The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-01 00:00:00

(From the Times.)
I There was a scene the other day at Cork neither
the first, nor probably the last of its kind. The
occasion was a civic banquet to the Lords of the
Admiralty and the officers of the fleet, attended, as
we are told, by all the leading persoiaages of the
I city and county of Cork; and the principal feature
of the day was a gentle hint that the harbour of
Cork was worthy the notice of the Admiralty, and
a courteous but guarded reply by the First Lord,
urging Irish gentlemen to trust more to themselves
thin to Government, and promising, in very gene-
ral terms, that everything should be done for Cork
that was required for the interests of the empire
at large. This is so much the duty of a ruler under
all circumstances, and, indeed, it would be so
great a crime to omit it, that the promise sounds
very like a truism, or, at any rate, comes to no-
thing at all. If Lords of the Admiralty, however,
are exposed to such trials, as they can hardly fail
to be wherever they go, they have no alternative
but to reply with the simplest possible statement
of their duties and their powers. It is to be hoped
that the time is going by—gone by we cannot quite
11 say—when the public money is to be scattered
broadcast in this or that city or portt from some
notion of favour or some motive of interest, or
some imaginary right which the place may be sup-
posed to have to the public benevolence. Seriously,
what does this sort of claim cone to, where
is it to. stop ? Two or tl:reo
pounds...we name a moderate sum—are to le spent
on a place because nature has made it the finest
harbour in the world, or because it just wants
something to make it the finest harbour, or be-
cause there is no harbour whatever on that coast,
or because there is a harbour without defences, or
defences without a harbour, or because the French
can land there, or because they cannot land there,
or because merchantmen go there, or because they
never go there. These, among many other reasons,
as well as the reasons which are the contrary of
these reasons, have all been alleged in favour of pub-
lic grants, and, under the influence of packed com-
mittees, paid engineers and a vigorous canvas by
the people of the locality, many such grants have
been voted which have yielded no return—that is,
no public advantage at all commensurate with the
cost. We do hope that the time is going by for
this sort of folly, and that the next time a good
slice out of a million is asked for a harbour of re-
fuge, a pier, a breakwater, or a new battery, some
sober calculation will be made of its probable value
to the nation, divested of all purely romantic con-
siderations. Sir James Graham appears to be very
much of this mind, and we believe has really no
such fond affection for his office as to rob the Trea-
sury for its sake, or put Mr. Gladstone under an
unpleasant pressure.
So, Sir James turned off the force of the hint by
referring to the marvellous results of private en-
terprise lately witnessed in both islands. He
pointed to the Exhibitions in London and in Dub-
lin, as proving what may be done without the
smallest help from Government, and to certain
recent improvements in the staple productions of
Ireland. He came not, indeed, to preach a ser-
mon, but, being called on to speak, and having his
text given him, he could not but preach in a rather
moral strain, and the subject of his discourse was
the necessity of self-dependence. It is a point on
which we have written so often, that we really have
not much to say which we have not said before.
Besides, it is rather ungracious to go on telling
people to depend on themselves when they are
really beginning to do so. It is proverbial that an
Irishman can shift for himself on the edge of a
forest better than the Englishman of the same
class, inasmuch as he has not to get over the un-
comfortable discovery that he has no farmer to
employ him, no rates to fall upon, no grocer's shop
where he can satisfy all his manifold wants. The
Irish would not have multiplied so prodigiously,
and thriven so well, not to speak of maintaining
many thousand gentry and clergy in and out of
Ireland, had they not a good deal in them ; and it
certainly is rather hard that they should be con-
tinually abused for their dependence by the very
classes which depend upon them,, by landlords who
carry away their rents, and by clergymen who live
on their tithes or rentcharges. What the Irishman
really wants is faith in himself ; such a belief of his
own powers as shall make him take proper care of
himself, not only when starved, turned out, driven
away, and expatriated altogether, but also when he
sees a Chancellor of the Exchequer, or a Lord of
the Admiralty, or any other fairy godmother of
political romance. That is the Irishman's weak
point. He is too apt to dream of buried treasures,
of pots of gold, of short cuts to wealth, of places,
of grants, of friends in place, and all sorts of luck.
Imagination has a good deal to do with it ; and the
effect of imagination is very often seen in this
country when an industrious honest man is spoilt
by the expectation, well grounded or otherwise,
that he is entitled to some considerable property,
hanging over him like the grapes of Tantalus all his
life, yet never coming within his grasp.
Nobody knows what he can do till he has tried,
and few people try their best till they have been
forced to do it. The Irish are very little aware how
much this is the case in this wealthier island. Take
those of this nation who have been the most suc-
cessful, the most energetic, and the most famous,
and it will be found that they are men who have
risen not so much by the favour of circumstances
as in spite of them. The man who was obliged to
seek a home for himself ; the man who found no
opening in his parish, his town, or his profession; the
man who was early compelled to make friends of his
own; the manwho was reduced to look out for a new
branch of industry, or whose tastes led him to do so,
is the great engineer, or contractor, ormanufacturer,
who plays so important a part in the social annals
of the age. Take any one of them at random, and
ten to one we shall find that he has had a hard
battle with fortune, from the time when he was
beaten by clever boys at school, and by big boys
out of it, to the maturer days when he stood alone
in the world, friendless, penniless, and all but hope-
less, yet resolved to do what he could, and try con-
clusions with fortune before he quite succumbed.
This is the case in England everywhere, every day,
so great and so violent is the seething and bubbling
of this huge cauldron of human suffering and toil.
Here we are all driven to and fro, banished from
evilmlpalgoeymtoentotwtno ,aannodthferro, fmrtoomw n
oneto village, from otmo oanne-
other, till all ties are forgotten, and thousands stand
as isolated—nay, almost as destitute of human sym-
pathy itself, as if they had been dropped from the
moon. The Irishman who thinks his case desperate
if he has not fifty strong and zealous friends, be-
sides a good interest in the Administration, little
knows how friendless, how unknown in high places
are many who nevertheless jog on, and even get on
respectably, comfortably, and triuniphantly. Per-
haps there is no country in the whole world where
people are more cast on their own resources than
here. Irishmen learn this when they come here,
and do here as Englishmen do—that is, they take
to the hardest work, live well, yet economically,
put by money, turn it to some profitable account,
and end by rising over the heads of the English
labouring classes. What is most to be hoped, and
what indeed may now be hoped, is that Irishmen
will do this in their own country, and rely on their
own exertions, even without having the sting of
desperation to goad them, or the example of Eng-
lish regularity and industry always before their
eyes.

THE LARGEST HOTEL IN THE WORLD.—At a moment
when the existing hotel accommodation on the other
side of the Atlantic is being contrasted in a fashion so
little complimentary to what is being provided of a like
kind at home, it may be interesting to know that our
countrymen in the colonies are determined to sustain
the repute of old English supremacy in creature comforts
against all comers, American or otherwise ; for we learn
that the proprietors of the Clifton-house Hotel, on the
Canadian shore of the Niagara Falls, are about so to
enlarge its capacity as to provide for the perfect accom-
modation of no less than one thousand visitors, it being
already capable of ministering, in the most complete
manner, to the requirements of four hundred.--Lwer-
pool Albion.
THE PORT OF LONDON.—The great and progressive
increase in the business of the port of London is stated
to be such as to require the most serious consideration
of the Treasury, with reference to the insufficient ac-
commodation afforded by the Customs for the discharge
of ships and the delivery of their cargoes. For some
time it has been a matter of general complaint that the
supply of landing officers is inadequate to the increased
duties of their department, and it is said that, although
there are at present nearly 60 inferior officers employed
in assisting them, the business on many of the wharfs
and quays is actually brought to a stand. At the docks
also vessels have to wait some days before they can pro-
ceed with their discharge. The greatest inconvenience
is consequently sustained, and it is contended that
with an increasing revenue the expense attending the
appointment of an adequat, number of properly-T-I%li-
lied persons to attend to its protection <•h..uld not weigh
an instant in comparison with the loses inflicted upon
the mercantile community through the obstacle to which
their trade is now exposed.