The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-17 00:00:00

L)NboN, WEDNESDAY., DECEMBER 17, 1868

Political Economy is really after all one of the
emptiest phrases imaginable as applied to the con-
duct of our vaunted scheme of administration.
Political extravagance, fiscal profligacy, financial
squandering, would literally be more appropriate
phrases-...phrases more directly applicable to the
principles in
vogue almost from time immemorial
in the general. system adopted amongst us for the
working of the complicated machinery of our mixed
fovin of Government. If there be in one or two
discrepant particulars a miserable and most dis-
creditable "show"
0, f
cheese-paring parsimony and
flint-skinning retrenchment—there are discernible
elsewhere superabundant proof, proof positive and
incontrovertible, of the most Shameless wata and
of the most prodigal ut
ex_en,.
p ture. We don't
allude here to the grievances
complained of a
great deal more than nine hundred and
ninety times previously
—those of mil-
lions of the public moneys lavished during
generation after generation upon the
basards
born from the concubines of some of the most
licentious of our Sovereigns. We doe't•allude to
the retention among the bauble P'n'aPl' of the
Court of expensive offices of no earthly use what-
ever nowadays. • We don't allude to the pen-
sioning off with monstrously exaggerated sala,-
.ries of diplomatic minnows and Parliamentary
tritons, never of much profit to any one, and at
length, in the long evening of their careers, a
decided incumbrance to the Commonwealth. Re-
ference is made, when we speak as we do now, to
Ilene of those old, notorious, threadbare griev-

at
ances—grievanees as notorious to the nation
large as the filth of the Thames is to London ;
but, . alas, not so easily to be swept away
by the purifying influences of some most oppor-
tune commission. We allude now to that mon-
strous and systematic violation of all the first
principles of Political Economy to which our
contemporary the Times has, to its great honour,
pointed a conspicuous dexter-finger of indictment.
It is insisted by the Uwe:3, with a reasonable-
ness but few Jobbers even, however inveterate,
will have the temerity to contradict,
that there is something at once crirni-
in the wholesale man-
ual and preposterous
ner in which the materiel of the late war is being
sold at little more than nominal. prices to the
dealers hanging about our arsenals and dockyards.
As assuredly it is. For it must be remembered
that this very materiel, now selling at nominal
prices, bas but very recently been purchased
from contractors, at a period of great emergency,
at a cost involving on the part of the country the
most enormous clisloursements. Line-of-battle
ships, we all know, are allowed to rot away after

i the lapse of years without ever having been of the
slightest use in open water. Contingents of Ger-
mans and Italians, raised, recruited, clothed,
armed, drilled, fed, housed, instructed at an
odious, because above all things a needless, sacri-
fice of money, are disbanded 'without ever raising
a hand against any one but our own countrymen.
Palatial " Follies" are built up and pulled down
at the whim of a Majesty or a Royal Highness, as
the ease may be—without any other remit than
the bills ultimately " entered" by builder, deco-
rator, and architect. These extravagances are
familiar, more or less, to the whole mass of the
population and have been descanted upon
accordingly u3que ad nauseam by journalists,
M.P.'s, and pamphleteers. But the " Sales of
Stores" advertised of late by the Government ?
Provisions—rice, meat, coffee, biscuits, cocoa,
wine, preserved vegetables : Clothing—fur caps,
fur coats, buffalo robes, boots, waterproof raiment:
Implements—nails, spades, shovels, pickaxes :
Means of Conveyance—mules, horses, carts,
waggons, • harness, saddlery—in short, all
the motley, manifold, multiform, nyateriel of
War ! How about all these things ? How ?
Why, that having bought them up when too late
at an immense cost, we are now selling them off
again dirt cheap—for next to nothing, as the
phrase is—to any one who cares to profit by the
folly of the Government. So that our Adminis-
trators actually reverse, in regard to the Adminis-
tratiOn and its doings, the golden axiom of
the Free - Trade Apostle Buying in the
Cheapest and selling in the Dearest Markets.
Instead of this positively, as it were, buying in
the Dearest for the express purpose of selling in
the Cheapest ! And that sorrowfully be it said,
in the words of the doleful comic song—
" That's the way the money goes !" England
squandering upon war expenses alone, in the
year ending with the terrible ides of March,
1856—the year of the Deplorable Peace—hard
cash to the tune of just 62,000,000/ ! To what
end ? To the end that Russia should be com-
pelled to yield no -indemnity. To the end that
Serpents' Island should be flagrantly seized in
the teeth, no, be it observed, rather in the tooth-
less gums of the Paris Conferences ! To the
end that Sebastopol should be again built up
from its ruins ! Our floating batteries useless.
Our fleet of gunboats—(never used)—forgotten.
The Italian Legion and the German Jagers dis-
banded. And last, but not least, all our costly
stores scattered to the winds of heaven with an
open hand of shameless and profligate extrava-
gance !

Amidst the din of sects and the wordy and too
often bitter contentions of ecclesiastical champions
it is pleasant to meet every now and. then with a
true Christian hero—a man who cares not for
renown but for doing good, and who seeks not the
honours of a cheap and party martyrdom, but
quietly risks the real perils which martyrs before
him have encountered, that he may attain the
objects which they sought. We have just lost one
such man, a sincere believer in that faith which
the vast majority of the inhabitants of this island
regard as a superstition, and which, as taught by
thousands of its priests, doubtless is so. A more
outrageous superstructure to build on the sim-
plicity of the Four Gospels than Popery can
hardly be imagined, yet a PASOAL, a FENELON,
and a Father MATHEW have been men of the
purest lives, the simplest yet noblest aims, and
the embodiment, in very different lives, of a Chris-
tianity to which the most bigotted could not
refuse their homage. True, their names are not
worthy of a place in the Romish calendar, but
they will never fail of a place in the real C ttholic
Church. However we may distrust the principle
of resting moral reformations on a formal pledge,
and however we may regret the too general return
of Irishmen to their former habits, yet who now
questions the elevated and philanthropic motives of
Father THEOBALD MATHEW ? His gentle persua-
sions became at last a force which completely
carried away the rude passions of his wild coun-
trymen. Even a temporary triumph, a triumph
real enough, however, to beggar the distillers, his
brother amongst them, was a truly wonderful
victory over the most irresistible of all tempta-
tions ; and the rabid intolerance of Orangeism
itself was compelled at last to confess that it was
gained by weapons worthy of a Christian minister.
If the myriads who thronged around him trusted
to something magical in his prayer and blessing,
it was their fault, not his. Peace to his gentle,
philanthropic memory ! It is the property and
the honour of Christendom and humanity.

Yesterday it was our duty to record the willing
honour done to another noble man, the soul of
whose interesting labours was zeal for the diffu-
sion of his faith. Of a Christian persuasion at
the very antipodes of that to which Father
MATIIEW belonged, the same modesty, the same
indefatigable perseverance, the same superiority
to the trammels of sect, have marked his course.
Dr. LIVINGSTON is a Christian Missionary, be-
longing, if we are rightly informed, to the Inde-
pendents, but belonging also to us all ; belonging
to his race ; and desirous, not to carry through-
out the interior of Africa the peculiarities of his
Church, but the glorious peculiarities of our com-
mon faith, as distinguished from Fetischism and
every form of Heathenism. Philanthropic aims,
like those of Father MATHEW and Dr. LIVING-
STON, seem inevitably, perhaps unconsciously, to
expand the understanding and to teach the heart
genuine catholicity. The meeting of last night
must have been composed of gentlemen distin-
guished by their creeds, as well as for their science
and social standing ; yet, like Lord ELLESMERE on
a previous occasion, they found pleasure in re-
cognising the motives which impelled Dr. LIVING-
STON to explore where no traveller before had
trod, the mysterious interior of intertropical
Africa, and did honour to his higher vocation,
While proud to number him among the recipients
of the Royal Geographical Society's gold medal.
So far as we have yet heard, Dr. LIVINGSTON,
p
in his travels over eleven thousand miles of
theo
interiorwith h
ofis Africa, used no other wea-
ns
fellow-men than those by
which. Father MATHEW tamed the wild Irish.
They were found
equally efficient against the wild
tribes of Africa.
He relied, he tells us, on his
rifle for food, but on .
his defence. Singularly h
enough
mission i ohne o f
foundpe 3
tribe o r
of natural Quakers ; they always submitted to the
tribes which master the
adjacent country ! He
he t
describes, with much interest, conditionof t: e
conti-
nent
the negro tribes in the very centre
: it seems their deference to their women
surpasses the Chivalry of Europe ;
th© negroes
consult their women on all occasions, and obey
them too. They swear also "by their mother,"
while other less gallant races swear "by their
father ; " and for himself he had good experience
of the kindness and attention of " the fair sex.,,
How different his views and reflections to those
of PIERCE'S slavery-men, while passing among
them. Noting with humane pleasure their better
qualities, and with high pleasure indeed their ver3r
general knowledge of England, as " the tribe tha t
likes the black man." He found domestic slavery
known in the interior, but the brutalising traffic,
not existing ; and was obliged to confess that the

nearer the negro tribes were to Europeans, the
more savage and corrupt they were. He relies on
Christianity and commerce to render permanent
the result of our slave-cruisers' efforts.

There is scope for commerce. Fibrous sub-
stances of "excessive strengch," wax, honey,
quinine, senna, were among the natural products
of the country. Indigo grew wild in great abun-
dance, and was, in fact, a weed. The sugar cane
grew abundantly, though the natives were igno-
rant of the use of sugar. Metallic Ores and coal
were abundant ; and even gold had been obtained
by washing from time immemorial. " The country
was so fertile that in the gardens cultivated by th€
natives, a constant process of sowing and reaping
went on all the year round. It likewise grew im-
mense quantities of grain." Such is the land to which
the Doctor invites the attention of our commercial
men. A country which, to the north of the 20th
degree of south latitude, is not arid and parched,
as generally conceived, but intersected and well
watered by deep rivers ; abounding in game, of
species yet unknown to the naturalist, and so
unused to the gun that they stand within bow-
shot to be shot. Dr. LIVINGSTON has done his
part for commerce ; it is for Manchester and
Liverpool to show their enterprise by following
his footsteps.
Mr. GORDON CUMNIIMG and Dr. LIVINGSTON had
bum old friends in Africa ; and they met again on
Manday night. The Portuguese Minister was also
present, and expressed himself much gratified to be
entrusted with the task of conveying the thanks of
the Society to the Portuguese Governors on the
African coast, who had showed much kindness,
and rendered useful assistance to the traveller.
A traveller indeed—he had for sixteen years used
his native tongue so little that it cost him some
effort to express himself with fluency. May he
long be spared to continue his valuable labours in
the cause of civilisation, science, and religion.

The " bright particular star," Plan B*, was
yesterday adopted by the Metropolitan Board.
Plan B, which is certainly no constellation at all,
might have been adopted. So lot us be grateful !
To be sure, the star the Board swear by is a
flickering rushlight, and we can't see our way by
it. What of that ? It is somewhat to have
proof that the roving affections of the Board are
fixed on something not wholly identical with
itself at last.

On the whole, it was perhaps the best decision
it could come to. Its poor wits have wandered
so much of late that had Major LYON'S amend-
ment been carried, there was a seasonable pros-
pect of a commission de lunatic° inquirend• being
appointed by the House of Commons, and then
the Board, as Deputy HARRISON seems to appre-
hend, must be shut up. This, however, is not
so dire a catastrophe as to have induced us to say
what we have said respecting the decision arrived
at. We must be interpreted after a different
fashion. The plan, though an improvement on
the original Plan B, appears to us a radically bad
one. Had another engineer been called in by the
Board we should have had a further waste of
time, and in all human likelihood no better plan.
Plan B, with the star of the Order of " Go-
a-little-further but not-far-enough " on its
breast, is now in the hands of Govern-
ment for consideration. On the decision
it arrives at depends the solution of the great
drainage question, a solution in which the pecu-
niary interests at least of the metropolitan tax-
payer and the sanitary welfare of the population
down the river are seriously involved. Govern-
ment has not merely to consider whether or no
a half-measure should be adopted at the mortal
cost of the people of Erith, and elsewhere lower
down the Thames ; but also whether this parti-
cular half-measure is, or is not, an abortion, a
plan so miserably concocted as, if adopted, to be
some millions worse than no plan at all.

We do not exaggerate the matter in the least.
The unbiassed reader has but patiently to peruse
our report of yesterday's proceedings, including
the protest handed in by Mr. BOULTON, to satisfy
himself on this head. Apart from every
other consideration, and there are others nu-
merous and most important, we put it
to him,—ls this a plan which ought to satisfy
any rational human being? Admit, for the sake
of argument merely, it is right to discharge the
sewage at Erith, still, we ask, are there reason-
able grounds held out for faith in its being adapted
to carry away the sewage of the metropolis to the
point contemplated ? Most conscientiously do we
put the question, for ground of faith we can dis-
cover none. Turn which way we will we can
discover no way of escape from a frightful humi-
liation and waste of expenditure on the part of
the metropolitan population save in the wisdom
and generosity (we do not like the word, but use
it we must) of Government. We would not wager
a copper farthing that the levels of the adopted
plan are so taken as to insure the sewage run-
ning the right way. We would wager as little
that the pettiest storm will not blow up the tun-
nels, and inundate the neighbouring localities.
We have no faith of any sort in the reservoirs.
Our reason for giving a qualified approval of the
adoption of the plan agreed on, must now be
obvious. The Drainage Question is virtually
placed in the hands of Government. It is for
Government to decide whether or not a half-way
measure shall be carried out, and if its decision
be in the' affirmative, whether the plan recom-
mended by the Board is, or is not, that measure.
May it be led to a righteous decision in the first
particular. It were an insult to doubt what its
decision with respect to the second is likely to
be—when, in addition to all we have stated, must
be appended the admission of the Engineer, that
the plan is not suited for carrying the sewage
beyond Erith should such a measure be found
necessary. Out of his own mouth is his plan
condemned ! What next?

Recent intelligence from the United States
goes far to confirm the correctness of the view
advanced in these columns as to the probable
policy of the coming President. And this in
-two ways : viz., the more authoritative character
of the rumours current respecting it, and the dis-
c•losures made as to the disturbed condition and
alarm of some of the Slave States. One of our
New York contemporaries publishes a letter from
Washington, iu which the assertion that Mr.
.3BIPCHANAN'S policy will be eminently conservative,
ind, as far as slavery in Kansas is concerned,
based entirely upon the will of the people of that
to rritory, is reiterated. This, we admit, may be
b• at guess work. Its importance consists in the
v iew of the writer being corroborated, according
) our contemporary, by all those the Editor has seen
rho have visited Wheatland or come in contact
with friends of the President elect who have been
there, and also by a letter he has had shown him
I _from a statesman of high standing in the Demo-
,eratic party, to the effect that ultra measures and
t tltra men, both at the North and South, will be
gnored by the incoming Government. The
movements and intrigues of the rival factions of
the BUCHANAN party, as graphically described by

the first-mentioned writer, have also an appreci-
I able weight in the way of confirmation. -That