The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-28 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL DEFENCES.

(From the Tittles)
When the master of many legions condescends to
argue he must receive respectful attention and a well-
considered reply. He proposes to convince instead
of to compel; he subjects himself to the common
laws of ratiocination, and he invites the world to
deal with him as it might with an adversary who
has no weapon but the pen. Of course we should,
under all circumstances, yield him every courtesy
and an unprejudiced ear. But never were we
English more anxious to believe and more inclined
to be even credulous than we are upon the topic
which has last been handled by the Imperial pen.
Quiet enjoyment, domestic peace, freedom from
taxation, security in our business transactions with
each other and with the rest of the world, are all
involved in the conviction 'which the Moniteur of
Tuesday last would fix upon our minds. If we
could only believe that our faithful ally and his
loyal subjects are not restless and inclined to war,
how much better it would be for us ! If we could
reasonably think that national defences are things
that England cannot in any probable conjuncture
need, how much more happy we should be in our
shops and our counting-houses, and our snug villas
and our unfortified country seats ! It is not willingly
nor with any pleasurable emotion that we from
time to time recall the bold suggestion of a late
reverend wit, and shudder at the possibility of some
mature matron in whom we may take an interest
being led away captive by an amorous Gaul. It
is not from having nothing else to thing of that
we are sometimes surprised by the uneasy thought
that we are sleeping with all our doors unlocked
although a robbery was committed in the same
streets only a few nights ago. If we could only feel
that it is beyond the bounds of probability that
there can ever be aught but an interchange of kindly
offices between us and France we should have none
of these disquietudes. We might browse together
and grow fat, we might lie down and chew the cud
together and ruminate into sleekness. Nothing
can be more to our interest and to our comfort than
to be thoroughly convinced that we have nothing
to fear from France or from her master. To the
French Emperor, therefore, preaching in the .3ioni-
teur, if we cannot say " Vous prechez mix convertis,"
we can at least affirm that he preaehes to a congre-
gation most anxious to become his converts.
But confidence—as Lord Chatham said in a
famous speech, and with a confusion of metaphor
not uncommon with that great orator—is a plant
of slow growth in an aged bosom. Old England
scarcely expects to be desired for her beaux yeux
alone. To absolute monarchs, who love not the
licence of her free tongue, her trinkets may be rea-
sr

Aonably supposed to lie more attractive than her
beauty ; and great military authorities may be
imagined sometimes to sympathise with the late
lamented Field Marshal Blucher, whose sole re-
mark upon the glories of the London streets was,
—" Mein Gott, what a town for to sack !" Wealth
always carries with it a certain sense of distrust,
and wealth conjoined with a consciousness of weak-
ness is apt to breed a sense of constant danger. To
avoid this we must become either poor or strong,—
that is to say, strong enough to resist any reason-
ably probable danger. Our good ally, through his
official organ, invites us to believe that this danger
is absolutely of our own invention. He says that
" the pretended exaggeration of his armaments is
made to serve as a justification for the considera-
ble augmentation of the Army and Navy Esti-
mates of Great Britain." The Emperor then
proceeds to show that during the present year
England is about to spend much more for her
Army and Navy ' than France is about to
spend, and suggests the conclusion that inas-
much as he is making no increase upon his
annual expenditure for soldiers and sailors,
our increase cannot be justified by any con-
siderations of his proceedings. Alas ! that an
argument launched with so benevolent a design
should be so weak to do its office ! If we lack the
faith to say " Credo quia impossible," we cannot, in
common sense, affect to be comforted by this faulty
reasoning. Any Oxford under-graduate could
point out and name the special fault of this halt-
ing syllogism. The question is not a question of
estimates, nor even of cost. Constitutional Govern-
ments must act by persuasion, and the instrument
to persuasion is money. What sum can we put
against the conscription ? How are we to estimate
in money the powers possessed by the French Em-
peror and forbidden to our Queen ? To judge of
the question thus proposed we must look, not at
the money spent, but the results obtained. The
French have an army of 400,000 men, ready for any
enterprise. We have an army of 110,000 ready for
no enterprise except to defend our own homesteads.
This is a not unimportant fact, but we do not rest
upon it as any reason for suspicion. France is
surrounded by great military monarchies ; it is
natural for her to be strong in a land force, and the
mere circumstance of her maintaining herself at a
point of strength sufficient to repel either .a single
or a combined attack from her military neighbours
should be no necessary, cause of jealousy to us.
Loyal and unsuspecting in friendship—as England
is while England can be,—we are rather pleased
than chagrined to see France powerful. While we
act together as the guardians of order and the
friends of civilisation, her power is our power, and
her prosperity is our strength. But what mean
these sounds of naval preparation ? Why are these
ships so rapidly launched, and so hurriedly fitted
with rifled cannon ? Why are the dockyards of
France so busy, and the arsenals working with such
sustained energy ? The exigencies which compel
Prance to keep up a land force disproportionate to
that of England compel England to keep up a naval
force disproportionate to that of France. England
maintains her existence upon conditions ;which to
France are unknown. This little island is but the
heart of our great empire. Our power must pulsate
in every quarter of the world, or the empire must
die. It is by our ships that our volition passes to
the members of our body politic, and it is to us a
chronic necessity that great fleets should be always
occupied at a distance from our shores. As com-
parefl. with France, our Navy can only be estimated
by our Channel Fleet. What does France want
with a fleet greater than that which England has
at home ? hare been told, and sometimes in
official documents, that the honour of France re-
quires a great naval armament, not to control
Austria, not to hold her own upon the waters with
Russia, not to curb the turbulence of Spain, not to
reach distant America—but to contest with Eng-
land the sovereignty of the seas. What does this
phrase mean ? It is not the language of confidence
and friendship ; it is not even the language of
truth. England neither has nor claims the
sovereignty of the seas. She is obliged to make
felt, in distant parts by means of her ships, that
power which France manifests in less distant
parts by means of her armies. But she claims

only for herself what she willingly accords to all
the world--equality and security. What country
suspects England, who has opened her ports and
her commerce to all nations, of any desire to force
the ships of other countries from the seas, or to
interfere in any way except for the protection of
the common rights of civilisation? This sovereignty
of the seas is much mere a nightmare than any dis-
quieting thoughts of invasion of this island. All
our acts in China, all our legislation at home, deny
more forcibly than any phrases could deny any
such pretensions on our part, or any wish to acquire
ground for.such pretensions. Again, then, we ask,
what mean these sounds of hammering, these for-
tified harbours, these aggravated naval armaments?
*Mr. Hans husk, whe, has laboriously compiled the
statistics of " the Navies of the World," in his re-
cent book under• this title, tells us that he speaks
of the French Navy from actual inspection, and
enumerates its force at 449 vessels, whereof 265 are
steamships of war, carrying 5,500 guns. Surely
we may ask without an impertinent curiosity what
need there is that this mighfy armament should-be
at this moment thought so insufficient that ener-
getic measures are required to reinforce it ? If we
except England and America, it could destrOy all
the fleets of the world combined. Concentrated
for any purpose of offence to England, she has
nothing to oppose to it at short notice but her
Channel Fleet, That French fieet,.so vastly supe-
rior to ours, is a great menace. The Emperor may
intend for it nothing but the most peaceful or
the most distant labours; while he assures us
that this is so we are bound to believe, as far as
we can, that the fact is as he affirms it. It is
nothing to say that if all the ships of the English
navy were collected in the channel we could match
this great fleet ; it would be as apposite to say that
if Gibraltar were at Portsmouth we should need
no further fortifications at that place. The fleets of
England never can be all at home, and any Calcula-
tion of any equality -of naval force between Eng-
land and France must necessarily exclude all that
part of the English Navy which must now, and at
all times, be present in our distant possessions.
These are the facts. Not only has France at full
command, and within 25 miles of our shores,
400,000 men, with the African Zouaves and Turcos
within hail, but she is also straining every nerve to
create a fleet which, if brought to bear upon our
home waters at an unexpected moment, would
enable her to throw a large portion of this great
land force upon our shores. We humbly submit to
our powerful neighbour that these are circum-
stances which are calculated to inspire some dis-
quietude even in the most trusting minds. We can-
not think that the , statement in the Moniteur, to
the effect that the preparations of France have not
been the occasion of our increased armaments and
our increased taxation, is borne out by the facts
which we have now submitted. Of course it is
with much hesitation that we venture to controvert
an article proceeding from such high authority. It
is hard not to be allowed even to doubt, but we
have correctly stated our positien, and we have
only to believe absolutely, and to take our mea-
sures for additional precaution with all reasonable
promptitude.

•
In another column we print a letter from Lord
John Russell's Secretary, stating that we were in-
correct in our report of that portion of his lordship's
speech wherein he was understood to have stated.
that he considered the condition of the Treaty of
Villafranca to be just." Under the pressure of
this denial we have, of course, nothing to dispute,
and nothing to reiterate. Whatever may have
been the words which Lord John Russell used upon
this occasion, we are content to know that, upon
reflection, the Foreign Minister of England has not
advisedly committed himself to any favourable
opinion of the Treaty which has handed over Italy
to Austria, and has committed the lives and for-
tunes of the Tuscans and Modenese to the tender
mercies of the Sovereigns whom they expelled from
their capitals. We will not speculate whether the
words we have attributed to Lord John were
actually spoken, although spoken inadvertently,
and not intended to bear the meaning which when
produced in print they undoubtedly conveyed. We
are quite satisfied to bear the blame, in considera-
tion of being assured that our Foreign Secretary
has not committed the folly of identifying England
with that treaty:— Times.