The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-11 00:00:00

OUR CO-TEMPORARIES—This Morning

iIOW TO SECURE PEACE.
The Times says :—lt is plain that, if peace is to be secured,
the first departure from the present irreconcileable oppo-
sition of . the combatants must come from the German
side. As long as the apparent stubbornness of the
6 German attitude remains unabated, all France is
thrown ;nto the arms of the Government of Defence.
Every feeling of honour and of patriotism combines to
L make the defeated Frenchmen as inflexible in resistance
as the victors appear determined in insisting upon
L their demands. Our correspondent, who went last week
from Havre to Le Mans, moved among Frenchmen who
have seen enough of the penalties of war, yet he found
no division of sentiment among them. They were united
• in a resolution to resist the enemy. The first truth a
mediator should insist upon, on addressing the German
leaders, would be the necessity of appeasing some of
this hostility. It might be easily done. Paris is to be
taken ; that is to say, it will be brought to acknowledge
• the impossibility of further resistance; but what if in the
moment of triumph the King were to renounce the proud
pretension of dictating peace in the Tuileries, and was to
declare his resolution not to enter the city? A man who
has disarmed his antagonist and then put up his sword
has often converted a recent enemy into a
friend ; and the King of Prussia might display a
magnanimity in the supreme hour of his fortunes which
would make negotiations for peace less impracticable. A
public declaration that the cession of territory should be
qualified by provisions securing to the inhabitants of any
strip that might be transferred free powers of migration
and of disposition of their property would go far to alle-
viate the sting, and would reconcile many Frenchmen to
a sacrifice from which they now tura with repugnance.
It may be said, indeed, that suggestions such as these,
and others that might be indicated were it expedient to
multiply them, are dreams, and it is true that they are,
and must remain dreams—for dreamers ; but they
are dreams of a kind that men of courage
and energy could make realities. It may be
accepted as certain that the restoration of Peace
come when and how it may, will he characterised by many
circumstances that would now appear strange and im-
possible of realisation ; and those who can rise to the level
of their position as men endowed with some degree of
power, and therefore subject to some burden of duty to
restore peace to Europe, will not shrink back amazed
before they begin their work because it seems to transcend
the labours involved in the paltry issues of domestic
politics.

THE DISTURBANCES IN SPAIN.
In the opinion of the Standard, the King of Spain has
been sharply reminded of the speculative character of his
enterprise. He was proclaimed on the 2nd, and on that
day received, nominally at least, the executive power from
the Regent Serrano. On the 6th the knowledge that a
Republican insurrection had broken out in the province of
Granada was so general in Madrid that the Government
could not refuse to dispatch, although it seems to have
contrived to delay, telegraphic messages informing
foreign countries of the fact. It is probable, therefore,
that the movement was already two or three days old on
that day, and bad maintained itself, if it had not grown.
Possibly enough it was contemporaneous in its
birth with the loyal reception of Madrid and the cere-
mony of oath-taking and proclamation in the presence
of the Cortes. The King, who, the production of
revolution, was to close the revolutionary period, finds
himself in the very first hours of his sovereignty
in the face of revolution, and called upon at once to show
that he can keep by force of arms the throne which the
vote of the majority of the Cortes gave him. The
Republicans are weaker than they were, but is the
Sovereign of Spain as strong as the chiefs of the
revolution who have just transferred their power into his
hands? In a word, for this is the whole question, can
King Amadeus count upon the devotion of an army which
had shewn to the rebel leader Prim a loyalty and an
attachment it has never in modern times given to its
kinks? If he can, there is no room for any doubt as to the
result of this " movement," whether it be part of a plan
concerted by the whole Republican party or an
isolated expression of the hatred with which a large
number of Spaniards regard a sovereign they consider
to have been tyranically imposed upon them. The
question is one which we cannot pretend to answer
decisively. We have expressed the opinion that if any
Republican movement should appear to connect itself with
the assassination of Prim, the army would remain faith-
ful to the King. We are disposed on the whole to
believe that if this movement in Granada should
spread, the army will still be loyal to him, and suppress
the insurrection. But these opinions are, after all, little
more than guesses. To judge what the Spanish army will
do in the event of revolution, we must know what the
army thinks of the new King, and what are the views of
those who are heirs to the infltrence enjoyed by the Conde
de Reuss. We do not pretend to know what the
most careful and most privileged obeerver could
hardly yet have discovered. And we must say, very
frankly, that whilst we expect to hear this movement in
Granada and corresponding movements, if there should
be such, in the other provinces of Spain have been sup-
pressed, we should not be at all surprised if they should
result in a change of Ministry—i.e., a change of tutelage
for the King—or even in a change of dynasty.
OUR ARMY AND NAVY ADMINISTRATION.
From the sublime to the ludicrous, remarks the Daily
News, is scarcely a shorter step than that which divides
our two great central administrations of our army and
navy, and to pass from the one to the other of these de-
partments is to emerge from a citadel of wasteful and in-
efficient jobbery into the clear and wholesome atmosphere
of responsibility and economy. Yet it is only the other
day that while administrative Reformers and Liberal
Economists were abandoning in despair the task of
bringing under national control and Parliament correc-
tion the Royal mysteries of the dual government of the
army, the Admiralty, which even in its worst days was
as light to darkness compared with its powerful and
privileged neighbour, became the annual scapegoat of sins
other and far greater than its own. There was,
indeed, an interval during the absurdly over praised
administrative regime of Sir John Pakington (whose
principal performances consisted in building all of a sud-
den fifteen frigates, which became obsolete almost before
they were completed, and in deluging the Channel Fleet,
in a fit of panic, with worthless bounty-men), when the
Admiralty was supposed to have silenced all the natural
enemies of a Tory Government. The first principle of Tory
administrators, whether of the Navy or of the Army, is
that " numbers mean power." Numbers of ships—never
mind if they are obsolete and useless ; numbers of officers
and men—never mind if they are employed or unem-
ployed, effective or superfluous; numbers of clerks
engaged in checking and counter-checking one
another in different rooms, perhaps on the same
staircase ; "acres of stores " lying idle, but absorb-
ing the interest of millions of public money—all
these items on the Tory ledgers represented vigour, libe-
rality, readiness for emergencies, and substantial perma-
nent power. Well, it appears that Mr. Childers and
his colleagues have actually had the courage to initiate
an entirely different policy and system, and after
two years of incessant attacks upon their reckless
parsimony and monstrous injustice and meanness, they
have now almost shamed the growlers and grumblers into
silence, and compelled even the leaders of the Opposition
to acknowledge that our naval administration is by no
means the most eligible point of attack upon a Liberal
Government in the coming Session.

THE FALL OF PARIS.
" What will France do, if the Germans pursue a policy
of masterly inactivity ?" asks the Telegraph. We hear in

many quarters that the French are determined to fight
on, whether their capital yields or not ; but will the coun-
try act upon that courageous resolve ? The fall of Paris
would by one and the same stroke set free the greater part
of the beleaguering army, and relieve of their present
task Prince Frederick Charles, Von der Tann, Mecklen-
burg, Werder, with all the detachments guarding the
long lines of communication. At one and the same
moment the object for which such vast forces have been
raised in France will disappear, and the invaders will be
enabled to use their great strength with renewed freedom.
Meantime, with Paris in German hands, and bearing in
mind the feeling of utter defeat which would spread
through the land, as well as the dreadful losses already
endured, and the heart-sick weariness of the war,
the question arises, is it likely that the country
generally would consent to fight on ? If it did
consent, with what hope could the hasty levies of Gam-
betta hurl themselves against the line of strongholds, from
Mezieres to Chalons and Rheims, which the Germans
would occupy ? On the other hand, when the French
paused to get breath and to prepare new efforts,
then would arrive the sad calculation of losses,
the smarting from " cold wounds, " the clamour
for respite and a quiet life among the peasants, the
sickness of the national heart, the reaction from all
this terrible excitement. Having secured nearly
every fortress in the east, the Germans could no doubt
hold Champagne as easily as Alsace ; and, while soften-
ing their terms as much as possible to invite a
settlement, they would most probably threaten further
and pitiless demands, if they were forced to fight
a fresh campaign. In these remarks we have
left out the consideration of so highly improbable an issue
as the raising of the siege, for events point all too plainly
the other way. It would be rash to predict, and the
heroism of the capital may yet accomplish an milooked
for deliverance; but we can only interpret facts as fore-
shadowing the beginning of the end,