The Sun.
London, England, 1870-07-20 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1870,

IT is curious to remark how instantaneously every-
thing else has become subordinated in interest and
attraction to the all-absorbing consideration of the
stupendous war which is now darkening over
Christendom. In France itself the trial of the con-
spirators at Blois, hitherto looked forward to with
considerable eagerness, has suddenly lapsed into in-
significance. Among ourselves, though happily
having nothing whatever—as yet, at any rate—
to do with the conflict upon which the
French and Prussians are just now entering in
terrible eari*st, it is a matter of especial satisfaction
that the brunt of the work of the Parliamentary
session is already well through, seeing that otherwise
we should have had but a very divided attention to
accord either to the Irish Land Bill or to Mr.
FORSTER'S tentative scheme of National Education.
The more enthusiastic of the Ultramontanists
themselves will admit that it is (to express it in
the mildest phrase) at least just as well that
the discussion upon the dogma of Infallibility
had been so far got through in the (Ecumenical
Council, before Europe had all of a sudden known of
the existence of such a person as the Prince LEOPOLD
of HOHENZOLLERN ZIGMARINGEN. And although,
comparatively speaking, the war between France and
Prussia has no influence over the New World, it
renders at once a theme of a very secondary im-
portance whether Mr. MOTLEY is to be succeeded
as United States Minister at the Court of St. James's
by Mr. FISH, as was yesterday confidently expected,
or, as is known to-day for certain, by Mr. THEODORE
FRELINGHUYSEN.

Added to the terrible interest which must always
attach to a collision between such gigantic powers as
France and Prussia, lookers-on have a consciousness
that the struggle now beginning between those great
and formidably well-matched belligerents has about
it two or three appallingly exceptional characteristics.
The war between them is one which springs from a
long-uppressed and, most deadly animosity. Evi-
dence of this is being manifested now from
day to day with frightful distinctness, through the
passionate eagerness for the commencement of the
encounter manifested alike in Prussia and in France,
alike in Paris and Berlin, indiscriminately by all
ranks and classes of the population. A Paris ! is the
cry everywhere of the usually phlegmatic, but now
impetuous and impassioned, Prussians. A Berlin !is
simultaneously the watchword, en avant, among
the always impulsive but now almost enraptured
and entranced Parisians. Differences of political
opinion have abruptly vanished among the hitherto
most contentious political circles in France. The
Debate is to day as warlike, as uncompromisingly
warlike, in tone as the Constitutionnel. It is no
longer that France is peopled with Imperialists, Or-
leanists, Legitimatists, Republicans —it ispeopled with
anti-Prussians. The " Chant du Ddpart " is still, we may
say, the national anthem; but tho direction implied
is no longer the east, but the north; the drift is to
the Rhine, not towards Syria. Revolutionary hymns
are transformed upon the instant into fierce invita-
tions to war under the imperial eagle and the tri-
color. The sublime "Marseillaise " and the impas-
sioned " Mourir pour la Patrie " are mingled freely
with shouts of "Viva Napoldon! Vive l'Empereur "
Added to the hatred of the Prussians by
the French, and vice versa, the hatred of the French
by the Prussians, there is a consciousness among us
all that when these two great military nations,
trembling with eagerness for the encounter, "cry
havoc, and: let slip the dogs of war," the havoc this
time, if only by reason of their rival arms of
precision, will be something altogether abnormal,
will be something appalling in its devastating
and desolating fury. There are the Prussians
with their wonderful needle-guns, by the aid
of which whole battalions were reaped down,
like ripe corn under the sweep of the sickle, at
Sadowa ; added to which they have now their
Getting guns, a sort of Pan's pipe, making most
deadly music, throwing one-inch shot or shell as from
a Fiechi-machine of artillery. There are the French,
too, on the other hand, with their withering Chasse-
pots casting a blighting storm of conical bullets, in
numbers almost ad libitum, whithersoever the muzzles
of the guns are turned—while armed yet more formida-
bly than with the Chassepot the soldiers of NAPOLEON
have that terrible mitrailleuse invented bv MONTIGNY,
that " weapon of the devil," as one might call it,
scattering death not from ten only, but from seven-
and-thirty barrels, at the sound caused by which
and by those others, the Prussian " organ pipes of
burnished arms" we shall all too soon hear "that
loud lament and dismal miserere ! " audible to the
poet's imagination years ago in the Arsenal at
Springfield.

IT is difficult to understand why the growing
feeling in favour of an Irish Parliament should excite
the hostility which it has aroused in England. It is
but a few months ago that we applauded FRANCIS
JOSEPH for recognising the fact that he is King of
Hungary as well as Emperor of Austria, and
therefore sanctioned the assembling of a Hunga-
rian National Parliament at Buda - Pesth.
Unfortunately we have not yet learnt the
rule that with what measure we mete it shall be
measured to us again, that the policy which we
approve when other nations are the subjects of it
will be applied to us in so far as our condition
resembles theirs. Independently of that considera-
tion, there are many others why we should view
with equanimity, if not with absolute satisfaction,