The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-06 00:00:00

BETTER

NEVER.

(From the Times.)
The Emperor of the French has followed up his
promise in the Moniteur by acts tending to reas-
sure his neighbours. The disarmament of all the
snips of war armed or in course of arming at the
different ocean ports, and the disbanding of all
sailors who have served for five years, are facts
which we accept with satisfaction. They relieve
us of all disquietude of an immediate character,
Ind give us assurance that the peace of the
world is not at present to be disturbed. It
would be scarcely gracious to inquire why this
great armament was ever placed in 'such a
state of forward preparation, or against what
shores those fleets and transports were once in-
tended to operate. It may have been but an un-
necessary menace, intended as a warning to certain

maritime Powers not to interfere between France

and the prosecution of her Italian policy. It may
have been but a costly precaution to protect what
the world is rather inclined to consider an inade-

quate result ; or it may have been but a demonstra-
tion intended to make manifest the power and ex-
tend the influence of France, and to show Europe

TA:ohtaicte.gremrat forces
hatever
mayshe ca
have
concentrate at
veheenthereasonshoforrt
building and arming all these ships and calling out
all these trained sailors, we are content to accept
the lesson, and to con it over for present and
future instruction, glad to be relieved from the
necessity of emulating a continual wastefulness,
and from the apprehensions which overgrown inac-
tive fleets or armies always must inspire. We are
ready, without too rigorously criticising the past,
to give our Ally full credit for the wise and prudent
act which relieves his own finances from a burden
wholly unnecessary, and which prevents his arma-
ments from being a standing menace to his neigh-
bours. We believe the assurance which is put
forth
information
France,
ation and
confirm,
whichtha all o
tin putting
own
tin goffsohurisces of
war
harness the Emperor Napoleon acts from no sensa-
tion of faintness. He disarms only as a strong man
may disarm who would enjoy a season of repose,
and, being secure that none will attack him,
can afford to allow himself the luxury of unen-
cumbered rest. At short warning he could recall
the sailors who are now sent back to their shore-
going industry, or to the fisheries and coasting
trade, whence they were drawn ; and the ships,
whose last trip previous to being put out of com-
mission is to test their boilers, will require no long
delay to prepare them again for sea. It is a cour-
teous expression of an intention to ue at peace with
the world. He does not beat his sword into a
reaping-hook, but he burnishes it carefully, re-
moves every speck of rust, and puts it away ready
to hand in a convenient armoury.
The opportunity invites us to imitate the exam-
isghrboomuorv.
ed,Nwoow
mayth well
taellll
l
consider whether we cannot in our turn invent
pie ground
forollr apprehension pow erfu
n e
some system which may give us the same power
of easy transition from a peace to a war establish-
ment which he possesses. When we return from
war to peace we are accustomed to break up our
forces, turn loose all our soldiers and sailors, and
act generally as though there was no possibility
that we should ever again be at odds with any
notion under the sun. At the next threat of dis-
turbance we have to create everything, to re-
manufacture all the stores we have wasted, to
entice, painfully and by dilatory allurements, by
ones and by twos, a great army and a great
navy. When we have done for the moment
with our instruments of war, we toss them all
away ; when the French return to their inter-
vals of peace they lay their instruments of war
carefully by. Now is the opportunity for consi-
dering whether we cannot amend this inconside-
rate and most costly habit. Surely we shall now
devise some system of manning our navy so that
the process of manning a ship of war may have
rather more the air of a piece of naval discipline,
and rather less the appearance of a contested
election. It cannot be necessary that our ports
should present the discreditable spectacle, so
common at all times, of ships waiting six or
more months for a crew, while according to
the French system, as described so admirably by
our Marseilles correspondent the other day, a
whole fleet could be armed and the crews marched
on board in less time than it would take us to get
a single ship to sea. It is true that we have not
all the facilities which a French Emperor has. No
aspiration for military or even naval glory would
ever persuade Englishmen to consent to a conscrip-
tion. We cannot impress seamen or shipwrights
to build or to man a fleet, any more than we could
impress those five thousand builders who met in
Hyde-park and distribute them in gangs over our
public works. It could not be done under any pres-
sure of necessity. A great danger would produce
half-a-milion volunteers, but no apprehension would
induce our countrymen to trust any Government
with the power of impressing a single sailor.
But it is this admitted and inevitable necessity
which should impel our Admiralty, and all the
keen wits which so large a service comprehends, to
invent some substitute for this great reliance of
the foreigner. If the authorities would seriously
bend their minds to it, it is not a very difficult
problem. Men are only to be influenced by force
or persuasion, and when it is made apparent that
force will never again be tolerated, we must aceept
the conditions of the other method, and resolve to
use money, or money's worth, to accomplish our
purpose.
a Theoo . v
evile do
of thenot present h
the
m systemen when
nu Pwoon
htahvee
gotur -
f
them. At immense expense and with enormous
difficulty we man a fleet. We give extravagant
bounties, we get a great mass of untaught hu-
manity, we despatch it as quickly as possible into
blue water to be fashioned into a respectable-
sea force, and at the end of three years the crews
are come to work well together, and are fit to be
trusted. in any enterprise. Just at this period the
ships return to harbour and are paid off. In three
months this disciplined and effective body of man-
of-war's men is scattered all over the globe. Thor
are to be found in every man-of-war which flies a
pendant. The force perfected at such pains and ex-
pense, and so powerful in its unity, has been wan-
tonly and wastefully shattered; and while these men
are seeking employment in America or Sweden,
..Captain Stentor of the Boreas, is injuring his lunge
and playing the stump orator in some northern
seacoast town, vainly endeavouring to induce the
vagabonds of that neigbourhood to go to sea with
him. Now, a man may find a reason good or bad.
for any nonsense ; but there can be no valid rea-
son for so pernicious an absurdity as this. To
keep the trained crews of a fleet is an object cheaply
attained by any necessary expenditure. If you
want a thing, and watt it suddenly, the cheapest
intogoio be
but the market when it is to be
soldplan andarticles
tobuy
are tif
obtained only
inferior
suddenly
ian d make-
shiftn market
overt, you must buy it leisurely, and keep it by
you for use. You don't sell your horse every time
you dismount from him, nor your gun directly the
shooting season is over, nor your grates when you
put your fires out; yet it is easier to find a ,horse
or a gun, or to fix new grates, than it is to put
your hand upon a disciplined crew of seamen.
As a matter of economy it would, we believe,
be cheaper to pay in time of peace for a larger
force of seamen than the country at the 'moment
may require, than to have to give bounties and
fall back on the crimps every two or three
years. It is not the wages of the seamen that
consume the money, it is the waste. Wages con'
stitute only a comparatively small part of the Navy
Estimates. It does not seem to be beyond the
power of the human intellect to devise some scheme
by which any surplus of trained man-of-war's men
might be retained for the service of the navy
Suppose we were to pay them only a portion of
their ordinary wages, and allow them to enter
on board coasters, on condition of being forth-
coming at short notice ? What say you, Ye
groaning British shipowners ? Here is a bounty ell
British bottoms in the coasting trade—is not this a
notion worth your adoption ? But, however the
object is to be attained, and whatever may be ite
ccb
threeaoo snntr,
saa
tmtht
aoaaNin, net
feheadswhsi ttedahmani
yndu
sdis t
inngnboetfa.
ioncreyc Weef
future
of erstaeaonmiwgdlnoepuaotrtrrthsyi.
enNarygofiffhbeutoiyehrerthdin.as
neigh'
ehe
::
gram
shall
h and n d marchinexcusable o n
if b
wedd
oa nn eot
of tranquillity arrange a similar easy system of
rising without effort from a stat of peace to a stet°
of war.

THE WRECK OF THE PARANIATTA.—Latest counts from this noble steamship, lately stranded on the
Anegada reef, brought to Southampton by the mail stealne-
i.
Teviot, state that the Paramatta had worked herself I1P:
right by grinding away the rock on which she is lying'
Her paddle-floats were taken off, and the ship lightened TE
other ways, and very little doubt was entertained that, the weather continued fine, she would be got off. A large
quantity of apparatus, consisting of Stamshaw clay, cask„'
warps, and other appliances, was sent out from Southavri
ton on Tuesday last by the Atrato, to-assist in the work °f
floating thel Paramatta' also seven divers and two Wallypumps, pumps, and an engineer to drive them.
THE MALTA AND CAGLIARI ELECTRIC rry LE-
GRAPH.—Some anxiety has lately been felt as to the de/
of the steamer Lady Sale, which left Malta some weeks age
to repair the cable between that place and Cagliari,
viki since the 6th of March, has been disabled, no later tiding:
having been received of that steamer since the 3d of
.1%7
when she telegraphed heie progress as far as Marini
and the buoying of the cable off that Island. A sal!,,as
vessel which arrived at Malta from Marsala reports that
the steamer had been in there with damage, and had le;
at Thursday, the 21st of July, to resume operational _ .hoo
to splice on io the two ends the stouter cable which.sio,'"tire
brought out from England over the spot where a ruP:;01)
has twice occurred, and where coral reefs and volcanic ic'
are known to exist.