The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY, JANUARY 2, xB7l.

THE MONEY MARKET.

CITY, Two O'CLOCK.

Holiday was kept to-day on the Stock Exchange,

The extreme range of Consols during the year just
ended has been 53 per cent., while that of the preceding
twelve months was only '2 per cent., but the difference
between the opening and closing quotations of the year
shows merely a reduction of In railway stocks there
have again been wide fluctuations, but at the close an
average improvement of between 10 and 20 per cent.
Among the exceptions has been Metropolitan, which
about three or four years ago was at 130, and which,
after having fallen to 82 at the commencement of 1870,
is now at 63. The Bank of England bullion at the end of
last year stood at £19,196,622. It reached £22,892,718 on
the 14th of December, and is now £22,703,536. At the
Bank of France the total at the commencement was
£49,488,000 ; on the 23rd of June it reached
£52,737,000, the largest sum ever known, whence,
after the commencement of the war, it rapidly descended,
until the publication of its amount was discontinued.
On the Paris Bourse the range of fluctuation in Itentes
has been about 25 per cent., and the result of the move-
ments of the year has been to establish a fall of 214 per
cent. With respect to the declared value of our exporta-
tions, the Board of Trade Tables, which thus far comprise
only 11 months of the year, purport to show a total of
£182,562,925, against £174,150,252 in the same period of
1869, or an increase of nearly 5 per cent. The changes in
the Bank rate of discount, which were seven in number
last year, have this year heen ten. • On the Ist of January
the rate was 3 per cent., on the 4th of August it was up
at 6 per cent., and since the 29th of September it has
stood at 21 per cent. The premium on gold at New York
at the commencement of the year was 1201, and it is now
1011. In the cotton market the price of middling upland,
which was about 114 d. on the Ist of January, is now
about 81d. In the wheat market there has been a rally of
Bs. 9d. from the decline of 9s. which occurred in 1869 ;
the average price, which in January was 435. Bd., having
recovered to 525. sd. The lowest price was 40s. 2d., in
February, and the highest 545. lid., in August.

THE SINKING OP ,ENGLISH VESSELS Al
DUOLAIR.

The .Daily News correspondent, writing from Havre
December 30, says :—What steps are the authorities about
to take in the affair of Duclair? Will England allovi
such an outrage to go by unpunished ? These and similar
questions are what one hears on all sides. And yet
the Germans have not stopped at Duclair in
offering their daring and deliberate insults to
the British flag. After firing on and sinking six vessel
sailing under the English flag on the 21st inst. at Duclair,
they seize a seventh lying in the port of Rouen on the 24tb,
force her crew ashore, and tow her down the river, no
doubt to share the same fate as those that left before her.
The French journals certainly have reason to comment at
length on this affair, and it will tend much to widen the
braech at present existing between us should the Govern-
ment of England pass the matter over lightly. If it is
not taken in hand at once, sternly and resolutely, if suffi-
cient apology and reparation are not immediately ex-
acted, the whole business will appear to French eyes
very much like a second edition of the Alabama affair ;
but what apology or reparation can Bismarck make for
so cool and premeditated an affair? That it was p re-
meditated there can be no doubt, for if not, why were
the vessels detained so long at Rouen after
discharging their cargoes; why were they refused
the necessary papers by the Prussian authori-
ties at Rouen, and allowed to depart on their
own responsibility? and if there can exist the shadow of
a doubt as to its being premeditated, the seizure of the
Sylph at Rouen by Prussian soldiers ought to be sufficient
proof to dispel that doubt. An absurd rumour is afloat
to the effect that the masters sold their vessels to the
Prussians, for in the first place those masters are not
the owners of the vessels ; in the second place,
assuming that they were, they would not be so foolish as
to violate the neutrality laws by such an illegal transac-
tion ; and in the third place, if they had sold their vessels
they would not have gone to the Vice-Consul at Rouen to
lodge their complaint. Therefore, it is impossible that
there has been any buying or selling in the matter,
and the only conclusion we must come to
is, that the affair has been a deliberate
insult to the English flag, and an outrage against the laws
of neutrality. The journals of this evening publish ex-
tracts on the subject from all the English papers. Three
French men-of-war went up the Seine yesterday, but
it is feared they cannot reach Duclair in consequence of
the sinking of those veesels, There are two other Eng-
lish vessels still at Rouen, but I dare say they will be
taken, if they have not been seized already by the
Prussian soldiers to complete the blockade, or the barrier
rather, in the Seine. English vessels coming near Dieppe,
Decamp, or other seaport towns occupied by the Germans
must in future look out or their crews may be replaced
by soldiers wearing spiked helmets, and carrying the
authority of King William in their pocket.

I THE GENERAL BOMBARDMENT OF PARIS.
In a communication from Margency, December 28, the
special correspondent of the Daily .News at the head-
quarters of the Crown Prince of Saxony, writes :—This
question of a general bombardment of Paris presents two
distinct phases, and the full distinction between the two
I have nowhere seen brought out plainly. There is ',he
bombardment of the forts as a preliminary either
to the bombardment of the enceinte, and subse-
quent storm of the city, or to a capitulation dictated
to the inhabitants and garrison by the consideration
that with the reduction of the outlying forts has gone their
last ray of real hope. And there is the immediate bom-
bardment of the city, necessitating a simultaneous en-
gagement and adequate coping with the fire of the outlying
forts. In the former alternative we have, as it were, two
men fighting with daggers, with nothing to distract them.
They go at it fiercely, and it may be that he who
attacks has the best of it, in which case it
is all over with the man who has his back to
the wall, and to everything behind that wall.
But it is possible also that the bout may be a
drawn one, and this contingency involves serious conse-
quences to the attacker. True, it would seem that he
would only be where he was before he began offensive
operations, and the ultimate event would be same, under
the coercion of starvation, as if he had never raised his
hand to strike. But his prestige would be radically
sapped, and the other side would take proportionate
encouragement. It might be that his ulti-
mate success would be seriously endangered.
Now consider the other alternative. Here, if
the premises 'are what they ought to be, you have a man
with a dagger, and also a long lance, engaging with a man
who has only his dagger. The former does not then
require to win the dagger duel to insure him
the success he is eager for; all that he needs
is to make that a drawn battle. If he can keep
in play, technically " enrege," the dagger-holder with his
own shorter weapon, while with his longer weapons he
is sedulously poking over the other's head at what lies
behind him—viz., his vitals, he inevitably wins the day.
The lance in the simile I have chosen represents a few
batteries of very far-reaching guns which the Germans
must have if they would bombard Paris. If they have,
or will have these, and have other batteries besides
capable of " engaging " the forts, then success seems
within their grasp. Frankly, I question whether
they will be able to do any great things by a
systematic bombardment of the forts, and the forts
alone. An equal weight of metal gives them no ad-
vantage, but bodes, indeed, their failure. Remem-
ber bow many days of bombardment it cost us,
and what pyramids of projectiles we threw be-
fore we rendered the Malakoff untenable. And
wo wore close to the sea-board ; yet, nevertheless,
we had to pause again and again for supplies of am-
munition. Every projectile thrown by the Germans
represents arduous and long-continued toil to bring it to
the cannon's mouth. We may depend the Parisians will
strain every nerve to return the fire and to repair the
damage it causes. It would then appear that to operate
against the forts successfully would require both a
stronger artillery, whether in calibre or in number, than
that possessed by the French, and a large and continuous
supply of ammunition. But a comparatively small array
of artillery—of such weapons of precision as the German
artillery consists of, and with the dexterous German DAR-
lerymen—would suffice to keep the guns of the forts in
play, so that they could divert none of their attention ;
while a few guns of longer range were meanwhile
negativing the forts altogether, and pounding directly
into Paris. The adoption of this expedient, supposing
it successful, would save the carriage of the vast quanti-
ties of ammunition which a lengthened bombardment of
the forts would necessitate. I have already given it asmy
humble conviction that a very short duration of such
practice would suffice to end the siege, and with
but comparatively little loss either of life or of property.
' _