The Sun.
London, England, 1866-06-19 00:00:00

(From the Morning Post.)

At the close of an animated debate the House of
Commons divided early this morning on a motion
which struck at the root of the Ministerial measure
of Reform. Extraordinary efforts had been made
by the Government and the Opposition to secure
the attendance of every one of their respective sup-
porters, and, as a natural result, the house was full
to overflowing when the question was put from the
chair. The speeches which concluded the debate
were received with manifestations of more than
ordinary impatience, and all seemed anxious to pre-
cipitate a division which it was believed would de-
termine the fate of the new Reform Bill. In a
house composed of 624 members, inclusive of the
Chairman and Tellers, 315 supported Lord Dun-
kellin's amendment, and 304 recorded their votes
against it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated
that he would announce the intentions of the Go-
vernment at the meeting of the house to-day. In
the presence of so large a majority against them it
is difficult to imagine that any other course is open
to the Ministers but resignation.
(From the Daily News.)

Whatever may have been the motive of Lord
Dunkellin in proposing the amendment which was
last night submitted to the House of Commons,
there can be no doubt as to the feelings of the ma-
jority which supported him. Their object, in which
they have succeeded, was to throw out the bill, and,
if possible, the Government with it. It is true that
Lord Dunkellin left open the question of the quali-
fication to be finally selected ; but the scope of his
amendment must be judged, not by his professions
and intentions, but by the undisguised sentiment of
that part of the house on which he depended for
support, and by the amendments which followed
his own upon the notice paper, and which did what
Lord Dunkellin refrained from doing, and fixed the
amount of the borough franchise.
(From the Morning Herald.)

Mr. Gladstone takes a view of his position as
leader of the House of Commons which is peculiar
in more than one respect. The eminent men who
have occupied that high post before the member
for South Lancashire have regarded it as their chief
duty in that capacity to conciliate the good-will,
consult the fair requirements of all sections of the
house, and to maintain and enforce those rules
which the house has agreed to for the proper and
convenient carriage of business. Mr. Gladstone, on
the other hand, ostentatiously insults the Opposi-
tion, arrogantly disregards the rights of independent
members, and, what is, if not so offensive, very much
more inexcusable, violates the rules of the house and
takes liberties—for so we must call them—with the
Speaker and the Chairman of Committees unheard
of before his time. Last night an impertinence of
this kind was summarily punished. Mr. Gladstone
repeated his declaration that the Government could
not accept the amendment, and the house divided
to pass the amendment by a decisive majority, and
dispose, if Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues act up
to their declarations, of the bill and the Ministry.
We congratulate the house and the country on this
signal triumph of the constitutional cause.
(From the Morning Advertiser.)

Last night the time of the House of Commons
was again devoted to a discussion on the Reform
Bill. The point at issue on this occasion was
whether the £7 borough franchise should be based
on rating or rental. The bill of the Government
recognises the principle of rental, whereas the
amendment of Lord Dunkellin was that it ought to
be based on rating. The amendment was stoutly
opposed by all the members of the Govern-
ment who spoke, and it was maintained on
the Liberal side of the house that a £7 rating
franchise would practically be a £9 franchise. On
a division, Ministers were defeated by a majority of
11, the numbers being—For the amendment of Lord
Dunkellin, 315 ; against it, 304. The result of this
division will be fatal to the bill, for Mr. Gladstone
explicitly stated that it would be so immediately
before the division. Whether he also meant that it
would be fatal to the Government remains to be

seen. We shall know before another day has passed
which way it is to be.
(From the Morning Star.)

To the last the Tories have been true to their
false tactics. They fought and won last night a
battle after their own hearts—a battle in which the
real issue was not the nominal issue—a fight in
which a mere tittle of administrative detail was
made the subject of a discussion ranging over the
whole field of the great constitutional question that
awaited Parliamentary settlement. It was no fancy
picture of alarming contingencies that Mr. Bright
drew in the peroration of his last night's speech.
It is not long since Earl Grosvenor declined to vote
against the Government because he dared not take
the conduct, of foreign affairs out of their hands.
Since then war has actually commenced. But it is
not only the danger of embroilment in war that is
incurred by the defeat of the Reform Bill. There
is the further danger of wilfully avoiding those acts
of grace and good understanding towards the
people which would render innocuous, so far as
England is concerned, all the events, however con-
tagious and inflammatory, of continental warfare,
which, beginning in the unbridled ambition of
princes and statesmen, may result in an unlimited
liberation 9f peoples and the re-establishment of
revolutionary ideas. A more unfortunate moment
for a Ministerial crisis can hardly be imagined. Nor
could such an event have been occasioned by any-
thing more ill-omened than the rejection of the mild
enfranchisement clause of a moderate Reform
Bill.

THE PRUSSIAN ARMY.

(From the Times' Military Correspondent.)

BRESLAU, June 15, 7 a.m.

The Band has passed the Austrian motion for the
mobilisation of the armies of the Confederation
against Prussia. Prussia has declared that she con-
siders herself no longer bound to the Confederation,
and the commencement of hostilities appears now
to be only a question of a few hours.

Heavy masses of Prussian troops are drawn toge-
ther on the northern frontier of the kingdom of
Saxony ready to advance at a moment's notice, if
requisite, against Dresden. In Silesia the army has
hitherto been scattered in cantonments at various
points along the frontier, but yesterday it has been
concentrated to a great extent between Briez and
the frontier. Whether the Prussian concentrations
are for offensive or defensive purposes no one even
now dares to pretend to tell certainly ; but probably
those in Saxony are for attack, as far as Dresden is
concerned. Those in Silesia may be intended to pre-
pare either for an advance into Moravia, or to op-
pose an anticipated attack by the Austrians from
that quarter.
The railways are swarming with troops. It is
evident, too, from their appearance that Prussia has
made great exertions in order to place the army she
has in the field on a war footing. Boyish recruits,
who seem hardly able to carry their knapsacks and
arms, and grizzled landwehr men, who have long
left the ranks of the regular army, are equally en-
rolled
in the regiments which have lately been sent
to the front. At every railway station detachments
of soldiers either get into or out of the trains, and
everywhere can be detected the busy stir and feverish
bustle which forbodes the gathering together of an
army for battle. Daylight thiz morning was ushered
in by a slow, drizzly rainfall, which soon made the
roads moist and sloppy ; but marching detachments
have been splashing along them since the earliest
dawn appeared, to gain the country railway sta-
tions, on the platforms of which, made greasy by the
moisture, the soldiers, wrapped up in their cloaks
huddled together to get as much shelter as possible
from the weather, until the time came for them to
get into the train.
Some of the detachments appeared to be recent
levies drawn from the neighbouring country. Many
of the men were accompanied on their march to the
station by women, who wept silently as they moved
almost mechanically alongside of the marching ranks,
and who strained with eager eyes after the train till
a turn in the line or distance hid them from our
view. The soldiers themselves looked grave, but
very determined. The news which came from
Frankfort last night has roused the war spirit in the
land; still there was many a wistful glance cast
back towards the cottages which, with black beams
built into their white walls, and high-thatched roofs,

look not unlike the homesteads of Cheshire or Wor-
cestershire. Nor does the appearance of the people
destroy the resemblance. Especially in the men
there is a marked look of the better agricultural
classes in England.

From every little village and every small town
soldiers appear to be hurrying to central positions
for the concentration of their brigades, divisions, or
corps. The large bodies marched yesterday to their
places of assembly ; this morning outlying detach-
ments and small bodies of men from distant parts
were being called up to headquarters. There are
also a few—fortunately very few at present—of
those detachments to their rear which have always
to be made daily from a large army to carry the
sick to the hospitals.
Breslau, no longer a fortress, for the fortifica-
tions have for some years been converted into boule-
vards and promenades, has to-day quite recovered
its military character. Brisk orderlies flit about the
streets, carrying huge letters with enormous seals,
and wearing such an air of importance that each
and every one of them might be the bearer of
immediate orders for the Crown Prince to cross
the border. Yet trade goes on quietly-, the
banks and shops are transacting their usual busi-
ness as if there were no armed men in Silesia
and no Austrian advanced posts hanging upon
the frontier. The crops in the country around the
town are about high enough to reach to the knee of
a man standing up, and, wherever the clumps of fir
wood do not break in upon the cultivated ground,
stretch as far as the eye can reach. A few rays of
bright sunlight, which made an effort to struggle
through the heavy clouds in the early morning, lit
up the cornfields, studded with the darker foliage of
the pines, as if for a moment to show how fair a
scene is likely to be scorched and withered by the
hot tempest of war.
Nothing is known of recent Austrian movements,

or at least, if any intelligence has come in, it is
kept most carefully secret. Although many who
pretend to know something of the plan of opera-

tions disdainfully reject the idea that the Prussians
will make an offensive movement, the sudden con-
centration of the armies and the bustle of rapid
preparation evidently forebode an advance. When
I say nothing is known of Austrian movements, I
allude only to the Austrian armies in Bohemia and
Moravia, since, although nothing can be certainly
known, an Austrian force is supposed to be assem-
bling at Aschaffenburg, possibly with a view of sup-
porting the minor allies of the Empire on an attack
on the Rhenish Provinces.

The King of Prussia had not left Berlin last night,
but it is thought that he will join the army to-day.
Hostilities may actually commence either to-day
or to-morrow, but as yet it is impossible accurately
to foretell what will happen. The military conduct of
a campaign is a problem which few can solve, and,
when it becomes intermingled with political consi-
derations, it becomes almost inextricably confused to
all except the few who have an insight into every
particular. About 36 miles southwards of the town
lies, near Freyburg, the castle of Furstenstein, where
till two days ago the Crown Prince had his head-
quarters. He has now transferred them more to the
east. The Berlin papers said yesterday that he had
gone to Neisze, which is about three hours by railway
from, Breslau. Neisze is in Silesia what Olmutz is in
Moravia—the knot where the roads which lead over
the mountains on this portion of the frontier join an

advantageous point from which to invade Moravia
and strike a blow at the line of railway communica-
tion leading from Vienna to the Austrian positions
in Bohemia, or at which to concentrate an army to
resist an Austrian advance from Olmutz.

Breslau is in itself also an important point, for
here unite the lines of railway from Berlin by Lieg-
nitz, from Berlin by Lissa, which connects Silesia
with all the eastern provinces of Prussia, the rail-
way to South-Eastern Silesia, and that to Freyburg,
which passes near Schweidnitz.