The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-07 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1856.

The " sayings and doings" of Lord ELGIN are
matters of no ordinary interest and importance at
the present time, not merely because he has made
one of our best Colonial Governors, having ruled
two of our most important dependencies with great
judgment and discretion, but chiefly because he
has been generally indicated by public opinion as
a nobleman very likely to obtain a place in the
Cabinet. It was also_ rumoured that he would,
in such position,. 'give his adhesion to the Peace-
at-any-price Party, and be prepared to accept any
conditions, however precarious or inadequate to
the just claims of the nation.

We have now had a fair opportunity of judging
for ourselves as to the accuracy of these rumours,
and we rejoice to find that the Noble Earl is per-
fectly orthodox in his political creed, and that he
participates in the sentiments by which the great
body of his fellow-subjects are actuated. He has
made his " profession" of faith in the presence of
a numerous body of his countrymen, and the
enthusiastic reception which it met proved not
only the soundness of the views of the Noble Earl
on tills all-important subject, but also, of the
municipality and inhabitants of the commercial
metropolis of North Britain. Although the very
felicitous allusions to the commercial relations
existing between Glasgow and so many of our
colonies naturally elicited high applause, the de-
monstrations were far greater when he referred to
the existing War, and the imperative necessity of
" fighting it out like men," and strongly recom-
mended that, "having drawn the sword, we should
not sheathe it till the purposes for which we had
drawn it were fully accomplished adding that,
"taking the very lowest view of the matter, look-
ing at it simply as a question of pounds, shillings,
and pence, nothing could be more demonstrably
absurd than to leave work of the kind un-
finished."

These are the opinions of the people of the
United Kingdom,
in which English, Scotch,
and Irish concur, and which they are resolved
to impress by every constitutional means
on the attention of Parliament. We rejoice to
find a nobleman in the position of Lord. ELGIN
endorsing such honourable sentiments, and show-
ing that ho is not to bo bamboozled by the flimsy
devices of " Germanism," or to exhibit any cre-
dulity as to the result of the anticipated negotia-
tions. No sharper hit has been administered to
"The cairn Johnny who upset the coach"
than that of Lord ELGIN, when declaring that,
" next to the successes of our arms, what we
have had most reason to be thankful to Prtovr-
nENeE for is, the failure of our diplomatists." we
leave the Peace Party to answer the pertinent
interrogatives exhibited by the Noble Earl as to
the practical consequences of any arrangement
founded on the famous (!) Note of Vienna, or the
interpretation given to the Four Points at the
Conference. We repeat these queries, which we
heartily commend to the careful consideration of
Messrs. BRIGHT and COBDEN, and the followers
who, led away by the prestige which once attached
to their names,
or Possibly from other less honour-
able motives, have advocated the views so sedu-
lously put forward by the different members of
the Peace Party ! They are as follows :
" What would have been our position now if
we had succeeded in inducing Turkey to accept
the proposals which we made to her in the famous
Note of Vienna, and if, after it had been too lat e

.. ~ u sG'Y 'w ~.

to mend the matter, we had found that, in point
of fact, we had secured for Russia every single
thing which Prince MENSCIIIKOFF intended to ob-

tain, the eagle of France, the lion of Greatßritain,
and the wild beasts of the other country crouch-
ing at her feet, as sentinels, to guard what she
secured ? Or what would have been our position
if, under the influence of some judicial blindness,
Russia had not refused the proposals made the
year following at Vienna, and if we had got from
her any paper arrangement such as was suggested
in these proposals, leaving her the prestige and
credit of the defence of Sebastopol?"
For the enlarged and enlightened opiaions to
which he gave expression respecting our Colonial
Empire Lord ELGIN is also entitled to great
credit. Now that all doubts and fears on the
topic of vital and primary importance have been
set at rest, we can express our deep regret that
Lord PALMERSTON was not enabled to avail him-
self of the great experience and high administra-
tive abilities of the Noble Earl when the Colonial
Department lately " went begging." We have a
high respect for Mr. LABOUCHERE, but we must
say, that if Lord ELGIN had obtained the freedom
of Glasgow at au earlier period, and had so fa-
vourable an opportunity for explaining his opi-
nions, we might now have had the benefit of
services that have already passed through so many
trying ordeals, aid that he might now be one of
the Cabinet, constituting an important element of
strength to the PALMERSTON Government ! with
abundant opportunities of ascertaining whether
the policy which proved so very beneficial in
Jamaica and Canada would insure similar results
for other dependencies sprinkled over the whole
surface of the globe, and on which the sun never
sets.

We cannot conclude our notice without referring
to a very unfair interpretation given by a morning
contemporary to a portion of the address. There
was a sneer to his allusion to the confidence which
he felt at being on board a Clyde-built ♦easel
during a severe storm. But. it was no vulgar
superstition, no belief in the "tusk" attached to
Glasgow, but a conviction founded on the know-
ledge of the soundness of the materials and excel-
lence of the workmanship given by the shipbuild-
ers, many of whom he was addressing at the mo-
ment—a very satisfactory conclusion, when his
life depended on the stability and sea-worthiness
of the vessel which " bore Elgin and his for-
tunes !"

The petition which is now being signed in Hull
is surely worthy of universal support, and ought
to be adopted everywhere. Having early, ear-
nestly, and repeatedly urged the subject of its
prayer, we can but feel gratified to see our recom-
mendations assuming a practical form. The
people of Hull insist upon two things : first, that
they are heavy pecuniary sufferers through the
War ; secondly, that the payment of tie expenses
of the War by Russia will prevent her from spend-
ing so much money in future on military objects.
The petitioners therefore pray that in any peace
made with Russia payment of the expenses of the
War be one of the stipulations.
With zegard to the first point, the people of
Hull, since it is the chief port in the kingdom for
the Baltic trade, feel the interruption or diminu-
tion of that trade more than the rest of their
countrymen. They not only pay higher prices
for the articles furnished by it, but lose their pro-
fit on their usual business. They have, therefore,
a good right to be first in pressing this plea ; but
only to be first, for we all feel the effect, of Rus-
sia's misbehaviour, in every pound of candles
we burn and in everything we use made
of hemp and other Russian materials of
our manufactures. The men of Hull suffer,
after all, little more than most of us. The
more than doubled Income Tax, the Malt an d
other taxes, the Loan, with its interest, an d
the repayment of it, are the pressing burdens.
These harass every one of us. From the poor
clerk of 1001. per annum, to the millionnaire (un-
less the latter, indeed, reimburse himself by deal-
ings in tie loans) all labour under the GLA.DSTONE
burden ; its unequal pressure on incomes from
trade and salaries rendering it, like an ill-placed
load, a double punishment to that class of payers.

We suppose there is also but little doubt that
we are to have a ten per cent. Inco me Tax fro m
Sir COMNEWALL LEwis, and one still adjusted by
the landlord or GLADSTONE scale, probably an
additional loan also. We men of co mmerce, of
salary, of literary toil must pay our full ten per
cent. on all we do receive, and much we do not
receive ; on all the bad debts even for which we
should be losers by going to law to get them ;
pay it in addition to double Legacy Duty and to
Probate Duty, which the GLADSTONS class will
not pay at all. Pay it while the loans raise com-
mercial discounts to 7 or 8 per cent. Verily if the
happy half-exempt landlords can be quiet about
the indemnity question, the great mass of other
Englishmen who have incomes from 100(. a-year
and upwards cannot afford to be so. When the
Chancellor of the Exchequer asks our assent to
his new Budget, let the reply of the whole coun-
try be, " Yes, with all our heart, provided you
mean so to miduct the War that we shall recover
its expenses at last from Russia,"
The country knows that this can be done. It
knows that it could have been done. It
refuses to believe that the naval prepara-
tions now making for the Baltic might not
have been made in great part the first year of the
War. After the NAPIEU failure it was evident to
every schoolboy what was wanted in the Baltic.
The alternatives indeed are that Sir C. WOOD
ought to be bundled out•of dace unceremoniously
as culpably incompetent; or that the Cabinet
which repressed his genius ought to be dismissed.
Even the Times assures us that the two Baltic ex-
peditions have cost the country 20,000,0001. ! !
And for what ? To point out all their weak
points to the Russians, and to make the work ten
times harder and more murderous for such an
armament as is really adapted to the purpose.
When speaking of indemnity we confess our
tender consciences have one little misgiving. It
might be unfair to saddle Russia with the cost of
all our mismanagement. She might fairly say to
US) "You might have compelled me to sign judg-
°lent) and have taken your money in half the
time and at half the cost. You proceeded as if
you were only thinking to frighten me. How
could I think you would ever attack me in tho-
rough earnest? Had
y
should have been saved theou chargesdon©that of
some at firs
two
Now, tee could not answer this.
t I
years' war."
If Sir C. WOOD and others could,
if th©y had the
face to tell Russia, "Oh, we were doing the best
we could," she might well retort, " Better for me,
then, had I made you a present of a TODTLEBEN,
and a MOIIRAVIEFF, or even a GORTSCRAIKOFF or
two ; with your means they would have given a
very different account of Cronstadt, and St.
Petersburg, and of the Crimea, too." However,
plaintiffs are not generally very scrupulous as to
the costs with which they can saddle an antago-
nist, and in the cause in which the Allies are
plaintiffs the gratuitous fraud and violence of the
defendant justify the penalty of even redundant
costs.

Respecting the second plea on which the peti-

tioner's rely, that exhausting the Russian Exche-
quer is so far binding her over to keep the peace,
its pertinency is obvious in itself, and confirmed
too well by our own experience. But for our own
enormous debt we should never have been guilty
of the enormous folly of allowing Russia to go so
far as she has done. That debt has kept down
our army and navy, and a much smaller one in a
poor country like Russia would be a very salu-
tary check on her military and aggressive ten-
dencies. It might compel her to recruit her-
self, by fostering general commerce, and abolish-
ing a prohibitory policy ; and after she had done
that a few years, she would prefer increasing her
wealth to robbing neighbours of their territory.
A truly splendid field is open to a patriotic and
unambitious Czar. With a boundless territory,
splendid river communications, and a subservient
people, nothing is needed but to renounce ambi-
tion of conquest, and to liberate the Empire's
money and men from military purposes ; Russia
might then supply all Europe with its raw pro-
duce. It would be mercy in reality to compel
her to prefer industrial to warlike pursuits.

A munificent pension has recently been be-
stowed by her most gracious MAJESTY upon Mr.
JOSEPH HAYDN, the laborious compiler of the
well-known Dictionary of Dates. A munificent
pension of-4ahem !—how much ? Can any one
guess ? Actually, a pension of-251. a year !
Otherwise, a reward of---21. ls. Bd. a month !
Or, nine shillings and sevenpence a week ! Or,
just one shilling and fourpence-halfpenny a day !
A reward for—what I' For the work of a shoe-
black ? For journeyman tailoring ? For sweep-
iv.: the staircase of Buckingham Palace, or weed
ing the gardens of Osborne, or rolling the gravel
walks of Balmoral! Nothing of the sort. In-
stead of this, for long years of intellectual labour
—years consumed, first of all, in the accumula-
tion and then in the diffusion of valuable know-
ledge ! A reward of 25?. a year, or 2/. ls. Bd.
a month, or 9s. and 7d. a week, or, as we have
said, just Is. and 40. a day, for ingenious and
laborious research among the treasures of chrono-
logy—for sedulous, and earnest, and devoted ap-
plication to the interests of literature-4for
very appreciable though not easily calcalable
service to the cause of popular instruction, the
great and good cause of National Education,
abandoned for the most part to the spontaneous
self-sacrifices of such men as Mr. HAYDN by the
negligence, or incompetence, or procrastination of
the Imperial Government ! A pension of 25/.
a-year for this ! Why, a scullion in the QUEEN'S
kitchen might look for a reward equivalent in
value, after growing old among the kettles and
pans of Windsor ! " Greasy JANE" who " keels
the pot" might aspire to the consolation of 25/.
a-year after scrubbing and rubbing, and moiling
and toiling during long years under the roof of
her MAJESTY'S buttery even in that lowly occu-
pation ! Herr SCHMAUINIZE, the keeper of
H.R.H.'s cigar-case, might almost venture to
dream of the solace of 9s. 7d. a-week, or is. 4id.
a-day, after growing grey in the selection of
H.R.H.'s Manillas, after losing his teeth, and find-
ing his eyes dim, and falling generally into " the
sear and yellow leaf " under the responsibility of
conserving H.R.H.'s match-box, or of looking after
the well-being of H.R.H.'s meerschaum! But topen-
sion off a scholar like Mr. HAYDN with a beggarly
reward (!) of two pounds one and eightpence a
month, to bestow publicly, in the face of the
nation, a weekly alms of nine shillings and seven
pence upon a painstaking student like the author
of the Dictionary of Dates, to recompense him
(literally to recompense him) for his prolonged re-
searches among the more notable memorabilia of
chronology with a wretched 25/. a-year, a miser-
able dole of ls. and 4id. a day—skis to our think-
ing to offer something very like a deliberate in-
sult to scholarship, and to subject the character
of a man of letters, to say the least of it, to
the semblance of a wilful and gratuitous de-
gradation. When shall we have an end of
these paltry tokens of the insolent depreciation
by the State of the importance, and the dignity,
and the beneficence of Literature ? Stoniest
of all the stony dates, we take it, that might be
chronicled by Mr. HAYDN, is the day upon which
his prolonged and valuable intellectual labours
were rewarded by a munificent pension of 25/. a
year bestowed upon hint, we are pained to think,
in the name of his Gracious SOVEREIGN !

MINISTERIAL AND POLITICAL
MOVEMENTS.

On Saturday evening summonses were issued from
the Foreign-office for a meeting of the members of the
Cabinet on Friday next, at two o'clock.
The Earl of Clarendon, who has been detained in town
by the urgency of public business since Thursday last,
left the Foreign-office on Saturday evening to join the
countess and family at the Grove, near Watford. The
noble earl will return to the metropolis to-day.
Sir Charles Wood will be unable to absent himself
from town, from the amount of public duty he has to
discharge in his department of the Government. Ad-
miral Sir Edmund Lyons had an interview with the First
Lord on Saturday at the Admiralty.
The Marquis of Lansdowne will continue a fortnight
longer at Bowood, to receive company, when the ♦ener-
able statesman will return to Lansdowne House to assist
in the councils of the Ministry.
Sir George Grey, whose accident while out hunting
with the B?skshire hounds has previously been an-
nounced, is going on very favourably. The right hon.
baronet has determined to remain in town for the season.
The Earl of Harrowby left town on Saturday. Lord
Panmure, the Lord Chancellor, the Right Hon. M. T.
Baines, and Lord Stanley of Alderley remain in town.

Their Royal Highnesses the Duchess of Cambridge
and the Princess Mary will leave Cambridge Cottage,
Kew, next week, for St. James's Palace, with the inten-
tion of remaining a few weeks in town.
Do'vza, Jan. 6.—His Royal Highness Philippe,
Comte de Flandres, is expected to arrive at the Lord
Warden Hotel to-night, and will proceed to town to-
morrow morning. His Royal Highness is accompanied
by his Aide-do-Camp, Capitaine de Burnell, &c.,
The Duchess (Dowager) of Northumberland is passing
the winter at her villa at Twickenham.

The Duke and Duchess of Bedford are receiving a
succession of distinguished guests at Woburn Abbey.
The hospitalities will be brought to a close at the end of
this week.

The Marquis of Breadsllyme, who is staying with the
Marchioness at Taymouth Castle, is expected to arrive
is town on the 28th inst.

The Earl and Countess of Ripon have arrived in
town from Brighton.
Sir James Parke has formally resigned his judgeship,
and Mr. Bramwell, Q.C., has been appointed a Baron
of the Exchequer in his room.
The total amount received by the French Minister of
War for the Crimean fund up to yesterday is 925,i4,5f.
28c.

The new line of railway from Vienna to Raale (Hun-
gary) was opened to the public on Christmas-day.
A. system of signals for foggy weather has just been
adopted at the light of the Pointe do Galantz at St.
Pierre et Miquelon.

Mr. Lyons, who has so ably filled his difficult post at
Rome as the unofficial representative of her Majesty, is
expected to succeed Mr. Scarlett, who has left the mis-
sion at Florence for his appointment at Rio.
THE PLUM PEOPOSITIONS.—A letter from Berlin, in
the Independawe Belle, says :—" The counterproposi-
tions of Russia are calculated to divide Germany and to
prevent the Bamberg league from inclining towards the
Western Powers, as it was feared it would. It is in
that light these propositions are considered here, where
no one believes them to offer any chance of peace."
A. letter from Vienna says :—" The Emperor Francis
Joseph recently ordered that telegraphic despatches
should be transmitted to him every day on the health of
Prince Paskiewitch. For the last week these despatches
have been regnlarly received, and after having been
communicated to the Emperor, they are sent to Prince
Gortschakoff, who does not receive any news direct from
Warsaw."

TURIN, Jan. 3.—The recruiting for the Anglo-Italian
Legion goes on very well—about -30 men per day fall in.
They are chiefly Piedmontese, of a good stamp, and many
in higher stations of life than recruits are generally. Our
Government it appears does not want more than 4,000
men. The Sardinian Government will want 13,000 men
in the spring, which will of course check our recruiting
in some measure.
The arrivals of specie last week have amounted to
700,0001., of which only 125,000/. is gold. The ship-
ment 4 have reached about 450,000/.