The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The object and limits of Sir Henry
Storks' mission to Jamaica are clearly stated in the
special order of appointment, which we republish
from the Gazette of last night. It is there premised
that in the Commission of Governor Eyre, which
was doubtless framed in the usual form, due provi-
sion had been made for the government of the island
in the event of his " death, incapacity, or absence,"
but not for the delegation of any other person to
conduct the government " during his presence
therein." The order goes on to recite " that it is
alleged that great disaffection has prevailed in our
said island, and that sundry evil-disposed persons
have concerted the destruction of other our subjects
resident therein," and, further, that " grievous dis-
turbances have broken out in our said island, and
have been suppressed, and the said disturbances and
suppression have been attended with great loss of
life, and it is alleged that excessive and unlawful
severity has been used in such suppression." It
then recognises in ample terms the necessity of a
full and impartial inquiry into the origin, nature,
and circumstances of the disturbances, as well as
into the measures adopted for their suppression, the
expediency of Mr. Eyre being on the spot during the
inquiry, and the impropriety of his continuing to
exercise the functions of a Governor in the mean-
time. Upon these grounds it proceeds to revoke Mr.
Eyre's Commission from and after the time when
this order shallibe duly notified in the island, " and
thenceforth until we shall think fit to determine
these presents," constituting Sir H. Storks Captain-
General and Governor-in-Chief in Mr. Eyre's room
and investing him for the time being with all the
authority belonging to that office. The effect of
this temporary Commission will be that Sir H.
Storks, who sails for Jamaica on Monday next, will,
immediately upon his arrival, assume the whole
government of Jamaica, and that Mr. Eyre will be
in the position of a Governor on leave. He will be
superseded, but not displaced, by Sir H. Storks,
who, in fact, does not cease to be Governor of
Malta, and whose administration of Jamaica will be
essentially provisional. We presume, however, that
a General of high standing despatched on an errand
so exceptional will be armed with one important
power beyond those of a civil Governor. By the
rules of the Colonial Service, a civilian, a naval
officer, or a military officer of inferior rank to that
of Colonel, who may be appointed to a Colonial
Government, is not invested with the command of
her Majesty's forces, though he is empowered to
issue general instructions for the distribution of
troops. On the other hand, a military officer of
Colonel's rank or upwards holding the office of Go-
vernor may be, and sometimes is, appointed by her
Majesty to the chief command of the forces within
the colony. In the present instance there are mani-
fest reasons why this arrangement should be made.
The existing state of Jamaica is far too critical to
be exposed to the slightest risk of divided counsels,
such as those which have prolonged and aggravated
the war in New Zealand. How far Governor
Eyre and General O'Connor may have agreed
or differed as to the measures to be taken
against the Jamaica insurgents we have no means
of knowing, but it would be highly impolitic to pre-
judice the success of Sir H. Storks' mission by allow-
ing any restriction or encroachment on his responsi-
bility. Being temporary Governor of Jamaica and
President of the Commission of Inquiry, he ought
also to be Commander of the Forces, nor can any
one of these three duties be severed with safety from
the others. No one but the acting Governor could
duly proseute the inquiry ; no one could be intrusted
with the supreme military command but the person
commissioned by her Majesty to inquire into the
alleged abuse of it by another General officer, and
this person, as we have seen, must also be the Ga-
vernor. By combining these three capacities, and in
no other way, we may hope that Sir H. Storks will
be able to pacify Jamaica and to reconcile the de-
mands of equity with the interests of public order.
A more arduous and delicate task has seldom been
confided to a servant of the Crown, and it is due to
Sir H. Storks no less than to those who have selected
him, to express the conviction that it could not have
been confided to one more worthy of confidence.
There are few officers of the same age who have seen
more active and various service than Sir H. Storks;
there are none, perhaps, who have had equal oppor-
tunities of showing that which is the better part of
valour in so many trying emergencies. Again and
again Sir H. Storks has been called in to solvesome
difficulty which was not of his own creation. A great
part of his life has been spent in special services.
He was on special service at the Cape of Good Hope
in 1846, and was Assistant-Adjutant-General for
the two following years in the Caffre War ; he was
afterwards Military Secretary at the Mauritius, and
also acted for some time as the Private Secretary
of the Governor ; he commanded a motley and not
very docile foreign contingent at Smyrna and Scu-
tari during the Crimean War ; having managed to
organise them effectively, he managed to disband
them peaceably when the war was over ; he filled
the difficult post of Secretary for Military Corre-
spondence when the new relations between the
War Office and Horse Guards were first established;
he kept the lonian Islands in good order, if not in
good humour, after the publication of Sir J.
Young's despatch had disclosed our half-informed
intention of evacuatingthem, and he withdrew from
a situation which it was a feat to have held at all

amid the grateful applause of the whole population.
Ile has now been transferred for a time from the
government of Malta to that of a colony which at
this moment engrosses the whole attention of the
Colonial-office, and is. distracted by troubles that
have caused violent agitation in this country: \ To
this great trust he was only summoned by a tele-
graphic message to Malta on Wednesday night, and
it deserves to be recorded as an act of prompt de-
votion to the
,call of duty that Sir H. Storks waS
on his way in the course of the next day, and
actually reached London from Malta in three days
and a half. To Governor Eyre himself such an
appointment is the least unfair or humiliating that
could have been made, while it ought to be satis-
factory even to his accusers. With a Bill of In-
demnity passing, if it has net already passed,
through the Colonial Parliament, it would have
been necessary to institute some independent in-
quiry, even had no suspicious facts come to light.
It would be idle to deny, however, that facts of this,
kind have come to light—facts which are probably
capable of modification, which are possibly capable
of explanation, but which, if left unmodified and

unexplained, ivculd reflect deep disgrace on our
Colonial Government. For their own sake Go-

vernor F,,yre and his subordinates must be virtually
placed on their trial ; they cannot be examined
here, for all the evidence against them is in the
West Indies ; nor can the Governor be so exa-
mined there so long as he is clothed with the high
prerogatives of his office. It is not easy to see
what else could have been done than what has been
done, and, if it was to be done, it could hardly
have been done with less harshness or more judg-
ment. Pending the result of the investigation, Sir
H. Storks is still Governor and Military Com-
mandant at Malta ; his Commission, therefore, bears
an ad interim character on the face of it, and may
be terminated at any moment. No one but those
who feel a cruel pleasure in the dishonour of their
countrymen can fail to wish that his Report may
clear Governor Eyre from the worst charges that
have been made against him. No one but those
who are blinded by a false patriotism to the dic-
tates of humanity and justice can desire that any
particle of the truth should be sacrificed to motives
of policy.
POST.—With the new year will be inaugurated a
scheme for the better management and disposition
of fire-engines throughout the metropolis. The
establishment hitherto known as the London Fire
Brigade will cease to exist, only to spring, phoenix-
like, from the ashes of its dissolution into an organi-
sation more imposing and effective. Foreigners
have never been tired of expatiating on British
anomalies, and amongst these the organisation of
our metropolitan fire department has puzzled them
not in the least degree. With an accumulation of
perishable wealth that has no equal, for an equal
area, in any other city of the world, London has
hitherto put up with a fire organisation the construc-
tive basis of which is so defective that it does vio-
lence to the quality an Englishman is supposed to
plume himself upon in the highest degree—sound
common sense. Whilst in Paris the fire depart-
ment is military in its rank and organisation, go-
vernmental in its origin ; whilst its corps are trained
to regard fire broken out beyond limits as a common
enemy, that of this city—the London Fire Brigade
as it has been called since the late Mr. Braidwood
took the metropolitan engines in hand—regarded
fires from a personal point of view. The London
Brigade engines, we need hardly state, were sup-
ported by the various assurance offices ; the revenue
from that source being supplemented by fines re-
coverable from the owners of chimneys on fire.
From this statement we of course exclude the small
parochial engines, never of much avail, and becom-
ing less and less useful each succeeding year,
owing to the increased elevation of new metro-
politan buildings. It is almost unnecessary to
discuss the tendency of the above organisation.
The principle of it is wholly vicious, and whenever
this happens-the tendency will evolve itself to con-
clusions in practice. True policy dictates that fire
beyond bounds—a conflagration—should be looked
upon as a common enemy ; but the tendency of
influences to which the London Fire Brigade is
subject is to invest conflagrations with a greater or
a lesser importance according as the premises on
fire may be insured or uninsured. The case might
frequently happen when the Metropolitan Fire
Brigade might find itself called upon to decide be-
, tween public interests and private influences,--we

might even say private duties. In any such case it
is easy to predict in what way the decision would
given. The late Mr. Braidwood—than whom a
more conscientious man never breathed—was driven
to admit, when pressed on a certain occasion, that
he should consider it his duty to attend to insured
premises chiefly, in any case when the services of
the brigade might be invoked where both insured
and uninsured property was involved. Thus, then,
it practically happened that owners of uninsured
premises had the fear held in terrorem over them,
that, because of their non-insurance, their premises
might, in case of fire, not receive the full benefits
of the Fire Brigade. The impolicy of such an
organisation as this is obvious. Insurance against
fire is doubtless a very proper precaution to take,
and when not taken the individual primarily suffer-
ing would justly bar, through his negligence, much
sympathy. If he could, by the nature of circum-
stances, remain the only sufferer, the organisation
of the Fire Brigade, though still not devoid of cruelty,
would not perhaps be impolitic. But the fact is that
when once a conflagration has broken out, nobody
knows when or where it may end. It should be
attacked on all quarters as a common enemy, irre-
spective of private considerations. We adverted to
the inefficiency of the parochial engines ; those mere
squirts, which, devoid of organisation, and sometimes
of equipments, are seen shambling along the streets,
drawn by hired horses, the first that come to hand
after the lapse of a convenient time from the first
appearance of conflagration. The general ineffi-
ciency of these parochial engines may be inferred
from a statement of the fact that, although there
are at this time 500 of them in the metropolis, not
more than 20 are considered efficient enough to be
accepted in the new force. The new organisation
will be entitled the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, and
will be under the management of the Board of
Works. The present force of the London Fire
Brigade will be incorporated with it, constituting
about half the ultimate strength. The plan of
organisation is that decided on by Capt. Shaw, who
has been appointed chief superintendent. Besides
chiefs, the force will consist of 350 officers and men.
There will be four steam floating engines ; the same
number of large land steamers ; and 37 large hand-
wrought engines. The distribution of these is to be
amongst 89 stations, the whole protecting an area
of 117 square miles. In respect to funds, the ob-
jectionable system hitherto adopted will be aban-
doned. The entire cost of the Metropolitan Fire
Brigade is calculated not to exceed £50,000 per
annum. Of this, the various insurance companies
supply £lO,OOO, and the Government another.
£lO,OOO ; the deficit being made up from the pro-
ceeds of a rate of a halfpenny in the pound. The act
for establishing the Metropolitan Fire Brigade does
away with rewards hitherto given to firemen and
others for the extinction of chimneys on fire. The
total proceeds from this source during the year 1864
amounted to more than £3,000. That year,
however, seems to have been of exceptional
character in respect to the amount of these
rewards. The grounds upon which this altera-
tion was based do not seem obvious. The
system of rewards would seem calculated to
bring emulation to bear, under circumstances of
difficulty and danger, when that quality would be
desirable. A very important provision in respect to
the Metropolitan Fire Brigade is that which relates
to the conditions of its employment beyond the me-
tropolitan limits. Hitherto, when need has occurred
for the services of metropolitan engines, difficulties
have sometimes arisen in the matter of payment.
The occasion is one when action must necessarily
take effect without preliminary conditions ; hence,
on the day of settlement, troubles incidental to this
state of things have usually sprung up. All future
trouble on this score is obviated by special provi-
sions. By the 30th section of the act it is decreed
that wheh the new Fire Brigade is employed beyond
bounds, the owners of the property jeopardised are
liable for all expenses, to be recovered, in case of
refusal, by the summary adjudication of two jus-
. tices. In yet other particulars the act confers addi-
tional powers on the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
. j Thus, firemen are now invested with discretionary
power to break into, and take possession of, any
premises they may deem needful to the general con-
summation. Should the occasion seem to demand,
the occupied premises may be pulled down so as to
narrow the spread of the conflagration. Altogether
the new fire regime is one that commends itself fav-
ourably to those most interested. Public and pri-
vate ends are made co- ordinate. Henceforth Lon-
don may be said to possess a fire establishment
commensurate with its immense area and enormous
wealth.

Mazzini on the Negro Question in America

(From the Boston Comntonwealth )
" OCT. 30, 1835.
"Dear Conway,—You ask my opinion about the
coloured-men suffrage question. Can you doubt it ?

"You have abolished slavery. You have as a crowning
to your glorious struggle, as a religious consecration to
battles which otherwise would have only been deplorable
events, decreed that the sun of the republic shines on all,
that he who breathes the air of the Republic is free, that
as God is one, so, on the blessed soil where liberty is not
a mere hap-and-hazard fact, but a faith and a gospel, the
stamp of mankind is one. Can you mutilate this great
principle ? Can you cut it down to the monarchical half-
freedom standard? proclaim the existence of the half-man?
enthrone a dogma of half-responsibility ? constitute on the
Republican American land a middle-ages class of political
serfs ? Is there liberty without the vote ? Is not political
liberty the sanctum, the guarantee of civil liberty ? Is not
the vote the stamp of self-asserting human nature through
the moral world, as the right of labor and property is its
self-asserting stamp through the physical world ? Will
you turn, by denying that, your democracy to an incipient
aristocracy ? Will you decree that color is moral subal-
ternity ? Ignorance is, indeed ; but you did not choose
educated intellect as a test for the electoral right. Had
you done so, objections might arise on a different ground,
but you could not be accused of betraying the very prin-
ciple you have been proclaiming, of applying a different
rule to two sections of God's children ; of saying—' Those
colored men will be called on to be the armed apostles of
national union, and to give their life for it, but their life
will not be represented in the councils of the nation.' And
after all, is not the vote the first initiating step to educa-
tion ? Does not the very consciousness of a function to
perform prompt the man to progress ? Is not the raising
of the national being in his own estimation the best educa-
tional beginning both for the child and for the ignorant
man ? And what do you fear ? Blunders ? Have your
whites never blundered? Is it not invariably through
blundering that we reach truth 1' Give the vote and edu-
cation with it; shorten for them the blundering period ;
but do not put on a level the good you will achieve for
all mankind by proclaiming the sacredness of a great prin-
ciple and the little evil which may come from the few
transient blunders of a minority. One thing is practically
sure ; these colored men will undoubtedly vote for 'those
who have called them into political existence, while, if dis-
inherited of it, they will bo a tool of extra-legal agitation
in the hands of any man who will promise it. These things
have been, will be, said to you far more forcibly than by
mine, by American voices. But there is one which is not,
as far as I know, touched upon by your countrymen, and
still is, it seems to me, of a prominent vital importance to
us all and to yourselves.
"It is that your task has changed, that you have a
sacred duty to fulfil, and that you shall not, until you have
manfifily fronted and solved the difficulty before which
you appear now to hesitate, be able to fulfil it.
_

"There are, for every great nation, two stages of life.
The first may be devoted to self-constitution, to inward
organisation, to the fitting-up, so to say, of the implements
and activities through which a nation can undertake the
work appointed, and proceed to fulfil the task which has
been ordained for her by God for the good of all mankind.
For a nation is a living task; her life is not her own,
but a force and a function in the universal providential
scheme.

" The second begins when, after having secured and
asserted her own self, after having collected and shown to
all the strength and the capability which breathes in her
for the task, the nation enters the lists of humanity and
links herself, by noble deeds, with the general aim. You
have triumphantly gone through the first stage ; you are
on the threshold of the second one, and you must either
betray your national duty or step beyond.
" Through the almost fabulous amount of energies, un-
known to our old rotten monarchies, which you have dis-
played ; the constant devotedness of your men and women ;
the all-enduring courage of your improvised soldiers ; and
mainly—do not forget it —the cancelling of the only black
spot, slavery, which was sullying your glorious Republican
flag ; you have struck deep in the heart of Europe a con-
viction that there is in you a strong, almost incalculable
power to be reckoned with in the onward march of man-
kind. All the numerous and ever-increasing Republican
elements in Europe have discovered in yoi their represen-
tative. You have become a leading nation. You must act
as such. In the great battle which is fought throughout
the world between right and wrong, justice and arbitrary
rule, equality and privilege, duty and egotism, republic and
monarchy, truth and lies, God and idols, your part is
marked ; you must accept it. Workers of humanity, you
must feel that to stand aloof would be a sin ; that indiffer-
ence, when the cry of God's greation is claiming you,
would be atheism. You must first sweep off the American
continent the enemy who has availed himself of your
troubles and dangers to skulk into your frontier and estab-
lish there an outpost of Ciasarism ; then help, mainly,
morally, materially, if needed, your republican brothers
wherever the sacred battle is fought, and you can usefully
encourage and strengthen those who toil and bleed for
truth and justice. There lies your mission —there your
glory and safety—there your future. The fathers of your
Republic would now speak the same language. They
taught the child, not the giant.
" But to fulfil that duty, to accomplish that mission, you
must have no threatening agitation at home ; and this
suffrage question, unsettled just now, will be to you a

source of a perennial agitation. A sacred programme not
to lie deserted, to those amongst you who stand by religion
and logic—a weapon to your enemies =a Damocles' sword
in the hands of the four millions of political serfs, it will
unavoidably absorb you, weaken you, keep you powerless
and inert abroad, until it is solved.
"Think of it, dear Conway, and speak of it. You may,
of course, make any use of what I write ; but such thoughts
as these will be more listened to if coming from an Ame-
rican. A foreigner is always suspected of pleading his
own cause, which God knows I am not.—Ever faithfully
yours, "JOSEPH MAZZINI."