The Sun.
London, England, 1854-12-25 00:00:00

FORM OF APPLICATION.
Ti the Provisional (Ammittee of the Inverness and Elgin Junction

Railway.

Gentlemen —I request that you will allot me
Shares,
of 101. each, in this undertaking, and I agree to accept the same, or
any smaller number that may be allotted to me. to pay the deposit
thereon, and sign the Parliamentary Contract and Subscribers' Agree-
meat, when required.
I am, Gentlemen,
Year obedient Servant,
Signature.... • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • ..........
Full Christian and Surname...,, ........
Profession.. 6 • • • • • • ...... ........
Address ... • ..... ••• • • • ...... ••• • ..
Date .•••

THE FOREIGN ENLISTMENT BILL.

(Prom the Press. )
If the Government had wished to disgust the country
with the war, they could not have done so more effec-
tually than by introducing the Foreign Enlistment Bill.
It is a manifesto which all the world can understand of
weakness and loss. In spite of all that sophistry can
urge, it most distinctly proclaims that the British
people cannot bear their part in this great war, under-
taken to repel the attacks of a barbarous foe upon the
rights and liberties of mankind, without the aid of
foreign mercenaries. •

Up to the hour of semi o'clock on Tuesday evening
the fate of the b It was extremely doubtful, but about
that time Lord John Russell cteclared, in his place in the
House of Commons, that if the Ministers did not obtain
a majority on the second reading they would resign, and
immediately all those acquainted with the noble lord's
desire to combine a reputation for disinterestedness and
public spirit with the sure possession of office knew that
a majority was secured. How many times he has
thrown out the same mesaceL-for a menace it is to the
throng at his back— and has met with the like response,
we cannot pretend to number. The artifice, besides
showing, as he conceives, his indifference to office,
answers another purpose. It confirms in their alle-
giance all those waverers on the Ministerial side who
are inclined to hesitate between their duty to their con-
stituents and their service to the Government. Reluc-
tant as they may be to offend the former, they have far
more weighty reasons for fearing to displease the latter;
and hence, as often as the rod is held over their heads,
they submissively kiss it, and obediently walk, or are
dragged, from the house to the right of the Speaker's
chair. But their voices are free through their votes are
fettered, and the sarcastic allusions of Mr. Whiteside to
that " rising party in the country, which speaks one
way and votes another," and of Mr. Drummond to " the
charity there would be in shielding Government from
the censures of their own supporters," showed that the
reliance of the Coalition on mercenary support was not
confined to foreign enlistment, nor to the profession of
arms.

On many really independent members of Parliament
the menace this time produced the reverse of its intended
effect. It is not all who have generally given their sup-
port to the Government that are to be classed with the
Riches and the Seymours.- Mr. M. Gibson, Mr. Philli-
more, Mr. Munts, Mr. Drummond, Mr. Cobden, and
others, saw nothing terrible in this threat. Possibly,
they said, some other Ministry might do as well,
or better—none could do worse. Possibly some
other Minister of War might manage to convey
stores to the army. they were intended to benefit,
to prevent the horses from eating each other,
and to save the vfficers and men from shivering ix rags
exposed to the winter blasts of the Euxine, or from
perishing through want of shelter and firing.
The speeches from the Ministerial bench were little
calculated to inspire that confidence in the wisdom of
Government which the house was so urgently pressed to
grant. Previous to the address of Mr. Sidney Herbert
on Tuesday, it was supposed that the Government had
some scheme settled for raising the force which tkey in-
troduced this bill to sanction. It was imagined that
they had entered into some negotiations with foreign
princes for the hire of troops, or at all events that they
had some definite plan for raising foreign battalions. No
one conceived it possible that the Ministers would, at-
this crisis, so trifle with the patience of the Legislature and
the greatness of the exigency as to introduce this measure
merely as an experiment, a leap in the dark, which
might produce results or might not, might augment
the military force of the country, or might
leave it exactly where it was. But the Secretary-at-
War in the heat of the debate, with schoollioy petulance,
knocked down in an instant all the safeguards of official
reserve maintained by his colleagues. There were a
great number of denaturalised foreigners in the world
(on the fact of their denaturalisation he laid great stress),
and why might not our recruiting serjeants pick up
some of them ? There were a number of German emi-
grants who passed throuh England on their way to
the United States and Canada. Might not some of
them be' persuaded to enter into our service, and
go to the Crimea I , Possibly tioops might be
raised from those classes, possibly not. If the
Opposition,. who asked where these foreign
forces were to be got from would tell him where they
could be got from he should be extremely obliged to
them. The bill was an experiment. When the Go-
vernment obtained it they would see what could be
done to give it effect. If it failed it failed, and there
would be no more to be said. By showing that the
measure might probably be inefficient, he seemed to con-
sider that he answered the only objection to it, instead
of destroying the only argument which could be urged
in its favour.

With the tact of an old campaigner in the Parliamen-
tiry field, Lord Palmerston perceived the fatal nature
of his candid colleague's admissions, and endeavoured
to repair them. He sought-to replace that veil of ,m,,-

hail just been so ruddy
torn away, but it was too late. His "good-natured
bluster.' received as usual the cheers of the house, but
inspired no conviction. He appealed to the personal
feelings of members. Had they relatives or friends in
the Crimean army ? Would they deny them the succour
this bill was designed to afford Then on them would rest
the responsibility of the consequences. But precisely
because it was by no means certain that this bill would
afford any succour at all, and certainly could afford no
immediate succour, it was by many members viewed
with distrust. What magic is there in an act of Par-
liament of itself ? The Legislature might, if it pleased to
make itself ridiculous, enact that the Emperor Ni-
cholas should come immediately to England, and
appear on his knees at the bar of the House of
Lords ; but of what avail would be its decree ?
A prudent Government, before it introduces a
bill to Parliament, makes all necessary arrange-
ments for giving it practical effect. Is this case it is
avowed that there has been no preparation, no arrange.
ment. Lord Palmerston raised a laugh by his allusion
to the folly of putting the cart before the horse. Why,
to pass a bill without considering how it is to be car-
ried into effect is exactly to commit this blunder. Cre-
dit was given to the Ministry for some plan, some fore-
thought, in introducing this measure, when up starts the
Secretary at War and says there is no plan, no fore-
thought in it. The Opposition declares that it
is most reluctant to sanction a bad principle even for
the sake of a ceittin advantage, and Mr. S. Herbert re-
plies, "You shall sanction a bad principle for an uncer-
tain advantage." The contradictions of the men who
sit side by side are positively amazing. Lord Palmerston
says that the bill is wanted to afford immediate aid to
the army at Sebastopol ; Lord John Russell that it is a
measure of preparation for next year ; and Mr. Sidney
Herbert is not sure that it will afford any aid at all,
though he thinks it may.
There are persons distinguished for sound sense and
practical ability who care nothing for the constitutional
objections to this measure, and who would be ready to
approve it, did they think a serviceable body of troops
would be forthcoming. Their argument is intelligible.
It is the same which formerly, in the mouth of Lord
Suffolk, called forth the indignant remonstrance of
Chatham. "We have a right to avail ourselves,
against the enemy, 'of all the means which God and
nature place in our hands." They would willingly see a
German legion in our pay, but they are confounded
when they -hear the first thing to be done towards form-
ing the corps, is like that prefatory direction for dressing
a hare—" First catch your German." They listen with
dismay to the suggestion that our recruiting officers are
to look out for emigrants, whose term of military ser-
vice in their native country has expired, and who have
booked themselves for New York or Quebec. Mr. Cob-
den's description of the German emigration is perfectly
correct. Whole communities move together, with their
women and children, their clergymen and their
doctor. The men are thrifty labourers and mechanics,
no doubt, but all are of the most unlikely class to be
caught by our recruiting serjeants, or if caught, to be
of the stuff from which good soldiers are made. When
enlisted, they must be lodged, and drilled, and formed
into regiments. And when this is done, when battalions
are formed of the outcasts of every continental State,
what, as compared with British troops, will be their value?
Is it likely that the unsettled habits which havebrought
them to our standard will at once give way to the strictdisci•
pline of our army ? Without one tie of home, or family,
or national feeling, must we not expect them to desert
as often as they think they can do so with advantage ?
Whoever heard of mercenary troops that were not wils
ling to take service with the State which would pay
them best ?
The Government complain of misrepresentation when
this proposal is treated as one of their principal mea-
sures for carrying on the war. They forget that they
have themselves made it a principal measure ;
that they regard it as so essential as to call for
their resignation if it be rejected. It is merely
an aid they say ; one means out of many. They
are willing to avail themselves of every other
resource that can be suggested. This plea will not bear
the light. Even the vigour of a Newcastle must know
some limit. Should there be a rush of foreign recruits
to our standard, the recruiting of our own population
must slacken; for we are told that already recruits come
in faster than they can be drilled, and if barrack-room
cannot be found for our militia, how can it be provided
for these mercenaries ? Whatever their number, it will
not, as represented, be an addition to our total force,
but a substitution of foreign for British troops.
Monk Lewis wrote his ballad of the " Cloud ring,"
to teach young ladies the value of grammatical accuracy
in expression. When the fiend has the damsel in his
power, he swears to grant any two requests she may
make—" Let me see here the truest of lovers," she
cries, and her faithful page is at her feet. " Now show
me a truer than he," she exclaims, and the baffled fiend
flies off with a clap of thunder. The War-office has
more recruits than it can drill, and the Ministers say,
let us enlist foreign recruits that we may drill them
too.
The introduction of the bill has revealed the full ex-
tent of the Ministerial mismanagement. The army,
says the Secretary at War, is 20,000 men short of the
complement voted by Parliament last session ! The
admission is astounding. We have now, while main-
taining the invasion of a mighty empire, twenty thousand
men less than Parliament last session, when the war had
hardly commenced, before a blow had been struck, au-