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

£11,850,000 to be distributed over`iour years,
and applied to the improvement and completion
of ten distinct fortifications. During the first of
these four years, the commissioners propose that we
, should expend in this way £3,67s,ooo—durin g 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 embrasures. 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 referable ? 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 ',he 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-
guage.

The question is really a very simple one. Will
Ministers be obstinate or not against their own
supporters ? That is all. No principle is at stake ;
and it is simply, therefore, for Lord PALMERSTON
to consider whom he had better try to please. No
man in his senses will contend that it can serve
any important purpose to catechise all the house-
holders of the kingdom, all the hotel-keepers, all
the governors of gaols and workhouses, on their
own religious profession, and that of those
under their charge. If, therefore, the obnoxious
question t e persisted in, a very large num-
ber of Members of Parliament, and of electors, will
feel themselves wantonly aggrieved, and will be
certain to resent the insult, some day, in a way
perhaps very inconvenient to a Minister. Even
without considering the merits of the case as a mere
piece of political or party prudence, it would seem
absurd to the last degree for any Government to be
pertinacious in opposition to a considerable number
of their own friends on a point of detail like this.
The Opposition could not reasonably ask Lord
PALMERSTON to persevere in what his own friends
opposed, and those supporters of the Government
who do not themselves dislike the Home Secretary's
schedules must be the last to wish that their leader
should create for their sake a schism in their body.

Every one knows that a provocation is rarely
measured by the essential importance of the matter.
Sometimes its very triviality makes the persistence
of the aggressor the more annoying. We have a
strong impression it will be so in this case ; to Lord
PALMERSTON it seems a very trivial thing, indeed,
to answer the question—What is your profession ?
What is that of your household ? That may be.
Yet he has also seen that gentlemen of all classes
and religious denominations have declared they
hate the question ; one M.P. saying that, sooner
than ask all the servants in his family, and
all the guests in his house, what was their
religious profession, he would pay any penalty.
This feeling is very common. Wp confess
it is our own. What have we to do
with the profession of all the persons in our office ?
and we are sure the Government has, if anything,
even less to do with it. They may be Methodist
class leaders and attend revival meetings, or be the