The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-16 00:00:00

during the late Indian campaign against the
Bengal mutineers—Dr. GORDON, C. 8,, late of the
10th Foot, a man whose notable combinption of
energy and ability has so recently won for him so
muchhonourable distinction—had shortlybefore the
last mails left Hong Kong, having been nominatei
additional Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals
to the Expedition ! Dr. GORDON having, immedi-
ately upon his nomination to that responsible post,
made arrangements for forwarding all the sick and.
wounded who might require change of climate (no
such exceeding improbability at Kong Kong!!) to
our Cape Colony—where they will be duly re-
ceived into the spacious Sanitarium recently esta-
blished there at Constantia.

It is not—let it be remarked at once—simply
that the first of the three routine signal cries has'
been uttered (and acted upon) exclusively ! " Make
Ready" has certainly been heard yonder towards
the north of China—ringing like the clarion of a
trumpet—reverberating along the ranks of the allies
—echoing from ship to ship. We ourselves here
at home may hearken to the resonance of the
command—and recognise, even at this distance,
the promptness with which it has been answered,
by the gathering of the French at Chefou and of
the English at Talien-whan, and of both together
in the Gulf of Pechele. " Present"—is audible
next—if only in the announcement conveyed by
these last mails to the effect that upon the very
morrow of their departure Lord ELGIN was to sail
in the Feroze steam sloop-of•war, and Baron
Gios the day afterwards in the Saigon—
both of their Excellencies taking Shanghai as their
rendezvous! The next tidings will give the
third signal for the third Chinese war—(" the
third" being " the charm ")—FIRE ! The rever-
beration of the answer given to that signal being
tolerably certain (we may rest assured) to be echoed
back from the walls of Pekin across Asia and
Europe, to the bearing of 1,800,000 Parisians and
of 3,000,000 Londoners—to the Allied 75,000,000
of Frenchmen and Englishmen.

If there be one mode of national defence on
which all England is agreed, it is that of Volun-
teers. We must leave Sir FREDERIC SMITH and
Lord PALMERSTON to fight out the question,
whether fortifying Portsdown Hill will soon be
regarded as a Portsdown Folly, or whether it will

be reckoned a wise step. Sir FREDERIC SMITH
and Sir JOHN BURGOYNE are both opposed to it,

and they of all men ought to know ; but the Prime
Minister is the responsible judge in the business,
and he says that Portsdown Hill cannot be forti-
fied by earthworks at a fortnight's notice.

But whether we build fortifications at Portsdown
and elsewhere, or not, we shall still need the. men
to man them. The annual cost of garrisons, or of
an army on foot sufficiently large to spare garri-
sons, would soon far exceed the first cost of the
works. If we agree to build, we ought to agree
also to train Volunteers, or we are only agreeing
to a charge which will prove so intolerable that we
shall soon give up in disgust the maintenance of
the men which alone can render the fortifications
of any avail. Volunteering is the taste of the day,
and the Government would be highly criminal
which did not do. its best to encourage the move-
ment. We confess we have often been surprised
at the folly of Mr. COBDEN and the Peace party in
ridiculing this movement. They know that it is
hopeless to persuade the nation to dispense with
an army—if so, we can hardly conceive of one to
which the opponents of standing armies and the
almost fanatical advocates of peace can so little
object. First, and chiefly, as Manchester would
say, it is cheap. Next, it cannot serve purposes of
foreign ambition, except very indirectly ; and,
again, it certainly would, as much as anything,
deter any enemy from going to war with us. The
Peace Society ought to give every volunteer a
medal, and to inscribe on it the old, very hacknied,
Latin motto which we need not repeat.
There is one branch, however, of the subject to
which nothing like adequate attention has yet been
directed. We mean that of interesting the artisan
and labouring class in the movement. It seems
likely to spread fast enough among the trading,
agricultural, and professional classes ; but no suffi-
cient effort has been made to enlist the co-operation
of the bone, muscle, and sinew of our working men.
Why is this ? Are the men distrusted ? Are we
afraid to put arms in their hands ? Do we look on
them as a kind of Scpoys who would need to be
watched by a more trustworthy class ?
_

This can hardly be the case, for the troops of the
line are the very same class of men ; and it is noto-
rious that their discipline and training has a ten-
dency the very reverse of such perfectly groundless
fears as we have mentioned. It will not be denied
that the soldier has much more strongly than the
artisan the sentiment of loyalty to his Sovereign.
He is, directly, the servant of her MAJESTY—a
QUEEN'S man ; and, if more formidable in case of
mutiny, yet his tendency to mutiny is the smallest
conceivable. It becomes to him disgraceful. It
runs counter to all the habits and notions he has
acquired. lie may, perhaps, always be relied on
to act against a turbulent mob who are defying
the QUEEN'S authority. Now, the volunteer,
though not barracked off from the people—and so
much the better for his health and morals—is, in so

far as he is a soldier, under the same influences as

troops of the line. He is the QUEEN'S servant.
He has officers bearing her commission. He is
pledged by an honourable engagement which it
goes against all his feelings to violate. Above all,
he learns habits of order, of implicit
obedience, and comprehends, by practical experi-
pnce, the vast advantages of rational subordination.
Scores of noisy Chartists would have made loyal
volunteers, who would have been prepared to say
to disturbers--" this will not do ; get to your duty,
and then you may be listened to."

We sometimes fear that unworthier motives fre-
quently influence other minds. We have known
country lords express their dislike of working men
being good shots ! And the men have a marvellous
tendency to become so. Many of their operations
require great correctness of sight. Only think of
the ploughman steering his implement across a
long field with such nicety that close inspection
cannot detect a swerve ! It might be very incon-
venient to have such a shot as he would make, with
his rifle in his hand, within one or two hundred
yards of a hare or a pheasant ! That is one thing ;
but, we reply, the volunteers' habits would not be
those of the poacher. _ _

Another latent objection—one which nobody
concerned thinks well to talk about is—the effect
of extensive volunteering on patronage. It is easily
foreseen that Horse Guards' patronage and volun-
teers are in an inverse ratio. The more of one the
less of the other. Just at first the difference might,

indeed, be but little felt ; but it is obvious that
heavy army estimates would not be long tolerated
if every district was its own defender. Now we
know our old routinists can never believe in the
efficiency of volunteers. All they have seen in the
American war, all they now see under GARIBALDI,
all they saw of the Hungarian armies extemporised
by KOSSUTH and beaten only by two Empires and
treason—all will not convince them of the real
superiority of the volunteer fighting for his native
land and his fire-side to the duly paid and perfectly