The Sun.
London, England, 1856-02-19 00:00:00

was maturing his plan for denuding the Exche-
quer of its balances by paying off some ten millions
of the public debt. This " valuable financial
demonstration," as it was termed, which was only
less injurious than the intentional destruction of
a large proportion of our navy, on the ground
that we could tight Russia with what remained—
convinced the CZAR that we could not be in ear-
nest in our seeming opposition to his wishes. He
consequently persevered until too late to with-
draw without a loss of prestige which he was not
prepared to relinquish. Thence in a great degree
the crossing of the Pruth, and the measures which
eventually led to hostilities.

During the first year of the War, it was starved
because Mr. GLADSTONE refused a lean, and
wishing to disgust the people subjected them to
intolerable fiscal burdens. Last year his succes-
sor asked too little, and the same evil was clearly
perceptible, and now he disturbs the Money Mar-
ket for a paltry five millions. This won't do !
and we earnestly hope that the grievous mistake
may receive the censure which it so eminently
merits from the guardians of the public purse,
the controllers and directors of the National Ex-
penditure. There is yet time for an expression
of opinion by the House of Commons before the
terms be finally concluded.

Sir R. AIREY, together with other notable offi-
cers in the British Army, including among their
number two Cavalry Earls and a Court Colonel,
may be regarded as, at this moment, virtually on
their trial before the highest con% of judicature in
the realm—i.e., Public Opinion. Anything calcu-
lated in the smallest degree to throw additional
light upon their proceedings—proceedings im-
pugned so very seriously by the deliberate accusa-
tions recently put forth by Sir JOHN M'NEIL aad
his co-Commissioners--oannot, we conceive, be re-
garded as otherwise than of the very first import-
ance. Here are distinguished members of the
service, men entrusted with high authority, upon
whose shoulders the weightiest responsi-
bilities have devolved by reason of their nomi-
nation to positions of extraordinary difficulty,
solemnly charged—charged directly and explicitly
with the wanton destruction of the forces en-
trusted to their safe-keeping—either by the most
wilful cruelty or by the most lamentable incom-
petence. The accusations lately directed against
Sir R. AIREY need not be here recapitulated. Any
more than it need be recounted in this place, all
over again, what are the particular faults, now of
commission, now of omission, imputed by Sir J.
WNEIL and his coadjutors in the inquiry, on
the one hand, to the Earl of LUCAN, as the Chief
of the Cavalry, and, on the other, to the
Earl of CARDIGAN, as one of the most re-
sponsible of his Lieutenants. The dreadful
narrative of the winter of 1854-5 is familiar to
every one—the awful narrative of suffering and
death, of exposure and starvation by which the
flower of the English army was considerably more
than decimated, was actually, in several instances
so to speak, wholly annihilated. The Committee,
in No. 17, gave us last session, noon after noon,
the miserable particulars. Those particulars
have since then been massed together in a blue
book of portentuous dimensions, giving us proof
after proof, categorically, of the heinous and
criminal incapacity of the leaders of our troops
under the walls, or rather under the earthworks,
of Sebastopol. -

Nobody wants to be told now about
,he green coffee served out to the unfortu-
nate soldiers—about the seven miles of impas-
sible slush separating them from shelter, clothing,
and provisions—about the planks sent out for the
making of.huts without the vestige of a nail or of
a hammer—about feet unshod and frostbitten in
the snows of that disastrous season—about sum-
mer uniforms in rags in the midst of a Crimean
December, and fur; and overcoats, and bearskins
tailing up at last when the crocuses were budding
among the ruins of Inkernian and over the
grassy slopes of Balaklava. Every one remembers
all the details to this effect, by the piecemeal
revelation of which the mothers, and wives, and
sisters, and daughters of the heroic sufferers in
the East were horrified at home, and panic-
stricken even through their first bewilderment of
mingled incredulity and indignation. The record
of the horror existed throughout England at the
disclosure, demands at this moment no repe-
tition. It is remembered vividly as a thing
of yesterday. It has been burnt into
the popular recollection by the caustic eloquence
of the Times Correspondent to be afterwards
seared anew upon the national heart by the fiery
ordeal of Mr. ROEBUCK'S Committee of Inquiry
into the State of the Army before Sebastopol.
What is required now, is not a recapitulation of
facts already proven and catalogued, but some-
thing (may be) in the way of supplemental illustra-
tion of the neglect branded afresh upon the
memory of us all by the burning words recently
pronounced by Sir JOHN M'NEIL and his brother-
Commissioners. Can anything be added to what
has already been declared in these matters by the
authorities empowered to investigate and pro-
nounce by her MAJESTY'S Government—anything,
we mean, in t:e way of this same supplementary
or illustrative corroboration ? Let us see !
And, remember ! we are speaking hero by the
card, and not at all at random—what we
are about to add not having yet to our
knowledge anywhere made its formal or printed-
appearance. Suppose—for-we will put it only in
the way, of course, of a cursory supposition ! Sup-
pose such provident wiiseacres as General AthEvand
Colonel Go RDON so miss-managed affairs generally, in
the midst of the whiter 1854-5, that they caused
!welve pairs of long boots (at the time when there
were thousands of such boots in store) to be issued
to 500 men, say of tin, 77th Regiment, those 500
men being, then and tbs are, actually nearly all of them
barefooted ! Suppose the colonel of the regiment
(and imagine him, jun t for the'sake of argument,
to have been a galls nt, noble-hearted, glorious

soldier, such as the fan aousiliero of the Rifle Pits,
the dauntless and late tented EGERTON)—suppose,
we say, the colonel of the regiment to have taken
these twelve wretched pairs of boots to Colonel
AIREY (the brother, of the sagacious Quar-
termaster-General), then acting as Assistant-
Quartermaster-Gener nd of the Light Divi-
sion, and to have thereupon asked (we will
presume as a in we matter of curiosity),
what in the name of fortune was to be done with
this dozen pair of)fang boots among 500 bare-
footed soldiers? Su pi )ose the aforesaid Assistant
of the aforesaid Qtsartermaster-General to have
responded in terms, of befitting imbecility, and
appropriate insolic;ance, and kindred absurdity
_to say nothing, of ccYlu.Se) about such hard truths
as cruelty and criminality--" Why, I should give
theret, if I were y'ou, to the men on sentry !"
Suppose the Coloriel thus answered (still we will

press one him to have been, simply, to be sure, for
the Lake of argument, Col. EGERTON, the heroic
lemle rof the gallant 77th, suppose him to have
retorted, with soldier-like bluntness,—" So ! the

/men goir ig on sentry are to walk out barefooted to

their pc ,sts, strip off the other men's boots, and
et em walk back to the trenches in the

same , vay !"—a reply bringing the whole affair

toth e t rue reduetio ad absuiduni. Suppose all
this, ;in 3 repeat ! Well, and. what then ? Why

;hat ye )1 I will have supposed an incident which