The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-07 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSD EVENTNO, AUGOST 7, 1562..

Hungarian firmness, can cherish fora moment.
Neither are we surprised that Mr. IAYARD, though
now merely a shareholder in the Ottoman Bank,
should look at the financial position of Turkey
on its brightest side. In like manner we feel it to
be perfectly natural that Mr. W. S. LINDSAY
should take the most confident view of the perma-
nence of pacific relations between France and Eng-
land when his house is the London agency for a .
large French marine company with a capital of
£1,600,000. It is not easy for a gentleman to be-
lieve
iron-clad vessels when he is an agent for
building
managing first rate packet vessels in
England,
which
are to make their profits as French
t building
at a
n wde need run a race with a country in
vesselLslNanDdsAywouldthrough be m
very high
than Fr
en ordinary
mortal, subsidies.rdiynar
Mr.
mFroertaehen arel,mifhec very activeouldeasilyim in building ships
aginetohimselfthat
Frenchmen of
war which would ever trouble Portsmouth and
Chatham, or that we should ever need Black
Princes and Warriors against France.
We confess we do not like the aepect of this
company. For aught we know fair profits may be
made out of the enormous French subventions. We
are not in a position, yet, to affirm or deny that.
But we also know that very large profits may be
made out of French mercantile companies for carry-
ing on the slave trade. We trust, however, that
Englishmen who have money to invest are not yet
come to be quite indifferent to the bearing of the
money invested on the general interests of their
own country, or that they quite overlook moral con-
siderations. If there be "no friendship in trade,"
: there is left, we may hope, something of patriotism
—enough at least to recoil from a manifest though
• underhand attack on our naval position.

Seeing that we are not to be outdone in iron-
sides, the EMPEROR appears to think that we may
be outdone in packet ships. The company, on
which Mr. LINDSAY is willing to bestow his influ
ential patronage, for such we may call it, is
neither more nor less than a company to trans-
fer to France the Transatlantic Mail Service, at
present carried on by British packets. The com-
pany is established under an Imperial decree for
performing postal services with, the United States,
the West Indies, the Isthmus Panama, and Mexico.
The service to Mexico is, now in active operation,
with a subsidy of £148,000 per annum, or 21s.
9id. per mile. The other part of the scheme
is not yet in active operation, but the American
and Westlndia lines, for which eight steamers are in
course of construction by English builders, are to be
carried on with a subsidy of £372,000 per annum,
or at the rate of 15s. 4d. per mile, commencing in
July next. Nor is this all the aid to be offered by
French patronage; the French Government
is to find a large part of the capital, and to re-
ceive it back in easy instalments, with scarcely
anything for interest. The contract, we are
told, is for 20 years, and the Government are
also to advance £744,000 to aid in the construc-
tion of the requisite steamships, for which the
company are to pay only £37,500 per annum
during that period !

When we know that the subsidy granted by
the British Government to the Royal Mail Com-
pany for the West India and Brazil services is at
the rate of 9s. 10d. per mile, we may feel pretty
sure that the French Government would not buy
up, if they could, this important packet service, at
this rate, without some adequate reason. And what
can the reason be but that which lies on the sur •
face—the creation, so far, of a French marine ?
France has no commerce with these ports to be men-
tioned with our own, but her Government, at an
enormous cost, offers to become the carrier for all
other nations which have a commerce. It wants,
in fact, sailors. It has ships of war built, or build-
inv. hnt ;t has not a ..,penine merino from To.E;nl-,
to man them. The packet service, which, like our
own, will of course be conducted by ships capable
of carrying guns, will be an admirable nautical
training school, and that, and that only, can be the
object of the French Government. As we under-
stand this business, therefore, every Englishman
who takes a share in the " Compagnie Generale
Transatlantique" will take a share in a company for
manning the French navy.

It is a melancholy spectacle, that we are now
looking at with breathless interest, afar off there in
Sicily. GUISEPPE GARIBALDI, the Italian Hero
and Liherator, retreating there inland among the
more wooded districts of the island ! Himself at
the head of a little band of about:800 men and
boys hastily and only partially armed—he
and his followers being slowly pursued and
nearly surrounded by 20,000 of the disciplined sol-
diers of King VICTOR EMMANUEL ! The Minister,
RATAZZI, the while, almost reviling and maligning,
certainly railing against, and shamelessly depre-
ciating the services done to the popular cause in
Italy by the greatest and the most honest of
living adventurers ! A total oblivion seems to
have descended upon the Royal counsels at Turin
in regard to the historical facts first of all,
that GARIBALDI liberated from the Bourbon yoke
12,000,000 Sicilians and Neapolitans, and, secondly,
that after doing this, GARIBALDI retired voluntarily
penniless and powerless to his little island home at
Caprera. Before any more invidious comments
are uttered or written upon the course now being
taken by GARIBALDI sines he has emerged from his
retreat at Caprera, and again landed in Sicily—it
will be well, it will be but fair and honourable, on
the part of English spectators of these events, if
they will take into account a statement but this
very morning put forth thro*gh the columns of our
liberal and ever out-spoken contemporary, the
Daily News. The statement we are about to quote
is advanced by our contemporary upon the autho-
rity of a reliable correspondent. Not of an anony-
mous correspondent—but of one who hesitates
not an instant to authenticate his assertion by his
signature. The name appended to this communica-
tion is that of WM. DE ROSAN. His state-
ment is thus expressed : Asking himself, first of
all how GARIBALDI was received when he
appeared in the Chamber of Deputies at Turin, the
writer observes—" I will not now answer this
question, as I dislike recrimination or acrimonious
words on any
subject. But having had oppor-
tunities and means, such as very few have, of
knowing
what really passed behind the curtain,
I will content myself with saying that were I at
liberty, as a
man of honour, to produce such do-
cumentary and other evidence as is within my
possession and grasp, I
am sure that public
opinion, so far from expressing itself against him
for what he is doing now, as
some do, or hesi-
tating what to think, as others do, would speak
with one voice of stern and uncompromising re-
probation of the manner in which Garibaldi has
by turns been cajoled, deceived, and betrayed by
the very men who now would deliver him over to
imprisonment, exile, not to say death on the scaf
told." Nay, having
said this, the writer adds
" I again repeat that it would be painful to me to
speak more plainly, but if calied on to substan-
tiate my Words I will not delay an instant in
doing so, and the world shall then judge."
Reading
this --before GARIBALDI be condemned for the
astoanding enterprise upon which he has now
adventured, let us at least know something of the
provocations out in which the whole of that extra-
ordinary project has originated.