The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-21 00:00:00

ment and good usage. Pay men well and treat
them kindly, and you may dispense with tartar
captains and cat-o'•nine-tails for ever and a day.

One of the signs of the approaching commence-
ment of the Parliamentary session was shown at
Manchester yesterday evening, when Mr. BRIGHT
gave another of those peculiar orations for which he
is so distinguished. As is customary with him in
such cases, while founding some of his statements
on unquestionable facts, he drew largely on his
imagination to support his theories. We regret
deeply that a man of such undoubted ability and
eloquence should invariably devote his energies to
fomenting class animosities. Although Mr. BRIGHT
shares many of our views on public questions, he
carries out liberal principles in an illiberal spirit ;
his outrageous views on the peace question
are at all times ridiculous, and at the present mo-
mentous juncture they are totally unworthy of an
Englishman addressing an assembly of his country-
men. In a more mixed assembly his doctrines
would certainly not have had such a favourable
reception. An assembly of Manchester manufac-
turers in a time of peace may readily subscribe to
his pusillanimous notions; but should "the blast of
war sound in our ears," Englishmen would come
out in their true colours, and prove that,
though bales of cotton might form a good
breastwork, the timid counsels of manufacturers
would find no place in the hearts of those who
served the guns behind them. These prejudiced
reasoners forget in their vehement assertion of their
own peculiar views that they are degrading their
country in the eyes of foreign nations ; and we
have a right to maintain the national dignity when
Liverpool merchants are so wanting in national
spirit and common sense as to ask a Foreign Poten-
tate "his intentions respecting England." We
should have wished as Reformers and Eng-
lishmen that the following nassage had met with
less vehement approbation. " And after all this
alarm—after these, what shall I call them ?—these
sulphurous' leading articles in your leading
journals, after all the wretched oratory poured
forth by speakers at your rifle corps meetings,
after a succession of stimulating letters from the
Secretary at War, and the hints that you don't
know what that man over the water is going to do
—after all this you find the man over the water re-
ceiving one of your fellow-citizens—(loud cheers,
the whole meeting rising up and waving their hats)
—discussing with him the great questions of com•
merce and of peace (not the matters about which
, your diplomatists generally concern themselves),
obtaining information, considering what will be for
the advantage of the great nation over which he
rules, and of Europe and the world, of which Eng-
land and France form always so large a part."
No doubt some of the approval was intended for
the great free trade movement in France, but the
satisfaction expressed at an EMPEROR'S reception
of a citizen of Manchester was rather unbecoming
the levelling principles of the democrat. With
regard to the Reform question, we cannot help
wishing that some of his admiring audience had
subjected the eloquent orator to a little cross-
examination. Why, after so strongly denouncing
the Government measure, he had not the courage
to bring forward his own loudly vaunted
bill ? Why after his celebrated speech at
Bradford his practice did not more fully
realise his promises ? Why has the Ballot totally
disappeared from his orations ? Is it because a
Whig Ministry is in office ? Was it out of regard
to the feelings of Lord JOHN RUSSELL that he de-
. liberately walked out of the House of Commons
when Mr. WYLD tested the temper of public men ?
, Why is his tone, loud and declamatory at a public
meeting of his own supporters, so changed when
he is addressing his compeers in Parliament ?
Why does his fiery enthusiasm sink down to zero
when crossing the threshold of St. Stephen's?
Before he charges Lord DERBY'S Government with
a want of manly courage in expressing their
opinions, he had better, if he can, give a satisfac-
tory answer to the above queries, and account for
the lame and impotent conclusion at which his
grandiloquent projects generally arrive.
With regard to his attack on the warlike ten-
dency of the late Government, we consider his cen-
sure is praise. " When the DERBY Government
was in office, I grant you war with France might
have been possible, and was not improbable.
Speeches were made by Lord DERBY which, as I
knew, were felt to be grievously insulting and irri-
tating to those who are high in authority in
France." We ask, in the name of sense and jus-
tice, whether the epithet of a " den of assas-
sins" was not insulting to every man in
England ? Why are the national defences the
subject of his ridicule ? We can assure Mr.
BRIGHT that if his friend the Emperor were in
authority here his eloquence would be considerably
curtailed. " Why were all those preparations
made ? Did they suppose, because a partien-
lar Sovereign was carrying on war with a great
empire in Italy, that therefore, at that parti•
cular moment, he was likely to make an enemy
of England by declaring war against her also? Why
was it that your First Lord of the Admiralty glori-
fied himself in every speech on the profuseness
with which he was pouring out your taxes for the
increase of a navy already as large as all the navies
of all the other nations of the world ? "

We beg to inform Mr. BRIGHT that the act he
inveighs against was decidedly the most popular of
the late Administration. The navy should be the
first care of those in authority, hitherto it has
been the defence of the country, and we have yet to
learn whether Great Britain is to rely on her
wooden walls for safety, or on the special pleading
of her Liverpool defenders. Taxes for this object
A ill never be objected to, provided the
outlay ;be judicious. Mr. BRIGHT injures
the great principles whose cause he so eloquently
advocates, by the introduction of his American
mania. We are not to be taught the art of govern-
ment from a nation whose proudest boast should be
their descent from our race, and who at the
present moment afford anything but an edifying
example of the unity of democratic government.
The freedom which Mr. BRIGHT so enthu-
siastically enlarges upon would be strangely
imparted by the holders of slaves. While
acknowledging Mr. BRIGHT'S ability and
zeal and the soundness of some of his theories, we
cannot but consider that he misses the great oppor-
tunity in his reach by the uncourteous spirit which
pervades his discourses, and the extravagance and
inconsistency which mar their effect.

There is a very able article in the recent number
of the Quarterly on the Australian Colonies and
the Gold Supply, to which we would refer any
of our readers NT ho are interested in this most
flourishing of England's dependencies, but we
would warn those who read the picked morsels of
good luck which have been selected front nine
years' mining operations, that all is not gold that
glitters, and that " jewellers' shops" are not to be
found on every gold-field. It is a common saying
in Australia that one lucky find makes a hundred
beggars. The day has passed when the auriferous
metal rewarded the exertions of the alluvial digger,
who with his pick and shovel was able to make a