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THE SUN.
LONDON, TUESDAY, MAY 20, 1862.

The rejection of the British Museum Bill, last
evening, by so overwhelming a majority (consider-
ably more than two to one) comes, as another sig-
nificant hint in favour of retrenchment. For it is
solely upon the score of economy, that the measure
the motion for its
has thus been thrown out upon

second reading.
"The times are out of joint, 0 cursed spite,

Minister, or the
(Either the Prime Chancellor of
turn, ad libitum)
the Exchequer may sing, in
" That ever I was born to set it right."
It should be observed, at once, that here again, in
regard to the British Museum Bill, as recently, in
regard to the project for the concentration of the
Law Courts—it is not the nature of the proposition
itself that is in any way unpalateable. It is simply
the time at which it is brought forward that ren-
ders it purely, pro. tem., distasteful. The last two
or three financial years, es Mr. GLADSTONE has
taken occasion to remind the House, have been ex-
ceptional years. The Financial year being actually
now traversed, is again, by necessity, a year, not of
any surplus whatever, even one of the most micro-
scopic character, but a year, the balance-sheet of
which must inevitably show another deficit,
though, thanks to the right honourable gentleman
t ho Chancellor of the Exchequer, one likely to be

but a very small one. It is felt, consequently, by
very many in all parts of the House of Commons
that the time is, after all, but ill chosen for the
acquisition of advantages and improvements, that,
however desirable in themselves, the nation can do
without, and that, if carried out immediately, even
in a modified form, must imperatively require a
more or less open-handed expenditure. Hence, the
postponement to some future session of more than
one boon for which the nation has long been hun-
gering, or, at any rate, for which considerable sec-
tions of the community have long been hankering.
A Palace of Justice worthy of the British Empire
is what we have all longed to see erected,
upon an
appropriate site,in the midst of this vast and wealthy
metropolis. Yet—though the site itself is known
selected to have been long ago selected, and
ad-
mirably, though the chief part of the Funds re-
quired in carrying out that grand scheme of re-
habilitation, " The concentration of the New
Courts," was actually already within our possession
—the occasion was so obviously inopportune, that
the House of Commons consented very recently to
forego the temptation, and Ministers discreetly
coincided
with the majority in recognising the wis-
dom of yet a little further postponement. The
magnificent project of A Palace of Justice is then
only set aside for the time being,
where there was not any chance to be so
heavy and continuous a drain upon the Exchequer.
Until that halcyon epoch comes to us again, we
must still contrive to put up as well as we can with
the dark and narrow, and some of them even almost
squalid, courts of law now scattered hero and there
piecemeal, as it were, all about London and West-
minster. The Common Law Courts down yonder
between the old Hall and the older Abbey. The
Criminal Courts ult.), n carat,. The Chancery courts
in Lincoln's-inn. The Rolls Court down a back
yard on the opposite side of the old Lane sacred to
the Lawyers. Here Sergeants Inn—there the Courts
of Bankruptcy. All this, of course, being glaringly
inconvenient ; but still, as the House of Commons
reluctantly, and Ministers themselves still more
reluctantly, and yet both of them in the end right
manfully, recognise—quite necessary to be borne
with yet for some time longer, until we can safely
at length grasp the improvement by being—better
able to afford it.
It stands precisely thus in regard to that recently-
suggested and long wished-for improvement—the
transference of certain important and remarkable
portions of the British Museum Collection from
Bloomsbury down to South Kensington. A capital
notion in itself—a most desirable change—one the
ultimate realisation of which we have ourselves
repeatedly during the last few years advocated in
these columns. A scheme that was at length drawn
in a distinct and practical shape out of a vague
and chaotic mass of suggestions, and embodied in
the form of the very excellent measure which was last
night rejected upon the motion for its second reading.
Defeated, too, not by a large majority, but by a
majority absolutely overwhelming in its way, a
majority, as we have said, of considerably more
that two to one-71 voting for the second reading
and 163 against, showing consequently a clear
majority of 92 in a house of 234 (exclusive of the
four Tellers and the Speaker) against this Govern-
ment Bill. In the Parliamentary reports of several
among our morning contemporaries, we observe that
it is mentioned that the announcement of the result
of the division was greeted with loud and prolonged
cheering from the side of the Opposition, from the
benches of the Conservatives. While another reporter
observes, far more accurately, and, upon the face of it,
more obviously and reasonably within the compre-
hension of any dispassionate observer, that the
cheers which greeted the announcement of the num-
bers rang from all parts of the house ! For, beyond a
doubt of it, the result was the expression, not of
any party triumph, but of a pretty general and
equally distributed longing among all classes of
politicians for a beginning, at last and at least a
bare beginning of retrenchment.

Nobody gainsays for an instant the perfect rea-
sonableness of Professor OWEN'S suggestion that
the Natural History Collection, for example, should
be set apart from the rest of the Collections. Mr.

OSBORNE may joke to his heart's content, if he

ikes—and no one in the House of Commons can

joke more delightfully than he can, no matter
what the the theme selected for his pleasantries—
Mr. OSBORNE may jest as long and as humorously
as he likes about the extravagance of building a
Hall anywhere for the reception of Whales : of

which he reminds the House (keeping it all tie
while still upon the broad grin), that there are no
less than fifteen different species. Or he may descant

no less comicallyupon the idea of providing separate
apartments for every variety of elephant. Yet still,
when the laugh is out, there is even then a far more

preposterous spectacle in its way now visible to all
who care to look at it down at Bloomsbury ! A
jumbled collection of collections—a stupendous olla
podrida of specimens of zoology, of mineralogy, of
ornithology, of all the ologies, shouldering one
another out of the way, tumbling one upon another
upon the staircases, stowed away in cellars and back
corners. Setting what we are told is Heaven's first
law altogether at defiance, and justifying the ap-
plication to the Trustees of the British Museum of
' the title of the Society for the Confusion of
Useful Knowledge. It is a pleasant dream that
doubtless we shall yet realise, when the proper
occasion arrives—when there is not so heavy and
powerful a drain as at present upon the funds of
the National Exchequer—this postponed project

_ .
for the removal of certain collections from the old

Museum at Bloomsbury to the new Museum a.

South Kensington. All this, however, "in good

time"—and, therefore, manifestly not just yet. The

nation has something else to do with its money;
and, in the meanwhile, it milut wait as

patiently as may be for the period to arrive when

the treasures in the Great National Store of

Curiosities can be sorted at last, and some of them

borne off in cart loads from the classic temple of

antique art and literature yonder at Bloomsbury,

to the safe and convenient shelter of those hideous

but useful Boilers further away there down at
Brompton.

It is certainly not a little amusing to see the
Tories voting to retrench the expenditure which
they were the first to recommend. By the usual
hocus-pocus of figures, the ex-Chaneellor of the
Exchequer may make out a very plausible tale
against Lord PALMERSTON as the chief of sinners,
in regard to our present enormous expenditure;
and we have no disposition whatever to deny Lord
Pt ALstEßsToN's claim to be a good Tory in regard
money-spending,o as well as in regard to politi-
cal liLord DekEßrme; 3,1 r. His lordship, like
rl, is a h e
shoous
nt ledd
op p boy-
nent of political Reform, and a vigorous pro-
moter of national expenditure ; and he carries his
resemblance to the Tories to a still greater degree
of exactness—for it is expenditure, wren the
sec-
tion of the Tories called Whigs, is in office, which
his lordship so diligently furthers. Not that he
is at any time an economist—that is not in his
nature ; bvt being at the head of affairs always
seem to give a fillip to his zeal for liberal outlay.
Indeed, it may
be truly said that Lord PALMER-
STON has no ioter title to the epithet "liberal,"

than that of being always in favour of liberal taxa-
tion and liberal expenditure.
Mr. DISRAELI, however, thinks he sees that the
spring-tides of taxation have reached their highest,
and that we are destined to recede to neaps. He
has therefore hoisted the flag of retrenchment, and to
try before the next election, whether the country can-
not be taught to whistle the tune of "The Tories
and Retrenchment." He, and his, now vote for all
retrenchments. The other night they had nearly
succeeded in putting an extinguisher for the present
on the useless Alderney job ; and Mr. DISRAELI
came forth from the lobby with a large minority to
be cheered in his new line. Last night, on what was
really voted upon as a question of economy, the Go-
vernment were beaten by a majority of more than
two to one. These trivial hints, doubtless, enc )u-
-rage the ex-leader of the house to believe that he is
on the right tack, and there can be little doubt he
is so, so far as this, that the country begins to think
with Mr.;GLADsToNE, that our present expenditure
must be regarded as exceptional, and that the means
ought to be found, while leaving our defensive
strength unimpaired, to reduce our national expen-
diture to sixty-five millions, when Mr. GLADSTONE
assures us we might spare Mr. HUBBARD any future
motions by abandoning our most odious tax.
But Mr. DISRAELI, with that unaccountable per-
versity which has often marred his own prospects
and those of his party, will persist in attacking a
foreign policy which the country since 1859 has felt
more interest in, perhaps, than it has in domestic
questions. With his eye, as the general under-
standing is, on the Foreign-office, he lets out but
too plainly what he would do as successor to Lord
RUSSELL. His Lordship has done, indeed, one or
two things in the Italian --- •
iur instance, on behalf of Austria, to Count CAVOUR,
on "our interests in the Adriatic"—which his

country disapproved. But just these slips and
errors were merits in Mr. DISRAELI'S eyes, while
his merits, as we all think them, are, in Mr. Dis-
RAELI'S opinion, his most serious offences. Lord
RUSSELL supports a united Italy, the withdrawal
of the French from Rome, and the cession of the
Quadrilateral for a fair equivalent to Italy, because
the latter must regard Austria's possession of it as
a " menace." All this Mr. DISRAELI denounces as
evil policy, and fraught with evil. The cause of
retrenchment he specially conceives to be bound up
with England's supporting that creed so popular
across St. George's Caannel, so unpopular on this
side—the temporal power of the POPE!

While the honourable gentleman keeps to the
general but practically barren fact that our expen-
diture is such as to justify our demand that a care-
ful look-out be kept for the means of reducing it,
he has public opinion with him ; but when he
seeks to connect that expense with our national
interest, fairly represented by the Government, in
Italian unity and liberty, the public at once deserts
him. They know that the connection is a fiction.
We have never been near quarrelling with France
on the question of Italy. We have never gone
beyond perfectly friendly remonstrance; and though
we cannot, either as a government or a nation, but
think the Roman occupation unjust to Italy, we
have not stepped beyond saying so.
We fear the country can never believe the sin•
cerity of Mr. DISRAELI'S party in regard to re-
trenchment of expenditure. With them it is a pure
political cry as much so as their defence of church-
rates, and, like that, merely used for the moment,
with the certainty on our part that they would
soon, if in office, find reasons to renew the PARING-
TON expenditure in " reconstruction of the navy."
They would do again what Sir JOHN did—put us
to an almost fabulous expense to create a wooden
screw navy, when France, already wiser, had
resolved to build no more wooden vessels, and then
tarn round and tell us that all the past expense
was now antiquated, and that we must commence
again on a more modern and more costly plan,
which France, with her eyes open long before, had
already adopted.

I❑ one respect we entirely agree with Mr. Dig-
RAELl—that the present state of our knowledge of
iron ship-building is a " green " one ; and that we
are unwise if we do anything beyond providing just
a sufficiency of iron vessels for present purposes—
not hurrying the work, while we are so uncertain
of what each succeeding half-year may reveal.
Here there is room for sound economy. We are
threatened with no kind of present danger
demanding wasteful hurry. It is certain that the
longer we delay building the more sure we are
to do our work better, probably even to spare its

being done over again. Let us not, therefore, re-

peat the fearful blunder of PAXINOTON and the

Tories, and put the country to enormous expense,
in face of the certainty that, in a year or two, the
whole expense must be incurred again.

• The King of PRUSSIA has met his Chambers, as
was expected, by proxy. When the very chamber
itself was a kind of protest against Royal doings, it
was pleasanter, though not the more frank and
manly course, to avoid a personal meeting with it.
A more magnanimous man would have adopted a
more generous as well as a more politic plan, and
by a cordial personal acceptance of all that had
occurred, would have gained the " bravos" of his
Chamber. He must • listen to it ultimately, how
wise had it been to disarm hostility, and to render
the deputies unwilling to thwart him, by a little
sincere frankness and manly confidence,
The speech is, for the most part, as vague as it
well can be. It accepts, however, the promised
reductions of taxation with which the Ministers
sought in vain to purchase for themselves a ma-
jority. It even seems to promise the details for
demanding which the old chamber was dissolved,
for it says :—" The more detailed specification of
the income and expenditure in the budget, and the
early presentation of the budget for 1863, will
afford testimony that the Government is ready
to meet with willingness any practicable pro-
position of the representatives of the coun-
try." This, so far it goes, is satisfactory ; it seems
to indicate that the KING is still disposed rather to
conciliate than to attempt, what some of the Ber-
liners feared, a coup d'etat against the Chamber.
Indeed of that there is no likelihood. The " Right
Divine," so prominent in former Royal Speeches,
does not appear at all, at least explicitly, on this
occasion. It is enough on this point to eV,
in the sadly lengthy phraseology of Germans—
" The Government of the KING, not led astray
by the pressure exercised by change of parties,
will earnestly and zealously endeavour to carry
out, in the manner hitherto pursued, the well-
known principles which the King, upon assuming
the regency, and upon several subsequent occasions,
has pointed out to the councillors of the Crown as
the line of policy in the administration of the coun-
try. In accordance with these principles the
Government will conscientiously maintain the
rights of the Crown as well as the constitutional
rights of the representatives of the country." For
such gracious promises, however, the deputies are
called on patriotically to support the Government
in supporting the dignity of Prussia.
The point of interest at this moment is the firm
determination of the KING to make the ELECTOR
of HESSE do his duty to the little kingdom—a
kingdom Which would make but a small English
county, haling little
more than 700,000 inhabitants/