The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-22 00:00:00

THE WAR CREDIT.

Messages from the Crown to both houses were pre-
sented last night, in which the Queen is made the mouth-
piece of a Ministerial demand for power to spend three
millions more upon the war after Parliament has ad-
journed and Ministers are free from all awkward ques-
tions about the progress of hostilities or of negotiations.
In both houses it was announced that the debate on
this message will be taken on Monday, and accordingly
Monday will be the chief field-day of the Session on the
one great topic that now occupies the attention of the
world. Lords and Commoners alike will then have
ample opportunity for saying all they think ought to be
said on the present condition and prospects of the war,
and ample scope also for criticism on the way in which
the Coalition have managed it. There is but little risk
in the prophecy that all the hostile remarks, all the un-
favourable criticism, will chiefly bear—not against
the war itself—but against the lukewarm and half-
hearted way in which, since war has been declared,
the hostilities have been proceeded with. In the
whole six hundred and fifty-six members of the
House of Commons, certainly not more than two or
three could be found treasonably inclined to say the
war is wrong. All the rest,—Liberal, Whig, and
Tory, regard our opposition to the Cossack invasion
of Turkey as a moral and national duty. The debate
on Monday, therefore, will display little; if any, feeling
against the cause we have made our own, though much
against the manner in which it has been conducted.
We may not hear a sentence against the war, but have
columns of speechifying against the Premier. It will
be a great scandal if all this talk leads to no really prac-
tical conclusion. Yet it will be so, if members who
may address the house on Monday night content them-
selves by simply abusing the Coalition, and denouncing
the Czar, and then sit down after so indulging them-
selves, without pointing out and supporting the means
for reducing the chances of future blunders. We do not
want mere noise and smoke—mere speechification with-
out mere business-like conclusion. Every member, be
he spokesman, or mere silent voter, Parliamentary advo-
cate or Parliamentary juryman—should between to-day
and Monday determine upon having a definite and prac-
tical verdict as the fit conclusion of the coming debate.
The case before them is this :—Lord Aberdeen and
his Peelite friends want power to spend three millions
sterling of the public money in their own fashion in
secret, uncontrolled by the sitting of Parliament. They
want this huge sum to be placed in their hands for
disposal as they please. Once give it to them on their
own terms and without conditions, and it will remain for
them to smile blandly in the face of John Bull, whose
cash they have got, and then to send the House of Com-
mons about its business for six months. Hand over the
millions to Aberdeen and Co., and they shut up the
shutters of St. Stephen's at once, and work the
rAoracle
of war just as they please, till the usual periods fo
re-
assembling Parliament in February next. .me
we
ot. saidtan
yesterday, the next six months will afford ti
war to be lost or won--for England to secure
honourable and permanent peace, or to be beaten or ca-
joled to the great injury of the cause of freedom in
general, and the large gain of the Autocrat in particular.
All would depend upon the Cabinet, and
judging by
their last six month' doings, there is but little future
hope to be gleaned from the indications of the past. For
the millions already spent we have scarcely yet fired a shot
effectually, whilst we have lost one war steamer—" The
Tiger"—and her crew, and have permitted the Czar to kill
a large number of our seamen at Gamla Carleby. The
blockade and the capture of some helpless merchant ves-
sels is all we have really effected beyond burning a quan-
tity of tar and other stores, whilst our hesitations and
delays have been of the greatest value to our enemy.
By these delays he has been enabled to strengthen the
Crimea and doubly garrison Sebastopol, and so supply
an excuse for not attacking those places, or render an
extra slaughter of our men quite certain should we after
all clatlrmine cu their capture, After Audi towhipp
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