The Sun.
London, England, 1870-09-09 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 18 70

that they had had enough of fighting. It must be
remembered that the war was endorsed by the
French people originally, and that even the Liberal
leaders declared that they would sink their opposi-
tion to it, in order to aid France to obtain
the victory. They, therefore, became responsible
for the war, and would have shared in the fruits of
a triumph if the triumph had been theirs. It must
be remembered, too, that at the present time M.
FAVRE boasts of having an army of 300,000 men in
the field, who Fill continue the war until the bitter
end, it the victorious enemy will not accept terms of
peace from the vanquished. There never was a
more unreasonable proposal. It is impossible that
it can be entertained.

chequer, who always declared he had no money for
the purpose.

THE WAR AND THE WORKING CLASSES.

The working classes of this country are under-
' stood to strongly protest against the continuance
of the war, and a movement has been initiated
by which orgrinised efforts will be made in the inte-
rests of peace. The stupendous folly of fighting
for personal ambition or territorial aggran-
i dise,luent has, it appears, suggei4ted itself
to the popular mind, and in confor-
mity with a determination arrived at by a
meeting of working men in London, 60,000 addresses,
urging the people to resist any further warlike action,
have been distributed throughout the country, and
the responses are said to be highly sate..
factory. A second meeting of working men was
I held the other night in the metropolis. Muoh
sympathy was expressed towards France with its
Republican Government, and the prosecution of the
war, seeing that the Empire w7lB at an end, was once
more generally considered unjustifiable. A resolu-
tion was, moreover, agreed to, hailing with satisfac-
tion the re-establishment of a Republics, as a mea-
sure calculated to lead to a speedy end of the cam-
paign.

Consider the next argument. The French people
desire to live in peace with their neighbours, and to
jet Germany manage her own affairs undisturbed by
French jealoasy. So says M. FAVIIR. Be speaks
for himself and his colleagues. Is he certain that
he san speak for the whole nation? Even if so, can
he glarantee that the wish of to-day will be
the wish of to-morrow, to say nothing of
ten or twenty years hence ? What security
can he give that the Third Republic
will be longer lived than the seoond, or that a few
months hence France will net have fallen under the
control of a military dictator whose first object will
be to restore the prestige which France has lost in
this disastrous campaign? We have not the smallest
doubt that the present Government earnestly
and honestly desires to live in peace with all
other Powers, but the present Government is a thing
of to-day, and may be gone before Christmas,
may be succeeded by a Government as warlike as

that of the First Consul. Since Waterloo France
has had revolution upon revolution, each successive
Government repudiating the policy of its prede-
cessor. It is impossible, therefore, for Prussia, or,
indeed, for Germany, to accept the peaceable assur-
ances of the present Government as of any perma-
nent value. It is easy to believe that if the
German troops were to evacuate France at once
General Tnocnu would not attempt to restore the
lustre of the French arms by a campaign on the
Rhine. But King WILLIAM and his allies have to
make terms, not with the Government of National
Defence or any other Government, but with some-
thing stable and permanent, with France itself.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.