The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-14 00:00:00

BE NS O N'S WATC HE S.
" Perfection of mechanism."—Moming Post.
Gold
Silver 2to 50 guineas.
Send 2 stamps for Benson's Illustrated Pamphlet, descrip-
tive of every construction of watch now made, with their
prices.
Watches sent to all parts of the kingdom free by post, or to
India and the Colonies for ss. extra.
13 and 34, Ludgate-hill, London, E.C. Established 1749.

THEATRE-ROYAL, HAYMARKET.
Lessee, Mr. J. B. Buskstone.
THIS ETENING the pertormanoes will commence with
SOCKING EVENTS. Mr. Compton.
To be followed by THE FAMILY SECRET. Messrs
Chippendale, Howe, W. Farrell, Villiers, Buckstone, Mrs. B.
White. Mrs. Fitzwilliam, Mrs. Wilkins, and Miss Amy
Sedgwiek.
After which, a new farce,
entitled FITZSMYTHE OF
FIT ZSMYT HE HALL. Messrs. Bucketone, W. Farren, and
Rogers ; Mrs. Wilkins and Miss Henrade.
To conclude with THE ODDITIES OF THE OHIO. By
the Leclereqs

£11,850,000 to be distributed over four years,
and applied to the improvement and completion
of ten distinet fortifications. During the first of
these four years, the commissioners propose that we
should expend in this way £3,67s,ooo—during the
second year £4,3Bl,ooo—during the third year
£2,686,000—and during the fourth year £1,108,000.
Altogether, as we have said, £11,850,000, or, but
£150,000 less than the good round sum of twelve
millions sterling—to be devoted to the completion
and improvement of ten separate fortifications.
One of these ten fortified places in truth—the first
upon the catalogue—might certainly be divided
under two distinct heads, the report of the com-
missioners here clubbing together, the Isle of
Wight and Portsmouth. Confronting each other they
are not unnaturally however associated thus inti-
mately. But after the mention thus of Portsmouth
and the Isle of Wight the remaining nine are Ply-
mouth, Pembroke, Portland, the Thames, the
Medway, and Sheerness, Chatham, Woolwich,
Dover, and Cork—by the completion of which ten
fortified places within the next five years at a total
cost of under £12,000,000, barrack accommodation
would be afforded there and then to 30,580 men,
while not far from 4,000 guns (3,721 in fact) would
have been planted behind the embrasnres. With
this epitome, comprising within it the gist of the
report of the Royal Commissioners, we shall content
ourselves to-day as a commencement. Frequent op-
tunities will present themselves to us for reverting to
the many curious and important facts and figures
compacted within the compass of this portentous
official document in regard. to our fortifications.
Portentous we certainly do regard it as—under ex-
isting circumstances. The mere fact of such a pro-
position seriously coming before Parliament—the
proposition for thus expending another £12,000,000
upon the national defences, a proposition laid before
the Lords and Commons within the very year during
which we are disbursing £30,000,000 upon our land
and sea forces—the mere fact, we say, is of itself
significant. A year of peace shall we call this ?
rather let us say at once, a year in which we are
conscious of the imminent possibility of a great im-
pending war ! And to whom is all this attributable—
to what power is it zeferable ? Is it to Russia, to
Austria—to the complication of our foreign rela-
tions in the East, in Germany—in the Roman,"or
in the Iberian peninsula? No—to nothing of all
this. We are each and all of us long since perfectly
conscious as to whose is the responsibility. It is the
armed EMPIRE OF PEACE that, in the very teeth of an
intimate alliance thus is necessitating all this ruin-
ous expenditure. It is in both senses of the word
our " dear" ally across the Channel who is costing
us all this—compelling us to revive our Channel
Fleet, to spend £30,000,000 within the year upon
our military and maritime armaments, to raise
100,000 rifle volunteers, to overhaul our gunboats,

to reorganise our army, to reconstruct our
navy, to rifle or re-cast our ordnance, to secure the
improvement of ten of our fortifications by an
outlay of £12,000,000, or thereabouts. His Im-
perial Majesty, the Emperor NAPOLEON
lII.
in effect—with his 600,000 soldiers, his enormous
steam fleet, his intcrutable policy, and his grow-
ing appetite for annexation—is beginning to
force upon us the Question—is the Alliance after
all really worth all this monstrous and unna-
tural expenditure ?

Lord PALMERSTON ought to feel highly honoured.
Whom should he have, at Cambridge House, on
Tuesday, at the head of a deputation of 150 gentle-
men, comprising, amongst others, Lord ROBERT
MONTAGU, Mr. BERESFORD HOPE, and others of
the same party—whom should he have but—the
Right Honourable BENJAMIN DISRAELI himself.
His honourable opponent came there to encourage,
by his presence, the Representatives of not fewer
than eight " Church Defence Associations," and
several " Church Unions," "Church Institutions," and
so forth. Their business, too, was to praise the Go-
vernment—to urge it to perseverance in good
courses. It had done so well in proposing to ask
each man his religious profession, and each house-
holder the religious profession of those who dwell
beneath his roof—that the cream of the High Church,
and the Opposition, had done themselves the honour
of paying the Premier a visit to strengthen him in
his good resolutions. There was need to do it.
His Lordship's regular supporters are making no
little stir to get him to draw back: If his opponents
do not, for this time, give him their support, the
Premier and his Home Secretary would be certainly
left in the lurch by those who put him into office,
and have kept him there. His Lordship had to
recount to this deputation the arguments and state-
ments of a former one composed of his political
friends, which he had received but a very short time
before, strongly urging him in the opposite direction.
And, as we understood Lord PALMERSTON, his
speech on Tuesday indicated that she thought his
political opponents had a better case than his poli-
tical friends had. But as the former were approv-
ing, the latter censuring a proposal by his Govern-
ment, we must not, perhaps, wonder at his lan-