The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-03 00:00:00

THE CAMPAIGN.

The Telegraph is disposed to question the eonndness of
the plan of the campaign generally put forth. The fact
that the Emperor established his head-quarters at Metz
is no proof that Germany is to be invaded across the
north-eastern instead of the eastern frontier. From Metz
two routes would naturally be followed by an army which
was to invade Germany, but which was precluded from
passing through Luxemburg. The first would 1e along
the line of the railway leading from Metz through
Forbach and Kasiers-Lautern to Mannheim or
to the suburb of Ludwigs-Hafen, which faces
Mannheim on the left bank of the Rhine.
This line, which is about one hundred miles
in length, runs through a succession of narrow wooded
valleys ; and, if the advance of the French was seriously
opposed, the invading force would be exposed to great
danger from the broken character of the ground, while it
would be impossible to bring large bodies of troops into
action in so confined a space. The second route
from Metz to Germany lies down the valley of
the Moselle ; and, although .exposed to attacks
from the heights on each side, a large. army might there
operate with considerable advantage. The valleys, both
of the Rhine and the Moselle,. are trenched cut through
a high table-land. On ascending any af -the lovely
gorges which debouch upon these riveray instead
of finding yourself in, .a mountain. -district, you
out upon a bare "rolling country, sparsely
wooded, and with little claim to grandeur or
even picturesqueness of scenery. Now across the
"Eifel," which lies in the angle formed by the Moselle
anti the Rhine, great armies have marched, and could
march again ; and it is perfectly on the cards that.cle-
scending the Moselle valley to Treves, the French
might then cross the table land which skirts
the river till they struck the Rhine after it
has left the gorge of the Rhein-Gau at Bonn.
The chief objection to such a route would be, that the
invaders must either keep a strong force to protect Stras-
bourg and Nancy, or else leave the -eastern frontier en-
tirekunprotected. All precedents, however, point to an
invidon of the Fatherland from some place near Stras-
bourg.

THE TWO AhmiEs.
The Emperor Napoleon, says the Times, has only led
an army with him out of France. The domestic, social,
and economical conditions of the country are not very
sensibly altered. France has been for several years taught
to dispense with seven or eight hundred thousand of her
able-bodied population. She is accustomed to a yearly
subtraction from her productive forces ; and whether her
soldiers are idling in her garrison cities or are
abroad in Algeria, in Mexico, or in Cochin China, they
are only missed each from his own family or village.
But it is otherwise on the German side. Prussia and
North Germany have now only one business in hand--
the War. All other labour and industry is in abeyance,,
and every one out of three in that million of men under
arms represents the sustenance of a family, a unit in the
aggregate sustenance of the State. What a strain a cam-
paign of more than three months' duration would bet
upon a community organised on Prussian military prin-
ciples has not yet been tried; it is an experiment from
which Prussian rulers must at all times shrink. War
brings Germany to a state of suspended animation. Were
the ordeal indefinitely prolonged, utter exhaustion must
ensue. It is in obedience to this necessity, many people
begin to think that, if the French will not go to the
Germans, the Germans must go to the French.

THE EDUCATION BILL IN THE LORDS.
The Post remarks that the " religious difficulty " of the
Education Bill was amply discussed in the Lords, and
some ineffective efforts. were made to modify the Time-
Table Conscience clause. With every respect for the
sensitiveness with which the Upper House regards this
matter, we are bound to say that many of the fears that
were expressed as to the working of this clause, were
either exaggerated or wholly groundless ; again, as to
the withdrawal of children who claim the benefit
of the conscience clause—first as to the mode in
which that claim is to be made, and next as to
what is to be done with the children who are to be
exempted from religious instruction while such instruction
is being given. This question, like many others that have ,
been raised during the debate upon the Bill, must be
settled by common sense. Where secular instruction
can be contemperaneously given to children who are
withdrawn from religious teaching it will be given.
But this is just one of those questions which
must await the final working out of the Bill, and we must
relegate it to that solution in common with other difficulties
which were raised upon various amendments, but which
only in a very few instances obtained the assent of the
House. The Bill will go back to the Commons the
same, substantially, as it left it,
i but with this difference—
namely, that the liberal spirit n which the Lords have
considered its provisions will set an example of for- .
bearance to those who, in the desire to carry out
their conscientious convictions, do not adequately consider •
that other people May have conscientious convictions as
well as they:
•

DISCRETION IN PARLIAMENT.
There is no such thing, we are told, says the Daily News,
as unmixed good or evil in this world; so,.certainly, what ,
is called the wisdom of Parliament is by no means an -1.
,exception to this rtge. On Monday night, at a tolerably
late hour, after a debate not unworthy of the greatest re-
presentative assembly in the world, and the only one that'•
happens to be actually in session at this critical period in
European l4tory, Sir Henry Hoare got up to talk
some most unnecessary nonsense about "our constant
and faithful ally, the Emperor of the French," for whom,
it seems, the member for Chelsea professes a high, not to
say a characteristic, admiration. Sir Henry regrets that
our Government has felt it necessary to ask for an increase
of 20,000 ,men, which he regards as a menace to out
"constant and faithfully ally." We have seen a good deal ,
of this sort of talk in the organs of the Tuileries of
late ;, but it is a little hard that the " 20,000 working
then' of Chelsea should be supposed to be enthusiastic
admirers of M. Benedetti's master. However, at a still
later period of the evening, Sir Henry Hoare was stir.'
passed by. Mr. Montague Guest, who, with the"
dignity of his age, and the weight of his ex.
perience, and with convivial solemnity appropriate tc
the hour, administered a severe rebuke to some " leading
journals," which, by their comments upon the Secret
Treaty, " tended to involve this country in war." It ie
not, perhaps, always easy for the best regulated journal(
to be. so discreet and guarded in their language as a legie
latex pf Mx..l4,o4aglie p,ll.4ltAuthority.