The Sun.
London, England, 1856-07-14 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, JULY 14, 1856.

The Military Secretary of H.R.H. has at length,
happily for England, tendered his resignation.
Don't, for HEAVEN'S sake, let us allow the oppor-
tunity to slip away from our grasp—that of hav-
ing nominated as the successor of F. M. the Lord
Viscount HARDINGE some one who will be less
disposed than that gallant Nobleman to allow the
Commander-in-Chief- ef-the-Forces to become a mere
puppet with its secret strings and wires held tightly
by the hand of a Royal Highness ! A soldier
made of sterner stuff than goes to the formation
of that most plastic, and elastic, and infinitely
squeezable of State-dolls—A Courtier—is wanted
just now more than ever in supreme and tho-
roughly independent authority at the Horse
Guards. Remember the Warning solemnly ad-
dressed to his fellow-countrymen by the Hero of
Kars almost the very moment after he had set
foot again upon the sacred soil of our glorious
fatherland—the impressive Warning that England
should never mere allow the ratification of the
terms of a most precarious peace to render her in•
different to the maintenance of her military as
well as of her maritime strength ; to render her
careless as to the future condition of
her army ; to render her apathetic as to
the efficiency of . its general organisation.
Every one surely' still recollects it very vividly.
For the voice of CASSANDRA herself was never
raised in accents more prophetic and authoritative.
'Woe to that nation—woe to that nation which
accumulates wealth without attending to the
keenness of the arms that are to defend it ! Sir
"Penh' car...'Wmults,' in thus calling out aloud
" Beware" to his compatriots (upon the instant of
again appearing amongst them), reminded them
with very comprehensible significance, that he did
so as one who, on hastening back from the seat of
War, had passed through " armed Europe" on his
way homewards. Never, perhaps, Was warning
more timely than this, as never before, we do
seriously believe, was the direct application
of implied advice render() i more immediatey
practicable than at the present mom
at the important juncture, we mean, in the mili-
tary affairs of England, consequent upon the op-
portune resignation of H.R.H.'s Military Secre-
tary.
Who is to be his successor ? " That is the
question !" No more courtly gossip now of
H-R.H.F.M.P.A. buckling on the armour worn
once upon a time, in the days of the giants, by
Alumna, emphatically the Duke of Wellington !
It is not every liop-o'-my-thumb who on and a
miraculous fit in the Seven-league-Boots. 1 iS
not every pigmy, even, who can don the shoes of
swiftness, or wield the sword of sharpness, and
(so accoutred) do battle with the Titans still walk-
ing the earth in the shape of Error and Igno-
rance. And so —it actually does come to
pass that nobody seriously entertains the
notion of H. R. H. openly grasping the iron
baton of command that fell from the dead ham!
of WZLLINGTON in 1852, and that has never since
then been wielded in aey way otherwise than by
moans of a certain pliant and adroit piece of
courtly mechanism ! An automaton just fallen
into disorder—never again, let us hope, for the
sake of the strength, and stability, and reputation
of ow Government, never again after this to be

seriously set agoing ! Yet while there is no
longer any talk about the Prince Consort assuming
the ;vacant post at the Horse Guards, there is

audible a Court whisper about Lord HARDINGE
being possibly succeeded by H. R. H. the Duke
of CAMBRIDGE ! It is for all the world ike setting
aside "six" for the purpose of insta'lng "half-
a•dozen." It is giving the nation the delectable
advantage of an alternative popularly known as
HOB3ON'S CHOICE ! It is nothing more nor less
than offering us the reverse side of the same

medal ! The ruse is altogether preposterous.
Nothing, merely, of the Court, Courtly, must
henceforth be tolerated in regard to our military
organisation. We must neither have installed at
the Horse Guards H. R. H. the Prince, nor
g. R. H. the Duke, nor yet again for that mat-

ter—that " most obedient humble servant To
Command" H. R. H.'s Secretary ! Why not

overlook, upon rare occasions like these, the rigid
etiquette bound up in the stubborn system of
mere military precedence. " The, Right Man in the
Right Place "—Cry of the Diy though it is, is no
uew cry after all. It is literally only identically
the very system that was acted upon for fifteen
years in every department of his vast scheme of
Imperial Government by that great Emperor and
King, L4wgiver and Conqueror, NAPOLEON BONA-
PARTE. It is the secret strength and wisdom of
every strong and wise Administration. And never
at any time or in any department has it been
more urgently required to be acted upon than
nowadays in reference to the Horse Guards.
" The Right Man in the Right Place !" Like
DIOGENES, let old Farmer BULL go forth with his
lanthorn—and a million to one, but (very unlike
DIOGENES) he stumbles upon him at the' first
street corner. There are patriot soldiers to
be found, on our right hand and on our left, if we
will but look for them—Comlanders prepared to
enact the parts at once of Capt. Sword and Capt.
Pen at the behest of their own sound judgment,
rather than in obedience to the whims of any Royal
Duke or Prince C.msort, whose names can be any-
where foundin the pages of theAlmanachde Gotha.
Courtiers, mere courtiers, have been pitclaforked
before now into places of power and responsi-
bility. Why cannot we, for once, have a ma/I\of
the Camp rather than of the Court, selected upon
this momentous occasion as the successor of
H.R.ll.'s Military Secretary ? A soldier chosen
solely for his merit rather than because of any
ornate handle-to-his-name ! An administrator dis-
tinguished by his probity rather than by his sub-
serviency ! Does not the Cap (anything, in de-
sign, but like the famous ALBERT Cap !)—does
not the Cap, as we have sketched it—fit—Soun-
BODY 7

Not, we fear, the popular hero of the day, by
whom so much has been done, and from whom in
proportion so very much was expected ! Not,
we grieve to think, the honoured head of General
Sir FENWICK WILLIAMS, of Kars—as we should
otherwise have believed, but for the manner in
which that gallant veteran has contrived to slip
into Parliament ! For has he not already dwin-
dled politically upon the very threshold of the
House of Commons—into the mere nominee of a
Whig Marquis ? Now that the Earl of SHEL-
BURNE has been summoned to the House
of Lords in his father's barony of Wy-
combe of Chipping Wycombe—has not the
Hero of Kars consented to hang round his neck
the badge of the LANSDOWNE; in his capacity as
M.P. for the borough of Calne—at the very time
when his gallant breast was but just newly covered
with so many glorious and heroin decorations?
Alas I that our favourite hero of the War and of
the Peace should no sooner arrive in England
from the scene of his great historic achievements
than he drops into the bathos of the partisan, than
he consents strangely to pocket an affront in ths
shape of a pocket borough, than he forgets forth-
with, politically, what ROBIN BURNS has sung as
" the glorious privilege of being independent !"
Sic transit gloria mundi—from behind the battle-
ments of Kars to a snug little seat behind the
Treasury Benches in the Lower House of Parlia-
ment I

The motion of which Lord JOHN RUSSELL has
given notice for this evening will bring the whole
of the Italian question under the consideration of
the House of Commons. It is true that the
Noble Lord only asks for " copies, or extracts,
of any recent communications which have taken
place between her MAJESTY'S Government and
the Governments of Austria, Rome, and the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, relating to the
affairs of Italy ;" but this involves the whole
matter, and offers a sufficient handle whereon to
hang a long and animated debate.
The subject is unquestionably one of deep irate•
rest, not only to the beautiful but deeply afflicted
and oppressed land referred to, but to Europe
and the civilised world. It is one that contains
the elements of future disturbance, and which,
unless it be judiciously managed, may again lead
to war, with all its horrors and inevitable sacii-
flees. It is, therefore, of immense importance
that the popular branch of the Legislature should
assert its own independence, and require full and
complete information, before the Prorogation, as
to the course hitherto adopted and the line of po-
licy intended to be pursued during the Recess, so
that there may be no danger of again " drifting"
into hostilities. Let the people know what
are the intentions of :he Government, so that
they may be either approved, or promptly and
decidedly repudiated.

Thiiltalian question, like that of Poland, was
virtually shelved at the Parisian Conferences.
Count CAVOITR, with a degree of energy and abi-
lity that gained golden opinions for himself and
the gallant nation which he represented, intro-
duced the subject, but Count Buor, was suffered
to fling a wet blanket over the discussion, and to
get rid of the inconvenient topic at the only time
when a satisfactory solution of the difficulty watt
practicable. The golden opportunity was thus
:cy,t ; but the hopes of the Peoples were excited,
and feelings produced which cannot easily sub-
side, and which, unless some decided action be
promptly adopted, may produce results of
a very serious description. King BOMBA, has
manifestly hardened his heart. He has proved
beyond the possibility of doubt that there is but
one species of persuasion to which he will yield.
Remonstrances, written or verbal, are treated
with the most profound contempt. He bas re-
solved to." do as he likes with (what he considers)
his own," and diplomatic correspondence, under
such circumstances, is worse than useless. It only
offers a loophole for procrastination and evasion
until a serious disturbance becomes inevitable.
So is it likewise with the Papal State. Cardinal
ANToNELLI has taken counsel with BO3IBA, and
with him has decided on rejecting all interference.
The Austrians, too, continue their military occu-
pation:, despite the authorities in whose name they
profess to act, while the Grand Duke of TUSCANY
still displays the same slavish subservience to sacer-
dotal domination. Nothing can avert a terrible
explosion but speedy concessions. The prompt
interference of Piedmont, the chosen champion 'of
all reasonable and moderate Italians, may prevent
are volution, the effects of which cannot possibly