The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-01 00:00:00

Admission—Hall, ed.; Stalls and Balcony, ls.

rr HE OXFORD, 6, OXFORD-STREET.-
EVERY EVENING.
JIENRI and PFAU, in their intrepid Double Feats on the
Flying Trapeze.
Two Operatic Selections alternately from " Ernani,"
Placbeth," "Il Trovatore," "La Traviata," "La Circas-
menne," Arc., by Miss Russell, Madame Enderssohn, Messrs.
Morley, Greene, C. Greville, and Albert. Full Band and
Chorus—(Conductor—Mr. F. Jong,hmans.) Violin Solos—
. Viotti Collins, and other Vocal and Instrumental attrac-
tions. The Comic portion by Messrs. Sam Collins, Harvey
and French (the Nerves), E. Marshall, and W. Randall.
fid.; Stalls and Balcony, ls. ; Private Boxes, 10s. fid.
NOTICE.—The Morning Performance advertised for Thurs-
day next will NOT take place.

''l with the heavy Wain kept all this while upon
our commerce by reason of the continuance
of the deplorable civil war yet waged be-
tween the Northern and Southern States
of the American Republic, no wonder there
should be a small deficit left upon the year—par-
ticularly when it has to be borne in mind that this
very year shows such a considerable diminution on
the amount both of direct and indirect taxation ! A
diminution of indirect taxation to the tune of
£1,330,000, by means of the total abolition of the
Paper Duties—a diminution of direct taxation to
the tune of £1,130,000 by means of a dropped penny
on the Income-tax. All the more encouraging is
the result when we find, upon the last quarter of
the Financial year just expired, a single decrease
alone recorded, namely, the decrease of £lOO,OOO,
under the head of Customs—and opposed to this,
and counterbalancing it to the net sum, in excess, of
£1,070,628, by means of an increase under each of
the seven other divisions in the Revenue Table, to
wit—Excise, Stamps, Taxes, Propez ty Tax, Post
Office, Crown Lands, and Miscellaneous.

The result upon a revision of the year's revenue
is not only, however, as we have said, a complete
corroboration and justification of Mr. GLADSTONE'S
calculations a twelvemonth since—always remem-
bering the American civil war, the dropped penny
of the Income-tax, and the abolition of the whole
of the Paper Duties—it is the last and crowning
attestation of the wisdom of applying the principles
of Free Trade to the regulation of our finances.

It might well be wished that some "forty
thousand" electors, scattered among the various
boroughs of the Kingdom, could have been got
together to back the numerous members who pro-
tested last night against petsisting in sinking the
national money in the Spithead forts. But the
men who used the " moral pocket-pistols," as Mr.
OSBORNE told us last Tuesday and Thursday,
against hon. members in the lobby, were fighting
to get the nation's money, while last night the
wiser majority of the members were contending to
save it. No individual of the public feels a special

and personal interest in Government economy, bui
all Government expenditure gives to a number o

persons a direct interest in sustaining it. Hence
the ease with which the forty thousand were mus-

tered last week to insist on payment for services
not verified, because such useless work had been
paid for—hence, also, the absence of anything like
popular excitement to back the members who would
prevent the waste of millions on the Spithead forts.
It was hardly possible, however, for a debate
to be more conclusive, if the Government be as
ready to show deference to the House, when in-
sisting on staying expenditure, as it was to yield,
when the Opposition demanded increased expen-
diture. It was almost, literally, all the House
against Sir G. C. LEWIS and Lord PAGET—the
latter, indeed, being half against himself. Sir F.
SMITH made the proposal on which we insisted
yesterday—to suspend the works Pt Spithead.
He, too, did not ask for any precipitate action ;
the works could be resumed, if it appeared ulti-
mately desirable; but he held that the battle in
Hampton Roads had made out a case for delay
and reconsideration, in regard to attempting the
defence of the entrance of a harbour by forts.
The member for Chatham was followed by
supporters, some of them converts, sustaining
what seemed his unanswerable appeal. The mem-
ber for Birkenhead—Mr. LAIRD—who knows, if
any one does, all about iron ships, told the House
that he looked on the action as the turning point
in the adoption of iron for all classes of the
QUEEN'S ships, and showed how the Government
might save considerably by at once accepting the
demonstrated fact. Mr. GREGORY saw in the
battle the proof of a great revolution in
naval warfare, and joined with Mr. LAIRD,
and the Americans, in recognising the inutility of
forts as harbour defences, in contending against
invulnerable and moving forts. Sir J. D. HAY,
the new member for Wakefield, who had written on
the other side followed, confessing his conversion,
and expressing his confidence, now, that it were
better the public money should be spent on the
construction of the new description of vessels for
.
the defence of ports. He declared that, now, the
best use we could make of our proud three-deckers
was to cut them down to the lower deck beams,
plate them, and arm their deck with Captain
COWPER COLES' cupolas—one such ship would cer-
tainly destroy eight or ten of our modern line-of-
battle ships. Mr. DUFF grumbled a little in favour
of the forts; but Lord A. TEMPEST, who from per-
sonal inspection gave an account of the Merrimac,
swept away Mr. DUFF and his pleadings for the
forts, urging the Government to pause in the
construction of these costly, and as was now
known, probably useless forts.
At length Sir G. C. LEWIS arises, with many long
faced arguments. He would have it that the
recommendations of the speakers would involve a
demand by Lord PAGET of ten or fifteen millions,
in happy oblivion of the fact that we should save
that in the useless fortifications we were erecting at
home and in the colonies ; that the victorious little
Monitor was built for £60,000 in three months; and
that our liners could be converted for far less money
than the forts would cost, leaving, besides, the cost
of conversion to be still incurred in sight of the idle
forts themselves. He pleaded, also the now anti-
quated defence report, as an answer to a fact the
reporters could not have before them.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, 3b. 10m.—Afternoon, 3h. 28m.
To-MORROW.-Morning, 3h. 43m.—Afiernoon, 3h. 47m.

Meanwhile the Telegram to-day from Paris
gives us a reminder, as we have said, that
his Majesty the Emperor NAPOLEON still enter-
tains the idea of coming to us. Six vessels of the
Imperial Navy of France are to make their ren-
dezvous at Cherbourg for the purpose of escort.
ing his Majesty to the Exhibition. When he
comes we will give him a fitting welcome, of
course, as our Guest and as our Ally. And while
his coming may be a timely distraction to the
heavy grief still weighing down the heart of our
own Sovereign, it may also act beneficially upon
the Exhibition itself, across the brightness of which
the royal sorrow might other wise pass slowly like
an eclipse. For the sake of the alliance between
France and England, for the sake of the QUEEN, for
the sake of the Exhibition, it becomes a matter of
congratulation that the EMPEROR'S visit has not
been set aside, as it was at one time expected that
it might have been.

In these days of Government Education, it is a
curious variation of the subject to find one Govern-
ment instructing another. Whatever be the merits
of "the three It's," our Government has certainly
• the merit of teaching, with most approved " re-
sults," two others. The Indian Government has
been, so far as its financial administration is con-
cerned, a practically separate Government from the
Home one; to that Government we have furnished
successively two certificated teachers, and the re-
sults in fiscal arithmetic have been entirely satis-
factory. A real balance-sheet has been produced,
and a real balance on the right side secured.
Seeing such good financial arithmeticians both at
home and in India, it seems the Turkish Govern-
ment applied to our Training School for aid, and
two competent certificated teachers were furnished as
a matter of friendship. With what success may be
seen in the simple fact, that while, previously,
Turkey had in vain sought a loan on the Exchanges
of Europe, under the new teachers, she easily
obtained in this country subscriptions to the
amount of several times more than she asked.
The question of Mr. HIJI3BARD, and the answer
of Lord PALMERSTON, last night were of consider•
able interest. The important point was definitively
settled that England took upon herself no respon-
sibility for the loan. Indeed, the letter of Lord
RUSSELL, read by Mr. HUBBARD, could not bear
any such interpretation. It stated the whole
truth, and nothing more than the truth. No sub-
scriber to the loan could complain that he was led
to suppose he had English security for his dividends.
What he had was, the invited instruction and inspec-
tion of the English Government's Certificated Finan-
cial teachers in the Turkish Treasury. Lord HOBART
and Mr. FOSTER first showed the Porte how its
pecuniary affairs really stood, and Lord HOBART
undertook to return to Constantinople to see to the
employment of the loan for the purposes for which
it was raised—the principal one being to get rid of
the depreciated paper now in circulation.

Mr. BRIGHT followed with, of course, a plea for
economy, but this time, with the best men of thia
national party with him; he could tell them that
from conversation, as well as from 'what had been
heard in the house that night, .c those who voted
for the fortifications two years ago, were now very
much ashamed of tb.'itr vote." Captain JERYIS put
the whole quesAion in its clearest light when he
asked—" what was the use of solid fortifications
built in the water, if you could have an equally
solid fortification, which you could move about at
will, and which could run past a fixed for-
tress." Mr. BERNAL OSBORNE complained of the
meaningless speech of the Secretary for War, and
adverted to the fact that Admiral Sir R. DtJNDAS
had offered, when First Sea Lord of the Admiralty,
to convert twenty useless old line-of-battle ships, at
a cost of £840,000, for the defence of our harbours;
and he, too, demanded that the Government should
at least suspend operations. Sir JOHN PAKINGTON
added the weight of his high authority on the same
side, and expressed his regret that her MAJESTY'S
Government should still persevere in building the
forts at all hazards, attaching no weight to an
occurrence which has so impressed all other perso is;
he acknowledged the difficulties of the subject, bat
When such a large cost was involved, he thought
the Government ought to intimate, more clearly,
that they would not
go on without considera-
tion or reitection.
made the b After all this, Lord PAGET
eat apology he could for the
Secretary for 'War
that forts were stronger
, the substance of it being
rot the u, ere
than ships—which was
it was shown that the
q
ships would do their work on
heeding the forts, and indeed other ships without
by their
motion nullif
PUNJAUI3 RAILWAY.—The sum of £1'6,350 was
y e
paid yesterday to the credit of th Secretary of State for
the effect of the fire of forts. How
°rex', Mr. BEN- 4 India in Council in an.ticiPation, of the final ea.

The Turkish Government appears to have been
in far better financial health than it was aware of.
It had no idea that a mere audit, with an implied
resolution to conform, in its management, to the
course which the audit might require, would
give such confidence in London. It finds,
therefore, that it has not made anything
like so good a bargain as it might have
done. It might probably have easily secured
another million of the eight millions it has nomi-
nally borrowed. A loan to which nearly five times
as much was subscribed as was asked, might have
been negotiated, doubtless, on better terms than 111
per cent. However, it need not much regret this.
To re-establish its credit was the grand point.
" The sick man" has done this. He will easily
make better bargains in future ; and he will effec-
tually learn one all-itnportant lesson,—that to be
really independent he must be financially indepen-
dent. lire cannot but think that the English Go-
vernment has shown itself a true friend to the
Turkish Government in this business, and a wise
friend to itself too.

TINCK and Mr. CONINGHAM closed in again upon
the representatives of the Government as earnestly
as preceding speakers.
We do not remember to have read for some time
a debate, in which all the speakers, without the
slightest regard to party, were so completely on one
side—that side being, too, the very rare one of stay-
ing the public expenditure—and in which the Minis-
ters made so lame a defence. It would seem hardly
possible, after last night, that the Government can
persist in the Spithead works. Little doubt can
be left on the minds of all those who will have
ultimately to pay the enormous bill for these forts,
that they will be worse than useless. First, they
will guide the enemy into the harbour; secondly,
they will require 2,700 trained gunners, which
could not be spared them on the supposed emer-
gency ; thirdly, for what they will cost, we could,
as the American case has proved, have a fleet of
Monitors which in the waters between the Isle of
Wight and the mainland would defy all the navies
of Europe; and fourthly, this fleet would be
moveable and could be taken elsewhere, should
removal be necessary. In the face of these truths,
we hope our ministers will do themselves the
honour of following the other converts, who had
the manliness to avow that they could learn from
new facts.

While it still remains a matter of conjecture as
to Who will open the Great International Exhibi-
tion next month—the Submarine Telegraph to-day
gives us a hint that the notion of the Emperor
NAPOLEON'S visit to us is not by any means aban-
doned. Whether her Most Gracious Majesty the
QUEEN, out of respect to the memory of her beloved
and lamented Consort, will so far do violence to her
own heart-sorrow as to preside over the ceremonial
inaugurating the latest, and, as we all yet trust the
event may prove, the greatest of his varied and
resplendent intellectual achievements—still remains,
of course, to the people at large, a matter of abso-
lute uncertainty. Whatever the QUEEN wishes in
regard to this event, her People wish. Supposing
the ordeal would be too painful by reason of the
poignant regrets it might revive in the bosom of
the Royal widow—then the loyal subjects of the
Crown would, with one accord, be solicitous that the
SOVEREIGN should not in any way take part in the
religious• and regal ceremonial of the Opening.
The Prince of WALES is precluded—without doubt
designedly—from occupying (in such a contin-
gency) the place left vacant by the non-appearance
of her Majesty the QUEEN, namely, by reason of his
Royal Highness's absence just now upon his travels
through Egypt, Syria, and the Holy Land. Just
possibly, therefore, unless the QUEEN can, out of
her deep affection for the memory of her august
husband, so far do violence to her feel-
ings as to stifle her great grief for the one
day of the inauguration—just possibly, as
happens occasionally in regard to the Im-
perial Legislature itself, as happened in regard
to it indeed only this very year, the Sovereign
may be represented upon the Inaugural Day, ac-
cording to constitutional usage, by a Royal Com-
mission.

COURT CIRCULAR.

WINDSOR CASTLE, MARCH 31.
Her Royal Highness the Crown Princess of Prussia took
leave of her Majesty this horning, and left the Castle at
ten minutes before twelve o'clock for Gravesend, where the
royal yacht Victoria and Albert is waiting to convey her
royal highness to Antwerp.

His Royal Highness Prince Alfred, attended by Major
Cowell, accompanied the Princess to Gravesend.
The suite in attendance consists of the Countess of
Schulenburg, Countess Blucher, Count Furstenstein, and
Colonel the Hon. Arthur Hardinge, who attends the
Princess to Antwerp.