The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-03 00:00:00

NAVAL AND MILITARY POWERS.

The Economist thinks one of the most certain conse-
quences of this war is a great diminution in the French
fleet. For many years France must be very poor. She
will have to pay her own costs in the war and Germany's
too—say at least £150,000,000 or perhaps £200,000,000.
This will add from £10,000,000 to £15,000,000 to the
annual charge of her debt. But the Second Empire has
never made both ends meet ; there has been a serious
excess of expenditure over revenue almost every year. It
will be impossible to raise a new 10 or 15 millions by an
increased taxation. France will not endure an income tax ;
her indirect taxation cannot be much increased ; a great
further sum can hardly be obtained from the peasant pro-
prietors. Economy is the natural resource, and France
can save much better in her navy than elsewhere. In the
army France will hardly like to economise much. She
has failed now as a military power so completely and so
grossly'that she must wish soon to have another war and
try her chance again. If she loses territory, she will all
the more wish for a war to regain that territory, She will
not like to spend a shilling less on her army ; perhaps she
may spend more. But she has no equal motive
to maintain a great navy. It will not help her
to efface .' the stain of this defeat ; her fleet in
the Baltic did nothing to hinder her sustaining it. A
single corps d'arWe of the Prussian army has been five
times as efficient now as all the costly ironclads of France.
Nor do the colonies, the ships, or the commerce of France
require such a fleet for their protection. We have learned
from this war that we cannot he a great military nation.
Now we see what first rate war is ; we know that we
have not soldiers enough for it, and that without changing
all our habits we cannot have them. And France must
earn that she cannot be a great naval Power. If she
wants to keep a great place as a military Power, she must
devote all her forces to the purpose, for it will strain them
hard.

We learn from the North China Herald that one
of the victims of the Tien-tsin massacre was a young Irish
lady—a Miss Alice Sullivan.

The Bishop of Manchester, in opening a new day
and Sunday school at Walton on Friday, took occasion to
urge Churchmen and Dissenters to sink their religious
differences, and to work harmoniously in the common
effort to educate the people.

Captain Grier, commanding the detachment of the
89th Regiment at Tipperary, has telegraphed to the Irish
Times that the statenient of mutinous conduct having
been exhibited by the men of the company quartered
there, is untrue.

A new torpedo is to be tried by the War Department,
which intends to spend upwards of £4,000 in altering the
steamer Oberon for these further trials. The work is to
be performed by hired hands, who are to be specially
entered at Chatham Dockyard.

The mode of deciding on the appointment of a
Slade Professor of Fine Art in the University of London
has not yet been fixed, but no decision on the sub-
ject will be made before November. The new Schools of
Art, at the north end of the London University building,
are making progress.

- - -
The 7itnes states that the company of the Old
Testament Revisers brought their four days' session to a
close on Friday, after making satisfactory progress and
settling many questions which will accelerate their rate of
working in future. Th Bishop of Lincoln has been com-
pelled by the pressure of his diocesan labours to withdraw
from the company.
The "three Graces have been playing some
extraordinary cricket in Gloucestershire. Mr. W. G.
Grace hit three sixes off three successive balls. Dr. E.
111. Grace scored 211 (not out) in one innings, during
which he hit the probably unprecedented number of
eleven sixes. Mr. Frederick Grace struck a ball with
such force that it went clean through a lady's parasol like
a cannon shot.

In reference to the loss of the Captain, Mr. T. J.
Buckton writes to Notes and Queries, suggesting the
adoption of slidinc, keels. He says :—" I have sufficient
knowledge of hydrostatics and pneumatics to assert that
this loss of the Captain, under the circumstances stated,
could not have occurred had the sliding keels been
adopted, notwithstanding bad constructive designs and
bad seamanship."