The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-11 00:00:00

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awhile longer before legislating (as he argued) 1
precipitately upon the matter involved in the
measure then under the consideration of the House in
Committee, was really and truly, to our thinking,
one of the most powerful arguments that could
well be adduced in support of the reasonings of
those who would insist, like ourselves, upon the folly,
and

cruelty, and injustice to the gas consumers of any
Anther procrastination. The argument referred to
being no other, than that the bill in question
affects property (directly) to the value of £6,000,000
or £7,000,000, and that the property affected by it
prospectively amounts, it is calculated, to " about
half the amount of the National Debt," otherwise
in round numbers to about £400,000,000. All the
more reason therefore, surely, why property to so
vast an amount should not be left by the Legis-
lature, to be dealt with according to the
whim or caprice, or rather it should be said to the
greed and avarice of an unscrupulous monopoly.
What, upon this point, were among the acknow-
ledgments made very frankly to the House of Com-
mons by the right hon. gentleman the chairman of
the Select Committee, from whose inquiries and de-
liberations, as we have said this ill-starred mea-
sure directly emanated ? Why, Mr. ESTCOTJRT
plainly and explicitly avowed, last night,
in so many words, that the whole of the
Twenty-two Gas Companies " obtained their acts
upon the understanding that the principle of com-
petition was to be acted upon, and for years com-
petition was carried to a great extent, but in 1856
and 1857, having probably exhausted their re-
sources, they thought it would be better to come to
an understanding, and thereupon combination took
place of competition !" It is certainly strange after
this that Mr_ EsTcOURT should go the length of
bearing testimony (quite unasked) "that there was
no ground to blame the conduct of any of the com-
panies !" This volunteered testimony, coming from
him all the more amazingly, when it is immediately
afterwards added by the right hon. gentleman
that—" if hereafter any vestry or private consumer
should have reason to complain of the quality of
gas or of the amount supplied, there would be for
them, as matters stood at present, no remedy.
They could not," he said, " if dissatisfied with one
company, fall back upon another, because the com-
panies had an agreement among thewselves not to
compete with one another in assigmed districts."
Now, in that one fact of a combination—of a
combination regularly organised among . all the
Twenty-Two Gas Companies—there is one all-
sufficient and overwhelming reason why in
regard to these conflicting interests of the
Gas Companies and the Gas Consumers (the
companies being Twenty-Two and the gas con-
sumers counting by the Million) there should be no
further impediment whatever in the way of whole-
some and long since absolutely requisite legislation.
The five exemplary and laborious gentlemen of the
Select Committee have pottered quite long enough
over the question at issue. They sat, as we know,
twenty-one days (nearly a day for each of the me-
tropolitan gas companies)—they asked a great
variety of questions relevant and irrelevant to the
chief matter under consideration—they duly made
their report, and out of that report, as the butterfly
from the chrysalis, as the bird from the egg, came
in due time this luckless Bill now seemingly
doomed beyond redemption to die the death
prematurely among the battu of so many
callow Parliamentary fledglings. This inten-
tional or unintentional connivance at the monopoly
of the Gas Companies, representing from
£6,000,000 to £7,000,000, is a cruelty, a mockery,
and a direct injustice to the Gas Consumers, repre-
senting property to an amount very nearly in-
calculable.

Our living fortifications ought, after the hint we
have had, to be the first object of our statesmen's
attention. The encouraging fete of the last week
has revealed to us the secret of our true national

defences, and the Government will be culpable
indeed which neglects it. The country will never

tolerate an increase in the cost of the army, that is
certain. Indeed, the thirty millions a-year,
and the shilling income-tax which impends over

us, will be instructors from which the tax

payers will soon learn again the lesson
of economy, or of readjustment of taxation, or both,
till either expenses will be reduced, or the land-
holders will have to submit to equalised taxation.
Feudal exemptions and enormous expenditure will
not long co-exist.
We now see, however, in what way the e.ll-im-
important object of security against invasion may
be attained. It is no longer—' sit was six years
ago, when we pleaded almost alone for the
Victoria Rifles—matter of theory and reason-
ing; the thing is done. Even the Horse Guards
are convinced, and General PEEL, who gave Volun-
teers the cold shoulder at first, now desires to have
all that forgotten, and to rank amongst the be-
lievers. All the " authorities" are advocates of
Volunteers and Riflemen, now that her MAJESTY
has reviewed them, and fired the first shot in our
Tir National. It remains for us to give full effect
to a discovery as simple, and as pregnant, in its
own line, with consequences, as that of the
principle of Free-trade itself. Indeed, we can
hardly conceive of two more fitting companions
than self-reliant commerce and self-reliant defence.
The nation which, since it has been thrown on the
individual energies of its people, has mere than
doubled its trade and commerce, will, when
thrown upon the energies of its citizens for
self-defence, rapidly double its military strength.
Far more, indeed, than that. We see no
obstacle whatever to the creation and maintenance of
a million or two of Volunteers, any hundred
thousand of which would sweep from the earth the
largest army which an enemy could disembark.
But we must encourage ; we must afford faci-
lities; the object is national, and just those aids
must be provided by the national Govern-
ment which will sate the ' Volunteers need-
less expense and trouble, and which will cost
the country little. We should deprecate anything
that interfered with the purely Volunteer character
of the movement. Any payment for time, or any-
thing that put a penny into any one's pocket. But on
the other hand the Legislature and the administra-
tion of the country should jealously watch that the
sountry's Volunteers should be put to no expense
which can be avoided. Two or three things occur
at once. Legislative facilities can be pro-
vided for the hiring or purchase of land for
practising and for the erection of butts.
Rifles can be, and ought to be, provided for indi-
viduals who cannot well afford them, of course
under proper but yet generous precautions. And
as we pay a host of drill sergeants already, the cost
of providing them ought not to be met by the Rifle
Corps, though the efficient teachers, we may be
sure, would not fail to receive the gratuities
which no Englishman can be hindered
from giving. Whenever a sufficient num-
ber of Volunteers can be found, there, we con-
tend, the Government ought to have its drill ser-
geants, and its rifles. The latter to be sold to all
who can afford to make one their property, at cost
price, and to be loaned to all others for practice;
remaining, perhaps, at other times, in the charge of