The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-04 00:00:00

peace-at•any-price men tell us we are war-at-any-
cost men ; and doubtless at the first blush of these
figures it seems as if it were so.

However, to begin with, we cut off what past
generations have left us. We now pay twenty-six
millions a-year rather than incur the shame and
penalties of repudiation. We do not intend to
be ever in the position of either the Federation
or the Confederation in the United States. We
mean to preserve a character which will enable
us to borrow money on better terms than seven or
eight per cent. at home, while utterly excluded
from the money markets of the world. This de-
duction for our character's sake brings us to the
smaller sum of £28,000,000 as our nett war
expenditure—itself, to be sure, a monstrous sum,
and naturrally suggesting the question which Sir
G. C. LEWIS answers—how came it all about ?

The Secretary of War goes back, almost like a
geologist, into the strata of extinct military ex-
penditures, only, unfortunately, the ..I‘2 egatheria
and Deinotheria, in this department, seem to be-
long to our own age. The fossil expenditures
are of a much less imposing or alarming kind,
counting by units of millions, when we count by
tens of millions. Sir GEORGE takes us back to the
almost primeval period in these matters of 1789.
"In order (he says) to make the point with which
I propose to deal clear, I will ask the permis-
sion of the Committee to go so far back as the year
1789—the year in which the great French Revolu-
tion broke out. In that year the total number of
men voted for the British and Irish establishments
—the two establishments were then separate—was
43,395, while the total sum voted for the army, the
' Ordnance, and the Commissariat was £2,981,000 ;
that is to say, £242,000 for Great Britain and
£553,000 for Ireland. Not quite £3,000,000, there-
fore, was the entire amount of our expenditure for
military purpose in the first year of the French
Revolution." Blissful days we are ready to
exclaim, and to wish that our neighbours had not
broken their own peace, and the peace of the
world. Yet probably the taxation of those times
was as much felt as ours at the present moment.
Well, the wars of the Republic and the Empire
—to us now as much matter of history, save for
the debt they left us, as the wars of the Planta-
genets or of Marlborough—passed away, and a
few years after, Sir G. C. LEWIS takes stock, and
finds a prodigious step in advance, as it then
seemed—" In the year 1818-19 the number of men
in the army had risen to over 80,000, while the
number for the Ordnance was 7,842, making a
total of 88,682. The total amount, I may add, of
the Estimates in the year 1818-19, for the army,
including the Ordnance and Commissariat, was
10,307,000 ; so that the number of men in the
army had increased from 43,000 in 1789 in conse-
quence of this great war to 88,000 in 1819, and
the military expenditure from about £3,000,000
to about £10,000,000." The cost of the army in
the three decades had trebled itself, and it
continued trebled, up to the year before the Cri-
mean war. '1 hat war again disclosed defieieuces
in our military system which have issued in the

enormous demands of the present year. "The
lesson (says our War Secretary) then, I think,
which this comparison teaches us is that as the
French war led to a great development of our
military system, showed the deficiencies under
which our army then laboured, and, as a conse-
quence, caused a great increase in the charge for
the army, so the Crimean war produced similar
results, and has led to a permanent increase in the
cost of our military system, both by making a
permanent addition to the strength of the army
and also by rendering necessary certain improve-
ments necessary to provide for the efficicncy of
the army."

But Sir G. C. LEWIS was too honest to stop
there. He lays his finger on what we all know to

be the real cause of this tremendous increase in our

naval and military expenditure. It is not India
merely, certainly not the desire of conquests, nor is
it the cost of new armaments for our soldiers and
our ships ; these last, with improvements in the
personal condition and comforts of the soldier and
the sailor, have their share, an ungrudged one in
the heavier charge; the old cause is still the cause.
France, under the Empire, compels us to arm
With the BOURBONS vanished the hopes of peace
especially of stable peace, in Europe. To keep
things quiet was their interest. The miseries
of war had, moreover, been burnt into
their memories by the experience of them.
The new race knows of nothing but the "glories,"
and no idea is more pcpular with it still than
that of wiping out the last defeat of the first
NAPOLEON, by a victory over that nation whioh
stood foremost in inflicting it. Sir G. C. LEWIS
has, indeed, a very favourable opinion of the suc-
cessor to the defeatedof Waterloo,notwithstanding
his proclaimed mission in regard to that aefeat :—"I

do not for a moment doubt," he says, "that the
policy of the present EMPEROR, as far as that
policy depends upon his own independent wishes
and his own independent opinion, is essentially a
pacific policy, and that he is well inclined to
maintain a cordial understanding with this country,
but it is to be remembered that he lives in the
midst of a population which is influenced by opi-

nions which the restoration of his dynasty has se

in motion, that such books as the history of M.
TRIERS naturally have great influence in thr
country, and that the idea of restore:.-_ the boun-
daries of France as they merly were may not
unnaturally be
Imperi 137josed with great force upon the
PI mind. My own belief is that we have
nothing to fear from any ill-feeling on the part of
the EMPEROR. On the contrary, my belief is, we
are entitled to expect from him good wishes and
cordial relations with this country. But we must
bear in mind the opinions by which he is sur-
rounded, and prudent statesmen must guard
against possible dangers, which must be admitted
to be not without some foundation."

This is, indeed, the sum of the whole business—
in one word—France. But for France, and her
population, as restless and vain as in the days of
JULIUS CESAR, we might have gone on, gradually
adopting every improvement, and develoying a new
army regime, and new inventions in arms and ship-
building at peaceful and economical leisure. The
one reason why all had to be done in expensive
haste was that France would have it :so.
She determined to have armaments by sea
and by land of 11U earthly use except to
intimidate, or actually to attack a great naval
Power. She chose to create vast armies, and vast
fleets to carry them at an hours' notice across any
channel—we have had no alternative but to be
humbled or to be armed. We had too much sense
at our own dignity, not to say care for our security
to accept the former alternative; we have delibe-
rately chosen the latter. But the choice was forced
on us by France, and her Pretorian Empire.

The proceedings of the special meeting of the
Common Council yesterday were of unusual inte-
rest. The Chairman of the Bridge-house Estates
Committee, Mr. 'WELLINGTON VALLANCE, pre-
sented a report from them, which called the attention
of the Council to the important subject of the new
Bridges at Blackfriars. We have previously taken

occasion to remark upon the striking superiority of
Mr. PAGE'S design ,which at a much less cost than the
estimates of his competitors, promises a far superior
structure. Even supposing the expense to have been
greater instead of less, it would surely have bean
well to have had regard to the excellence of the work
rather than to points of temporary importance. It
is told of Mr. :RENNIE, the architect of Waterloo
Bridge, that simple and yet stately structure which
is one of the finest of our metropolitan bridges, that
in answer to some demur on account of the expense
of his design, he said impatiently, " Hoot
man !—Never mind about that. A hundred
years hence people will not ask `what it
cost ?' but who built it ?" Such should
be the feeling with respect to great national under-
takings of enduring value. Architectural beauty
and ingenuity of design have been too much ne-
glected in this country, owing not surely to want
of taste or talent in the countrymen of Sir CHRIS-
TOPHER WREN, JOHN RENNIE, and a host of
fellows, but to the petty interests, the nar-
row views, and secret influences which throw
merit into the shade and exalt mediocrity
as a sample of English art and science. In
the case in question there is not even the plea
of economy to support Mr. PAGE'S antagonists
since, as we have before mentioned, the three-arch
bridge was to be less expensive than its five and
nine-arch rivals. It is with great satisfaction that
we see Mr. VALLANCE announced to the Council,
that the solicitor of the Chatham and Dover Rail-
way Company had just addressed a letter to the
City Remembrancer, stating that they were now pre-
pared to construct a bridge of three arches. We do
not wonder that the declaration was received with
loud cheers by the Court of Common Council,
which thus celebrated the triumph of an excellent
and substantial project over the intrigues and de_
signs of interested parties. Mr. VALLANCE stated
that the delay in the erection of the bridge was
owing to the Company not having received either
the sanction of the Admiralty or of the Conser-
vancy Commissioners to a bridge of five arches.
It would seem that at one time, when
the erection of a nine arch bridge was
contemplated, the Conservancy Commissioners
approved of the plan, but when the substitution of
five arches was proposed their sanction was not
given. There is a manifest advantage in having
both the proposed bridges constructed on the same
plan, for the two being in such close proxi-
mity, were the one of five arches, and the
other of three, the piers of the one would,
more or less interfere with the clear way
of the arches of the other. A laden barge corning
up or down the river, on a tide, would find great
difficulty in avoiding the obstructing piers. Beauty
as well as utility favour the adoption of the same
design for both, since the want of symmetry would
greatly interfere with the appearance of the bridges,
and be a scandal to all lovers of Architectural
Taste. On all grounds then the acceptation of
Mr. PAGE'S proposal is a matter of public congra-
tulation, and we are heartily glad that the Railway
Company are at last aware of its superior advan-
tages.

One of the most interesting features in the debate
of last night was the discussion on the vote for the
Volunteers. All who are concerned for the honour
of their country will rejoice at the agreement to the
proposal of £211,667 for their service. Of late
years there has been no undertaking so generally po-
pular and so universally satisfactory as the Volunteer
Movement. It spoke at once to the heart of the na-
tion. It appealed to the most intimate and immediate
interests of the community, and in the hour of
danger it demonstrated to foreign nations that our
country had heard the dark presage of evil, and
that her sons were prepared to meet all invaders.
It is, often, however, in these circum-
stances that the real difficulty and the
greatest obstacle occurs after the immediate
excitement of the affair is over. So it is with the
Volunteer Forces. At present the eager energy is
somewhat abated ; and this is the time calmly to
consider and wisely to deliberate what steps should
be taken and what measures adopted to ensure a
permanent success, and to maintain an efficient
standard. The Government ought to come forward
energetically and to bestow largely, and they may
with advantage follow their course with the Navy,
although that was taken at the eleventh hour.
Nothing mean will suffice in the arrangements
that are made between the ministers of a great
country and the voluntary defenders of that coun-
try's hearths and altars. It is to be hoped that those
in authority will estimate the importance of the
occasion, and appreciate the exigencies of the
emergency. Forewarned is forearmed ; and if the
nations of Europe once understand that we are a
united people, and that those in command are will-
ing to assist and forward all efforts made for the
common good, it will do more to put down the
letters of infuriated Colonels or the violation of our
protective rights than any elaborate despatch of
grandiloquent phraseology or any commu-
nication, however imperative. These, beside the
incontrovertible argument of facts, and the living
witnesses of prepared forces, are but as sounding
brass and as a tinkling cymbal. As yet Lord PAL-
MERsToN has always appeared willing to aid this
endeavour, and we may therefore hope that, with
the sp,lii of national honour which has generally
distinguished him, and with the dashing style
of gallantry and honour that is his chief claim to
popularity, that he will identify himself with
this undertaking, which cannot but redound to
the glory of the nation. All the arguments that
were urged against the vote last night were com-
paratively futile, and they were easily disposed of.
Mr. SELWYN made some very wise suggestions in
regard to the steps that should be taken to secure
future efficiency. He said that the " vote for the
Volunteers appeared to him to be a very niggardly
one, and he hoped it would be increased. The sum
itself allowed was a small one, and a con-
siderable portion of it went no doubt to that
very valuable body of men, the sergeant
instructors, and allowed no immediate aid,
to the men in the force. He would particularly
press on the Government the expediency of their
enabling the Volunteers to obtain ranges where
they could carry on rifle practice and ensure their
own efficiency. It appeared to him that that object
could be best attained by the passing of some
measure which would give facilities for the pur-
chase of these ranges." Sir GEORGE CORNEWALL
LEWIS said he would give his attention to the sub•
ject, and it is to be hoped that this is not a Govern-
ment put-off, or a ministerial delay, but that he
will really attend to it, end derive benefit from the
propositions made. Altogether the affair seems
promising, and we may rest assured that the
Minister who neglects to foster and encourage the
movement will be held responsible by the general
sentiment and expression of the country. Let them
then now take heed nor daily with so vital an inte-
rest. Official indifference and the crushing influ-
ence of red-tapism will not be tolerated where
they have no right to intrude, and no
claim to intermeddle. May the partial conces-
sion arrived at last night be a type and fore-
cast of future benefits, and en augury of success to
the cause so associated with our best and dearest
interests, and so intertwined with our means of
national safety and our hopes of greatness and
glory. t