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

certain dignity and consistency, withholds his name
altogether from the division list upon what he deems
(while not opposing it) to be the first of a series of
trivial and impotent resolutions. There is perfect
consistency, too, about the silence and the vote of
the right hon. gentleman the President of the
Board of Trade. If we say nothing whatever about
the dignity either of his silence or of his vote, we
may at any rate venture upon asserting that
there.is discernible in their regard an undoubted
consistency. But in regard to the speech and
the vote of the right hon. the Chancellor of
the Exchequer! There certainly are discernible
—viewing vote and speech together —neither
dignity nor consistency. Mr. GLADSTONE, in his
bold, almost audacious, speech of Thursday even-
ing, gave utterance to what we cordially pronounced
yesterday to be " noble words," in themselves !
But—supposing his vote of last night to be fol-
lowed by nothing whatever of that " action," which
he insisted on as absolutely necessary after what he
had denounced as a " gigantic innovation"—his
vote and his speech must be regarded, we repeat,
(when viewed together), as entirely devoid both of
dignity and consistency. The right hon. gentle-
man has before him a distinct alternative—it is
an alternative of his fabrication. Either he
must make good his loud•spoken promise of
"action," or he must escape from the ignominy
of Ministerial insignificance by manfully resigning.
He has frequently before now had to eat his own
words—he has eaten enormously of them during
the present session, when he was pledged to rid the
nation at last of the incubus of the Income-tax, and
when, upon the contrary, he doubled it ! And at
the mere anticipation of having thus publicly to
eat his own words, it will be remembered that he
got a sore throat that gave him a momentary re-
prieve very opportunely. It now remains to be seen
whether, in addition to all this, Mr. GLADSTONE is
prepared, within this same year, to show that he
has appetite for eating "humble-pie" meekly at the
united bidding of Lords aid Commons, of the Op-
position and the Government !
The jealousy with which the House of Commons
has always hitherto regarded any attempt upon
the part of the House of Peers to infringe upon the
sacred and inalienable privileges appertaining to
the popular representatives, we are not prepared to
regard as waivedor even relaxed by the proceedings of
yesterday in St. Stephen's—by the resolute close
there and then of the discussion, by the overwhelming
majority in favour of Lord PALMERSTON'S resolu-
tions. IN hile Mr. BRIGHT could invoke so
grandiosely—and with such a reproachful signifi-
cance implied in the mere denunciation of those
renowned patriots and historic statesmen—the
shades of PYM, and COKE, and SELDEN, and GLEN-
VILLE—we cannot but remember that there, upon
that division list of yesterday, are names, not one
jot less worthy of acceptance as earnests, severally
and unitedly, of deathless devotion to the interests
and the principles of constitutional liberty—as
guarantees (beyond even the words of Mr. BRIGHT
and the actions of Mr. GLADSTONE) of a steadfast
loyalty to the whole scheme and fabric of our Con-
stitutional Government. That fabric, as Mr. HORS-
MAN eloquently reminded the House and the coun-
try, during the course of his masterly oration in
support of the Premier's Resolutions—that vene-
rable and vaunted fabric of our Constitutional
Government is not one but tripartite; it combines
within it the blended energies of the King, the
Lords, and the Commons. And of this elementary
truth at the root of our Constitutional form of
Government, the result of last night's proceedings
may be regarded as the latest, and not the least,
notable enunciation.

A careful perusal of the report of the Defence

Commissioners will satisfy any reader that these

gentlemen have gone both thoroughly and consi-
derately into their work. Their single business

was to consider and report upon the state of the
Kingdom, more especially its dockyards and arse-
nals, in reference to a sufficient defence against in-
vasion. They were to have a due regard to works
already begun or authorised, and, not of course to
overlook reasonable considerations of expense. Their
primary object was, however, to inform us what

works were actually requisite to put the dockyards
and arsenals into such a state of defence, that we
might feel no fear for these essentials to our mari-
time safety.

The Channel is, indeed, as they observe at the
commencement of their report, and as we all of us
well understand, our first line of defence ; and a
Channel fleet, thanks to successively earnest Lords of
the Admiralty, we now have. Bat of what use would
a Channel fleet be to us, in case of an invasion,
if it had to leave a great part of its strength to pro-
tect Portsmouth and Plymouth against surprise,
or against the bombardment and destruction of the
arsenals. With a large part of our navy absent, as
it must ever be, on foreign stations in Europe and
in the colonies, we could, not without an enormous
feet indeed, be able to protest our 300 miles of
assailable coast, and our dockyards, too, by the fleet
alone. Yet protected the latter must be. They are
the base of operations, indeed, for a fleet. In them
all repairs after an action must ee made, and to them
our ships must resort to obtain fresh supplies of
naval stores. It must be plain, therefore, to every
judgment that a reasonable channel fleet can be at
liberty to concentrate its strength on an invader,
only on condition that its nautical, home, and re-
cruiting place are in perfect safety.
A pretty careful reading of the report, and the
evidence, has satisfied us that the commissioners have
done their work well. It is indeed for 119 to consider
whether we prefer an imperfect security, such as
the works already in progress will furnish, or as
perfect a one as the nature of the case admits
of. The latter it was the business of the Com-
missioners to point out to us, and they have done
it. They have set out from Woolwich, visited in
succession Chatham, Sheerness, Dover, Ports-
mouth, and the Isle
of Wight, Portland, Ply-
mouth, and Milford Haven, and then crossed over
to Cork, and they have given us for each
place piers of the minimum defences required for
security against bombardment, either by sea or
by land; and, against capture, for the purpose of
complete destruction. It is obvious that all three
are objects not only possible, but natural, for an
invader to attempt. A few well placed guns,
either in a battery on shore, or on the decks of
gunboats lying at Spithead, would infallibly set
our arsenals in a blaze, and would give us a vivid
picture on our own shores, of the mischief our
mortars did at S weaborg.

But what must we be doing, some may say, to
let them place batteries and gunboats in a posi-
tion to effect such inischiof? Let us see. We

have but to make one supposition, that an enemy
had disembarked on some part of the undefended
300 miles of coast, a sufficiently large army to be
able to spare a small detachment to throw up- and
maintain a mortar battery within five miles of
Portsmouth, which with its present defences might
be done with perfect ease ; and with rifled artillery
they
might blow up and burn everything there
Which was combustible. Now there is no manner
of doubt that with the aid and certainty of steam,
fi
fty thousand men might be landed in three or four