The Sun.
London, England, 1854-08-21 00:00:00

constitution. Or, Carlism restored, and 'is
that event, of course, reorganised. Here in
the key to the Spanish mystery. Again we le-
turn to our initial query—Can that mystery be
dissipated, can the problem be solved, by ESPAR-
TEXO ? Is the responsibility of its solution to be
left for some more energetic, some less honest,
but some more daring and more resolute, inter-
preter of the secret wishes of a population ?

It seems ungrateful to grumble so soon after
such a telegraphic despatch as reached the Admi-
ralty on Saturday, and just as the lunch, or if
Ministers prefer, the first course of the dinner
itself, is served, to look as sour as men whose
hunger is still unsoothed. We fully share in the
general pleasure ; we would not pen a word to
damp it ; and if our troops and sailors can, at
this eleventh hour of the military day, retrieve
the errors of their masters at home, we will gladly
forgive their masters—Lord ABERDEEN himself,
and his great organ of the press included—all
their shortcomings. In one sense, indeed, re-
trieval is impossible. The old saw in morals,
that timo lost can never be recovered, is true em-
phatically in military matters. The great forts
in the Baltic and the Euxine, the latter especially,
are doubly difficult to take compared with what
they would have been ; and the time lost before
starting at Malta and at Gallipoli, the time lost
in babyish coaxing of Austrian selfishness and
duplicity, is all lost with compound interest, to be
paid for in increased Russian strength, and in-
creased difficulties of the season.
But what has struck us most in the matter is
the relation of public opinion to our Parliaments
and Cabinets. We are often told of the irresist-
ibleness of public opinion ; and, looking at some
of its triumphs, such an expression may seem
almost justified. What can the Reformers of our
representation want, it is asked with an air of
triumph, after the first Reform Bill, the Abo-
lition of West Indian Slavery, and, above all, the
abolition of that great aristocratic tax, the Corn
Laws, followed by the inauguration of Free
Trade ? And it would certainly appear that, on
most great domestic questions, the voice of the
people must ultimately prevail. The five points
of the Charter itself would do little more than
hasten the decision in their favour, which is pretty
sure to be given at last, and perhaps save no
small amount of waste while that decision was
still pending.
It is in reference to a war policy that popular
opinion is at its greatest disadvantage. As in other
things, the people may err about engaging in a
war, or about the mode in which it should be car-
ried on—though it would be hard to prove that
they were more liable to error than those who
govern them—but their knowledge, or their in-
born honesty of sentiment, is, in reference to a
war, of but little comparative value. Domestic
questions can generally afford to wait a while ; not
so the operations of a war. Even Fabian tactics
must be the result of choice, and of a plan foreseen
from the beginning ; but, generally, promptitude
is so all-important that "to steal a march" has
grown into a proverb, oue which has been pretty
well illustrated to our cost this spring. In the
present war, whatever partial indemnifications the
autumn may furnish for the delays of the spring,
history will record that the preceding remarks
have been fully verified. With the exception of
the Manchester School, who on this subject were
in the smallest of minorities, the whole nation
were almost clamorous, from the spring onwards,
for speedy and decisive action. Every one was
indignant at wasting time in Vienna conferences,
and at polite attempts to give the detestable com-
pound of swindler and burglar a pleasant retreat
from the position he had taken by perfidy and
violence. The English people were almost furious
at seeing their ships loiter at Malta and at Besika
Bay, or anywhere else, when they might have
been scouring the Black Sea, clearing the mouth
of the Danube, opening it for an English flotilla,
keeping the enemy in alarm from Ismail to round
Odessa, Sebastopol, and the Circassian forts, and
have given other work to Admiral NACHIMOFF
than violating his master's engagements, and mas-
sacreing the weak at Sinope.