The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-14 00:00:00

the year. We shall be told that the" stores" alone
would consume this surplus, and that there are many ex-
penses which we have overlooked. Very likely; but
what we assert is that these expenses and these stores
ought to be regulated by the ascertainable wear and tear
of the navy, and nothing else; and that it is precisely in
proportion as they exceed this measure that they are
superfluous and extravagant. Shipbuilding charges
should be simply charges for repairing damages, and
supplying unseaworthy vessels by new ones—making
allowance, of course, for the possibility of an in-
creased demand upon the reserve. Let it be certi-
fied how long, on the average, a ship should last,
and what should be the effective strength of the fleet.
The calculation of the yearly wear and tear would then
be easy, and we venture to say that nothing like such a
supply as we have assumed above would be found really
necessary. Does anybody believe that a three decker,
a 90, three 50's, four 28's, and steamers in proportion,
become fairly superannuated and disabled in the course
of every successive year? We should like to see the
estimates of the Atlantic and Oriental steam fleets for
such contingencies. As to " repairs," as they are
termed, Sir Charles Napier's letter will explain a good
deal of that business.
We make bold to say that there is no single charge
in the whole expenditure of the country which is so little
defensible as this, for, as Mr. Cobden properly observed,

to appreciate its true enormity we should remember the
capital already sunk in the concern. We have al-
ready an immense provision of ships, stores, basins,
docks, and foundries. We are in the position of an es-
tablishment well settled, with its premises and ma-
chinery paid for, and its business in smooth order, so
that, in fact, the demand of 2,000,000/. is merely to
keep the concern going. ;It is the very minimum of our
liabilities; it can never be materially less, though the
smallest provocation may make it indefinitely greater.
Yet this is the charge which is allowed to pass without
exciting half as much opposition as a railway extension
Bill! Where were the Financial Reformers on Monday
evening? Our metropolitan Members have lately been
dunning us with the violence and clamour of their gas-
conades. They have formed themselves into a kind of
I " brigade" with the attested resolution of extorting re-
trenchments from Government at any hazard and any
cost. They have discarded argument altogether, and
have declared their unalterable purpose of storming
every Cabinet which shall attempt to retain certain taxes
or to substitute any others in their place. Where were
they on Monday night, when the votes were taken of
which taxation is the natural and inevitable sequel?
What became of all the platform pledges so desperately
thundered at the Marylebone meetings ? No sooner
will Sir Charles Wood appear with his unfortunate
Budget than we shall find these gentlemen running
a muck at his proposals and denouncing one impost after
another, although the expenses to be defrayed out of
them are no longer within control. But what is the use
of protesting against an outlay after the charge has been
actually incurred? and what is the value of that seal
which is only conspicuous in repudiating or eluding ob-
ligations, and becomes invisible or silent when practical
retrenchment is at stake? Mr. Cobden has laid it down
as the result of his anxious reflections that nowhere but
in these estimates can any material saving be
made. To this conclusion we suggest a corollary:—
I that nowhere but in the materiel and management of
the services is any large proposal for economy likely to
be carried. The time for action, therefore, was last
Monday night: yet an enormous amount was then voted
away with only a single division, and on that division 48
voices only were raised for economy. Mr. Cobden and
Mr. Hume did, indeed, record their protests, though
after a suicidal fashion, but not a syllable had our re-
port to show from any of those orators who, ten days
before, bad stunned all London with their vociferous pro-
testations.
We trust the Honourable Member for the West
Riding has by this time learnt a lesson of legitimate
" tactics." If his true object is really to reduce
our expenditure, and not to weaken our defences,
he caneot avoid discerning that he has mistaken
his line. It is a delusion, he says, to expect a re-
duction of outlay except from a reduction of force. The
delusion is exactly the other way. It is clearly hopeless,
as two years of experiment must have shown him, to an-
ticipate a re-adjustment of our defensive establishments
upon the scale he has suggested. We need not inquire
more closely into the causes of this result. In whatever
convictions it may have originated, the fact is perfectly
evident that he carries with him neither the House of
Commons nor the country in his proposal for cutting
down the two services as excrescenera upon the structure
of the nation. But if, instead of directing his attack upon
seamen and marines, be had made a skilful disposition of
his forces, and reserved his onslaught for the shipbuilding
charges, he would have encountered no opponents be-
yond the officials committed to the system—a phalanx
which we have seen, of late days, it is not very difficult
to overthrow. The question is not one of caprice or delu-
sion. We see where the money goes to, even before we
are presented with the bill. The facts before our eyes,
no less than the testimony of good authorities, teach us
that there is gross mismanagement, that mismanagement
brings waste, and waste taxation. Yet, in defiance of all
these plain truths, the mischief is perpetrated still, and
while one party goes after its own inventions, and another
evaporates in platform oaths, the money for which all are
scrambling is glibly voted away.
c 1 .

WHAT TO DO WITH THE SURPLUS.
Literally, the real embarrassment of the Government
has been an embarras des richesses; for the chief diffi-
culty of the Cabinet has been what to do with the sur-
plus? Had it been a deficiency the Ministers would
have been used to it, for they would only have hail to
fill up the hole in the Treasury from the public pocket,
but the surplus seems to give as much trouble as the
sewage, for nobody knows how to dispose of it. The
Chancellor.. of
first idea, and a very unhappy one, of the
the Exchequer, was to distribute it
eoeiv7ty lightly over
the country that nobody would —a principle
which, though very judicious in the case of taxation
load
where there is an unpleasant to be9
carried, is the
reverse of politic, where a benefit was to be distributed.
Sir C. Wood began dealing with his surplus as a waiter
at Vauxhall deals with a ham—
hy cutting it into such
attenuated slices, that half the taste
nothing at all, and the few, wh e receipients would
susceptiblef
have
the flavour, would onlyo might be a
relish engenderedfor o _
more. by their appetites being whetted instead of
satisfied.
As the Chancellor of the will,
Exchequer probably,
look to our pages in the course of the week for sugges-
tions for his Budget, to be dto view on
expose pu bh . .e, v.
Frid •- -
)) we will favour him with a hint or two, for which
he ought to, and perhaps will. he very mush obliged to
us. Instead of making everybody dissatisfied by in‘it-
lug the whole public to stand outside his cook's shop
and inhale the vapours emanating from the good things
within, and telling us we ought to be as well satisfied as
if we had made a capital meal, we strongly recommend
him to give a hearty good feed to those who want it
most, end trust to the patience of the rest to wait till
their turn comes. Let him take off the window-tax at
one Wow, and if there is anything more to spare, let
him devote it to introducing a principle of stanething
like justice into the imposition of the income-tex. As
this arrangement would give nothing to our unfortunate
friends the agriculturist*, and as it is unpleasant to hear
constantly the melancholy roaring of the British Lion,
wo would propose to stop that noble but lugubrious ani-
mal's mouth with a lollipop, in the shape of an equalisa-
tion of the poor-rate.
If the Chancellor of the Exchequer would proceed to
the performance of the fita.t part of our suggestion, and
hold out the promise proposed in the last, we will gua-
rantee himselt and his Budget a safe passage by the
Parliamentary Train, and a happy delivery at the termi-
nus of the session.—Punch.

The Earl of Besborough had tbn interview with Lc.rd
John Russell yesterday.