The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-04 00:00:00

THE sUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 4,186 Z

THE SUN.
LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 4, 1862.

Our expe,atations in regard to the Chancellor of
the Exchequers Financial Statement for 1862-1863,
have upon the wil.l.ole been fully realized, in some
particulars they hav,.3 been very considerably sur-
passed. Although the tight hon. gentleman's one
eccentric little crotchet of g Private brewing license
at the rate of 12s. 6d. upon the occupants of houses
paying above £2O rent—a vexatious proposition
constituting the solitary flaw in an otherwise ad-
mirable Budget—although this one preposterous
little scheme of Mr. GLADSTONE'S fell upon the
attentive ears of the House of Commons last evening
while in committee of Ways and Means as some-
what of a " damper"—there rose a choral sound of
approval from both sides of the House so soon as
the right hon. gentleman had at length drawn his
elaborate speech to a conclusion. A single dissen-
tient among all those who briefly addressed the
House afterwards, served in effect to mark, by a sort
of crowning touch the otherwise perfect unanimity
of approbation with which Mr. GLADSTONE'S last
Financial Statement had been listened to. And
that isolated hysterical cry of opposition blurted
out by the Radical member for Brighton, was
avowedly on his own part no more than a mo-
mentary expression of the anguish caused by an
unlooked for stumble over what we may pre-

same to be one of his very tenderest corns. Nay,
hardly was it so much as a stumble—a look,
a movement, the mere threatening of a stumble,
was sufficient 'to elfoit that shriek of pain and indig-
nation from the lips of 111i~. WHlTE—causing him in
retaliation to designate the unquestionably success-
ful, and in many parts eminently brilliant, speech
of Mr; GLADSTONE last evening, on briaging for-
ward his Financial Statement. as--[There was " a
laugh" audible, and no wonder, when the ridiculous
words were uttered by the member for Brighton]
a melancholy exhibition !" Yet, with another
remark of Mr. WHITE'S, there were assuredly, yes-
terday, but very few, if indeed there were any, upon
those closely packed benches of the House of Com-
mons, who did not concur—and that moreover to the
fu:l and absolutely. Nemely, when the hon. gen-
tleman observed that, with an annual income of
£70,000,000, it seemed positively like a step from
the sublime to the ridiculous to levy a duty of
gd. per annum upon the private brewing of
beer I Here, in truth, it is, at this excep-
tional point of his Budget, that Mr. GLAD-
STONE
has ingeniously contrived to illus-
trate ani,v,
the witty axiom first articulated
with a aerie-coinic shrug of his shoulders, by
NAPOLEON the r-
"iu-EAT, when at a little road-side
auberge be suddenly encountered the Abbe de
PLIADT, while in the midst of the Flight
from Moscow to "t)
- aria' Here, indeed, in
this abrupt drop from the
Imperial revenue of
A:70,900,00 to the wretched little, fribbling item
of 128. Eid. -upon private brewing, le
another flaoTant
ingau tce of the one step from the sublime n
to the
rich mope. •

There ig a poplar deluFi3n abroad, we are
re,
as to the extraordinary display of eloquence by,
Mr. GLADSTONE', year atter year, in the early part

or the ses.on. upon the occasion of his bringing
'Viet ..very one

forward his Financial Statement.

Who hu•. ever

hal the delight of listening to the
right hon. gentlemen, while unfolding one of his
elaborate Budgets to the House of Commons, in
Committee of Ways and Means, knows, on the
contrary, perfectly well, that anything like an
oratorical display at these times on the part of our
411cellor the Exchequer, is absolutoly not to be
thoußlit. of for an instant—is a thing quite lndi-
crov,s to
expect under the circumstances. The most I

,ther

accomplished rhett4cian of his age is altoge
precluded, in point of fact, from attempting any-
thing ,approaching even to a moderate display of
his great gifts of oratory, by the mere multiplicity
of the facts and figures which he has perforce to
enumerate and to classify with all the lucidity and
adroitness at his command—and this, not in his capa-
cityas a master of debate, but as a skilled and prac-
tised Financier. Mr. GLADSTONE has perhaps never
acquitted himself, under these ordinarily bewildering
circumstances, with more consummate ability than
he did last evening. Listening to his melodious
voice overnight during all the hours that flitted by
whilst he explained the scheme of his new Budget, it
was, as a display of inimitable dexterity, agility, and
adroitness, like watching the rise and fall, hither '
and thither, to and fro, of the glittering golden
balls, thrown up singly and in showers, and kept
in perpetual circulation, by one of those Flying
Jugglers, whirled upon a barebacked steed round
and round the arena of an equestrian amphitheatre.
Only once throughout the whole of his ex-
traordinary performance did our intellectual
Juggler fail to keep up the ball to every
one's satisfaction. And, already, by the casual
tumble of that misthrown bauble of 12s. 6d. has so
effectually has there been worn away the flimsy
gilding from its surface, that we can hardly look
for its being permanently stored up for the next
year to come among the more costly items returned
to that great National Coffer, which is the official
juggling box of our Chancellor of the Exchequer.

. _
Whether in retrospect or in Anticipation the
financial survey taken by Mr. GLADSTONE yester-
day—now of the past twelvemonth, now of the
twelvemonth to come—was alike admirable both
for its lucidity and its comprehensiveness. He
found himself for once in that delightful and
enviable position for a Financier, when he can look
back upon the past year without a qualm, and
when he can look forward to the year immediately
about to ensue without one moment's trepidation.
Whithersoever he turned his glance, the view before
him, as a whole, was in the highest degree satisfac-
tory. It is remembered, of course, that Mr. GLAD-
STONE'S estimated expenditure for the last year was
not to have exceeded £69,875,000—that estimated
expenditure being subsequently increased, however,
by supplementary grants, to the tune of £1,499,000
to a total estimated expenditure of £71,374,000.
It has eventually been seen, and that by necessity
only very recently, that the actual expenditure of
last year not having exceeded the sum in all of
£70,838,000—it follows that after all it was £536,000
less than the total estimated expenditure. Com-
pared with the year 1860-61, the expenditure of
which was £72,504,000, the decrease in 1861-62
was, consequently, £1,666,000. And the revenue
of the past year having amounted to £69,674,000,
there was left, of course, a deficiency of revenue to
meet the expenditure of £1,164,000. Deducting
which sum from the amount of the supplemental
grants, £1,499,000, there resulted, as the Chancel-
lor of the Exchequer reminded the House yesterday,
a surplus of £335,000. A wonderful consideration
all this, beyond a doubt, if it be borne in mind that
within the year, leaving results of this kind before
us, we had deliberately foregone three im-
portant sources sof revenue, thereby bring to
ns within that single year a round sum of
£2,637,000. Upon this, however, we have our-
selves in these very columns within the last few
days commented at some length—drawing our own
conclusions from a careful analysis of the revenue
tables:for the year and quarter last past—conclusions
in all important particulars fully corroborated by
what we must, of course, admit to be, the far more
minute and far more accurate analysis of the
revenue and expenditure for 1861-1862, as placed
before the House last evening by the Chancellor of
the Exchequer.
Turning his attention afterwards to the estimated
expenditure and the estimated income for the finan-
eial year now commencing, Mr. GLADSTONE set down
the former for the coming year, 1862-1863, at
£7O/)40,000, and the latter at £70,190,000. So that,
by this showing, there would remain aclear estimated
net surplus (if everything were left as it is) of just
£150,000. Not a large surplus certainly—but still
a surplus. It is in his mode of dealing with this
estimated surplus of £150,000, that lies the very
marrow of the new Budget. Shall any new
taxes be proposed ? Shall any old ones be abo-
lished ? And, in either case—which ? There
are different interests, of course, alwa:s clamouring
for an exceptional consideration, at the hands of
the Government. There are, among othe:l3, demands
for the reduction of the Spirit Duties, an alteration
of Sugar Duties, the Malt Credits, the miner charges
upon Imports and Exports, the Wino Duties, and
the Duty on Hops. All these interests, all these
conflicting demands, to say nothing of many minor
ones unnamed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
weighs very carefully and conscientiously in the
balance of his judgment. His ultimate deci-
sion, in regard to them all, he carefully
and categorically announced yesterday, in what con-
stituted the very heart of his Financial Statement.
Having before him, then, this little estimated sur-
plus of £lso,ooo—Mr. GLADSTONE proposes to
reduce the now complicated scales of the Wine
Duties to the simplicity of Two—one above, the
other below twenty-six degrees of spirit ! Mr.
GLADSTONE proposes, moreover-0 word of joy to
the Agricultural Mind—to abolish the Hop Duties !
Finally, and while we areyet exulting in the exhila-
ration of the pleasant run our Minister of Finance
has been giving us up hill and down dale through all
this forest of figures—there comes upon us all of a
sudden, like a horrid- stitch in the side—that mise-
rable little compensative 12s. 6d, in the way of private
brewing licenses! Never was there in its way a more
ludicrous anti-climax. The House fairly groaned
as though it had been in labour, instead of the Bud-
get, when out of that parturient mountain there
popped at last this ridiculous little mouse ! The
supplementary licenses to publicans previously
spoken of by Mr. GLADSTONE as among his arrange-
ments—supplementary spirit licenses designed for
the supplying of fairs—had given one the notion
before then of a sufficiently questionable ad-
vantage in the shape of a so-called improvement.
But the project of the private brewing license
for the sum of 12s, 6d.—just fairly beat every-
thing. Hero it is, we cannot but think, that
Mr. GLADSTONE'S otherwise, we repeat, really
admirable Budget, admits of a very judicious revi-
sion. And earnestly do we hope that, in regard to
this one particular at least, the House will deter-
mine in Committee to revise it. From his new
scale of the Wine Duties, Mr. GLADSTONE antici-
pates gaining within the year £15,800, while by
the substitution of the private brewing and sup-
plementary publicans' licenses for the old Hop
Duties, henceforth to be abolished, he expects to lose
within the year about £45,000. Su that, striking
the balance at the end of these ingenious calcula-
tion!, he closes Ms onhome of a Budget for 1862.
1863 with
sterling, an estimated loss of very nearly /30,000
Vurther space end time, of course, are
requisite for
a more minute examination of these
new financial protects of the CHANCELLOR of the
EXCHEQUER. But already we can appreciate the
true value of the Budget laid by him before the
House of Commons last evening—remembering as
its solitary flaw lhe petty b
"'Wing licenses for

private houses, and as its distinguishing merit the
total abolition at last of the old vexatious Duties
upon Hops.

Along the whole line between the Northern and
Southern armies in America, the great struggle now
is either at its height, or the troops on both sides
are marching and moving for real conflict. It is
not easy, at any time, to convey a clear notion of
military movements to readers who have not
a map either in their memories, or before their
eyes ; and it is said that no one thoroughly com-
prehends a battle who has not, at least, seen the
field on which it was fought. Yet we have all of
Its by this time probably become proficients enough
in American geography to follow the principal
movements of the Federals and Confederates.
They are becoming now of daily increasing inte-
rest ; indeed, while we write, the news of a groat
victory or a great defeat of the North may be on its
way to Queenstown, and may materially alter what
must now stand as the last description. The South
is calling up its troops from the defence of the Gulf
of Mexico, to do what it can on the Mississippi for
the salvation of New Orleans, andiNorth and South
seem to be marching to the attack and defence of
Norfolk Navy-yard, and of Richmond.

Let the reader begin his survey in the great Bay
of Chesapeake—let him take his stand on Fort
Monroe, which he will remember that the Federals
have held firmly from the beginning. Across
Hampton Roads, southwards, he sees the Creek on
which stands the Confederate Navy Yard, and to
which the Merrimac has retired for the present—
the little Monitor lying on the watch for her. To
his right ho sees th© large estuary of James River
coming down from Richmond and the North West
of Virginia. Behind him aro three large estuaries
of rivers running parallel to that of James' River,
and, like pouring their contents into Bay of
Chesapeake ; they are the York River, the Rappa-
hannock, and, lastly, the Potomac itself. We men-
tion them because the rivers, and the long penin-
sulas between their roughly-parallel streams, seem
likely to become the seat of severe conflicts. Mr.
RUSSELL even gives what he conjectures to be
the probable mode in which the Federals will nse
the peninsula between the James and the York
Rivers for a direct attack on Richmond.

It is this district, then, which is likely to be-
come the locality of the grand struggle in Vir-
ginia. Manassas, in front of Washington, is aban-
doned. But Manassas is not the best or direct
military road to Richmond. And Washington
being no longer threatened, M'CLELLAN seems to
intend commencing operations lower down the
Potomac. From Acquia Creek the rail runs direct
to Richmond, end the distance from the river is
much less. But whether he will operate from
thence, or from Fort Monroe along the peninsula
between the rivers James and York, or from both,
remains to be seen. When the last accounts
arrived his movements looked like an advance from
the east on Richmond, and the Confederates were
massing their troops in the same part, and leaving
the line of the Rappahannock, the next river to the
Potomac, on which they were at first to have taken
their stand. Thus, as M'CLELLAN seems to be
under a political necessity of fighting ; as the
Southerners are under the necessity of defending
Richmond. and the Norfolk navy yard too; and as
their forces in that part are still numerous, it seems
scarcely possible that the decisive battle of which
M'CLELLAN speaks in his proclamation should be
long evaded. It will surely be a battle fiercely
fought.

In the centre of the line between the two hostile
parties of the country, from Western Virginia and
all through Kentucky there is nothing important
doing. FREMONT is again intrusted with a com-
mand, that of the army in Western Virginia. But
when we come to the Missisippi, we find both
parties again putting forth all their strength,
and the conflict raging on both sides of the
river. The great Border Slave State of
Missouri, is now quite cleared of rebels, by
the victories which:have driven them, even some
way into Arkansas, and by the evacuation of New
Madrid ; the last place was left quite in a panic,
guns, stores, and ammunition, of the greatest value
in the South, being all left behind. At the moment
when the last telegram reached Halifax the Con-
federate troops were making a determined stand on
a strongly-fortified island lower down; the means
of resistance in men and guns seemed to be great,
but the Federals appeared to be having the best of
it, having silenced one battery at that time, and
dismounted a gun on the island. The Confederates
appear, however, to be mustering the scattered
remnants of their forces in Tennessee : and BEAU-
REGARD, speaking from Jackson, a town in that
State not far from the Mississippi, calls on the
Governor of Louisiana to send him 5,000 men, and
proclaims that he will accept all recruits who offer
themselves for ninety days. He therefore looks
forward to some months' work yet. There must
also be a large body of troops somewhere in
Southern Tennessee awaiting or facing General
GRANT; the zeassembled remains of those whom he
drove from Fort Donnelson and Nashville, increased
by those who have been called away from the de-
fence of Pensacola, on the Gulf of Mexico.

Those who will trouble themselves to peruse
this sketch will see that, while the North is
victorious in actual conflict in the West,
and though it is superior in numbers and
equipment on the Potomac, still, as has been so
often observed, if the South be really determined,
its subjugation will yet be no easy task. Wherever
they get them from, the Southerns find both small
arms of some kind and a good supply of artillery.
Their numbers in the field appear to be only second
to those of the North, and the country must be
infinitely easier to defend, than for a foe to invade,
bringing his supplies with him. How far the
resistance to the North is the work of politicans or
the inspiration of the people, we have at present
but scanty means of knowing. The rooted aversion
of the North to the poor negroes has immensely
increased the difficulty of its task. The negroes,
with too good reason, believe that coloured freemen
among Northerns have a lot but few degrees better
than that of slaves in the better parts of the South.
The President's resolutions on the purchase of negro
freedom may gain the Border States for the North,
though at the first mention of the subject their
representatives do not like it ; but, on the whole,
the negroes are a great help in the war, leaving the
whites free to fight. Should therefore the spirit of
the South bo really unconquerable, even now the
issue would be difficult to foresee.

We shall all agree that, for a Minister, the Duke
of SOMERSET'S speech last night was a candid one.
He, properly enough, showed with what limitations
the lesson taught us by the Monitor must be taker.
We readily admit all these—the Monitor does lie so
low in the water—our readers saw that yesterday
—that the shot of the Merrimac might well pass
over her, as the shot of the huge Spanish man-of-
war did over the smaller vessel of Lord DIINDONALD.
But the shot did not all pass over her; for the turret
was handsomely battered, and that was probably the
only part really aimed at by the Merrimac. It is
also, that the Merrimac did not silence
Fort Monroe, probably could not, if she had tried.
certain,
aiu
thatM was little to the purpose. The point is,

that Fort Monroe could not silence the Merrimac,
and that this was made so plain that the import-
ance of furnishing Spithead with Monitors is proved
to be greater than that of supplying it with forts.
As we do not want to -be spending on both at once,
and as the floating iron batteries are the proved
necessity, which cannot yet he said of the forts, we,
with the evident majority of the House of Commons,
demand to spend the money first on the floating
batteries. We can attend to the forts at leisure,
when we have made it impossible for any power to
bombard our arsenals from a ship which laughs at
forts. "We thank Mr. jONATIIAN for teaching us
that lesson."

The Duke gives us this consolation, that we are
as well off at present for iron-plated vessels as any
other nation. Altogether, we have ten iron vessels
in hand ; four of them afloat ; another to be launched
in August ; another early next year. Small, indeed,
is, therefore, at this moment, what may be called
our effective fleet. The Americans have shown that
in three months, and certainly in a half year, any
power, with competent iron manufactories, could
construct two or three ships which might send all
our frigates and liners to the bottom. The truth,
therefore, is that should war against us be the pur-
pose of any other nation, they now know how to
render our naval supremacy, on which we so fondly
rely, a very doubtful thing. We are not, we admit,
just at this moment at the mercy of any power—but
we are at the mercy of what any great power can
do in a few months. The nearest great power
might, beyond a doubt, be, by the end of the sum-
mer, in a position to threaten any port and arsenal
in the kingdom—that is, unless we accept at once
the " Monitor's" teaching.
The Duke of SOMERSET describes the addition to
our knowledge in consequence of the American
battle to be precisely this-r-that whereas he before
supposed we could keep our ironsides at home to
defend our own shores, we now know that we must
have them wherever in our colonies and dependen-
cies we have a harbour to defend. As we have
already endeavoured to enforce this lesson, we are
thankful the Duke should accept it also. But from
the statements he made, he evidently sees also that
for purposes of offensive war at sea, wooden vessels
will now be useless. They will cease to be able to
enforce a blockade, and they will no longer be com-
petent to face the fleet of an enterprising and active
enemy. There is no help for it; we must convert
the greater part of our magnificent and beautiful
sailing ships, as fast as we can, into the ugly
uninteresting monsters which alone can face
each other and make us secure. Lord HARD-
WICICE, with the feelings of an old sailor,
looks on the days of old seamanship as fast pass-
ing away, and we most thoroughly sympathise
with him. To stand at the entrance of a port
and, instead of the noble, graceful form, and
sails, and trim, of a Queen's ship-of-the-line, to see
two or three ugly iron things gliding into port—
to see our gallant ships giving place to creations,
reminding us more of the, huge marine antedilu-
vian Saurians than of anything else, may well evoke
a sentimental sigh. We do not like it. However,
war is an ugly thing, and modern science is driv-
ing us to the conclusion, that war at sea must be
a battle between ugly things. Indeed, as Lord
HARDIVICRE has it, the time is at hand " when a
ship would be fought by aft engineer, a stoker, and
artillerist," and when the sailor, like the soldier,
would live in towns and away from the coast.

LATEST NEWS.

REDUCTION IN THE FRENCH ARMY.

PARIS, APRIL 4.

Tha lifoniteur of to-day says :—" In order to
lighten the burdens; of the Treasury, and to enter
from this moment into the views of economy which
presided over the establishment of the Budget for
1863, the Emperor has ordered a reduction of
32,000 men to be made in the effective of the active
army. The disbanding of the 101st and 102 d in-
fantry regiments, and the sale of 2,200 horses have
also been ordered.'

THE INTERVENTION IN MEXICO.
111ADRID, APRIL 3.

It is asserted that the Spanish Government has
expressed a desire that the triple alliance should
clearly determine the interpretation of certain ar-
ticles of the Treaty of October relative to Mexico.

TRIESTE, APRIL 3.
The following despatch has been received hero
to-day from Athens, dated the 29th ult. :

"The Chambers had been closed after having
voted an extraordinary credit demanded by the
Government."

The insurrection in Sautoria had been suppressed
by the war steamer Amalia. The insurgent chiefs
took refuge in the house of the Russian vice-consul,
and were given up with the authorisation of the
Russian Minister.
The journals of Athens state that a division of
troops which had revolted at Arcania were seized
by the inhabitants.
The Nauplia insurgents demand an unconditional
amnesty before surrendering.

It is asserted in official quarters that the Italian
agents, who arrived at Patras with funds at their
disposal, re-embarked when they saw that the town