselves to the
service of their country. However well constituted,
therefore, a Board of Admiralty might be, and how-
ever zealously and efficiently those who compose it
might discharge their functions, there must at all
times exist some cause for complaint which those
'who so desire it may advance as a reason for effect-
ing a reform in that department of the State. The
suggestions offered in the course of the debate last
evening for the reconstitution of the Board of Ad-
miralty proceeded almost exclusively on similar and,
what we think we are justified in terming, one-
sided views. Sir Morton Peto may be accepted as
the representative of a class. As a great and suc-
cessful contractor he not unnaturally considers that
much of the work done by the Goxernment, through
the instrumentality of its own workmen, could be
much better and more cheaply done by private firms.
This was an opinion held by him whom, alas, we
are now compelled to speak of as the late Richard
Cobden, and is based upon the supposed advan-
tages which accrue to the consumer or purchaser
when the sources from which his supplies are de-
rived are as varied as possible. But it was not to
this fundamental error in the policy of the Admi-
ralty that Sir Morton Peto last evening addressed
his remarks. %The question which the member for
Finsbury proposed for discussion was whether the
Board of Admiralty, as at present constituted, was
fitted for the duties which it is called upon to

discharge. He thinks it is not, and his reasons for
arriving at this -conclusion are that the members of
whom it is composed are personally unacquainted
with many of the matters on which they are called
upon to decide. What can the Lords of the Admi
ralty know about the construction of docks, asks
Sir Morton Peto, and what constitutes them the
best judges of the merits of different classes of ves-
sels of war and of varies species of artillery ? If it
be the interest of the State, as it unquestionably is,
to secure the best built and most commodious docks,
the most forminable vessels, and the most effective
artillery, surely the decision in matters of this kind
could rest with men whose professional training
qualifies them to pronounce authoritatively on such
questions. And accordingly Sir Morton Peto sug-
gests that the Board of Admiralty should be re-
placed by boards of engineers, who should bring to
the consideration of the points submitted for their
decision not merely the knowledge acquired from
the representations of others, but that personal
acquaintanceship with the several subjects with
which is presumed they would be familiar. Lord
Charles Paget and Sir John Pakington joined in
pointing out the fallacy of these conclusions. It is,
as the latter justly observed, one thing to find fault
with a department, and another to provide for its
reorganisation. The Board- of Admiralty, called
upon as it is to deal with naval matters, should be
composed of nautical men ; and there certainly can
be no reason for concluding that they would fulfil
their duties less efficiently than engineers. It is,
besides, extremely doubtful whether men possessing
special information, as for instance artillerists,
or engineers, or shipbuilders, are the best fitted to
decide on matters coming within that particular
range of science in which they excel. At industrial
exhibitions it is all very well to delegate to the re-
presentatives of particular branches of the arts
and sciences the duty of deciding on the merits
of those who lay claim to excellence either as
painters, or sculptors, or manufacturers. But the
application of the same principles in the manage-
ment of the various departments of the State would
not command universal approval. It is, in our
opinion, one of the great advantages of the Board of
Admiralty, as at present constituted, that those who
compose it act less on their own personal opinions
than on the deductions which they draw from the
representations of others. If Parliament, for ex-
ample, desires to know why a particular class of
vessels has been built, a particular kind of cannon
adopted, or certain docks constructed, the Admi-
ralty immediately furnish the various reports from.
shipbuilders, or artillerists, or engineers, with which
they have been supplied, and the results of the ex-
periments they have made, and by this means give
to the public the means of judging of the grounds
on which they have pursued a given policy. But
if the Admiralty were to be split into a number of
distinct Boards, we should have them acting in ac-
cordance with preconceived notions, and probably
prejudices, and the same guarantees would not be
afforded as under the present system for the pro-
tection of the interests of the public. The Board
of Admiralty is far from perfect, as even its warmest
admirers must admit, but the change suggested by
Sir Morton Peto would certainly not be for the
better. It is, however, satisfactory to know that
reform may be effected without that complete re-
organisation of the department which some demand,
and it is only fair to admit that during the past few
years the Admiralty has undergone changes which
contrast it favourably with the Admiralty of former
times.