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

Commence at 7 o'clock.

VERDI'S OPERA OF MACBETH. The
whole of the first Act of this Opera,
.now produced
for the first time in this country (the remaining three acts
being in course of rehearsal), is sung nightly at the CAN-
TERBURY HALL CONCERTS.
THE DELEPIERRE FAMILY,
oonsisting of three Juvenile Violinists, viz., Jules, Juliette,
and Julia Delepierre, aged, respectively, FOUR, SIX, and
EIGHT years.
The perfect execution by these Lilliputian Artistes of some
of the most difficult and brilliant Solos, Duets, and Trios ever
written for the violin, has excited mingled wonder and admi-
ration in Continental Musical Circles, and drawn forth enthu-
siastic tributes of praise from the Public Journals of France
and Belgium.
They will perform TWICE EACH EVENING, in addi-
tion to the usual Entertainments.

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICM, Ararst 7.

THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
71—highest since noon yesterday.
6.s—lowest this morning and during the night.
74—this day at noon.

BAROMETER-29.92—falling.
WIND, South-Westerly ; light, with fine weather
Some rain in the night.

AL G. 8.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
75—highest since noon yesterday.
67—lowest this morning and during the night.
74—this day at noon.
It&RomETEA-29.82—5ti1l
WIND, Oath -West ; light, and very sultry.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tins DAY.—Morning, 9h. sm.—Afternoon, 9h. 46m.
To-Moimow-Morning, 10h. 31m.—Afternoon, Ilh. 12m.

THE SUN.

MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 1859.

It may be as well to particularise, in a few words,
the chief among the various changes recommended
with a view to the better manning of the British
Navy—by the Royal Commissioners.
And before enumerating these suggested improve-
ments—improvements suggested, be it remembered,
by the highest authorities, and after the maturest
deliberation laid in a substantial report before Par-
liament—it cannot but be encouraging at once to
observe that the estimated cost of the whole of these
measures would not (according to the report)
exceed—not a very alarming sum (even to Mr.
WILLIAMS)—£6OO,OOO. For six hundred thou-
sand pounds sterling at the outside, it is calculated
that the country might realise all the advantages
suggested by the Royal Commissioners.
And those advantages ? Well, they are not very
numerous—but they are, beyond a doubt, to our
thinking very important, and very worthy of con-
sideration.
The Commissioners propose, then, in the first
instance, and speaking in round numbers, to secure
to the Royal Navy for the purpose of any sudden
emergency that might arise 50,000 additional
men, seamen, marines, volunteers, and coastguards.
men. Fifty thousand additional men just for
emergencies ! Namely, 4,000 reserved seamen—
not a very extravagant reserve of tars, this, surely?
Together with these 4,000 reserved seamen-11,000
marines ashore ; 12,000 coastguardsmen, of course,
as their very name implies, distributed along the
coast at the different stations ; some 3,000 or 4,000
ordinary volunteers—making thus, in all, an aggre-
gate of 30,000 ! An aggregge. yet farther in-
creased to the total already mentioned of 50,000
—by 20,000 Naval Volunteers to be drawn
ingeniously from the merchant seamen scattered
through our various ports a body of men
always numbering actually in those parts not less
than a clear 100,000 altogether. It is conceived—
and not very irrationally, we think, by the com-
missioners—that 20,000 out of that 100,000 might
be rendered easily enough available for the Royal
Navy, by the holding out to them of a few suffi-
ciently alluring inducements. Such inducements,
for example, as actual pay for whatever leisure
time might be consumed in practice—pensions
secured to them at fifty years of age, or, at the
latest, at fifty-five—payment at rapid intervals—
admission
into the coastguard service—and, last and
not least, shelter under the palace roof of that grand
old hospital at Greenwich, of our maritime and
national Invalides. It is thus that the Commission
proposes to secure for the Royal Navy for periods
of emergency, whenever they might unhappily
arise, a perpetually available addition of 30,000
men. To recapitulate them succinctly-4,000 tars
in reserve, 11,000 long-shore marines, 3,000 or 4,000
ordinary volunteers, and 20,000 naval volunteers,
procurable from the 100,000 merchant seamen at
all times to be found scattered among the ports of
Great Britain. And all this the Commission dis-
tinctly estimates might be accomplished for about
£600,000. Those £600,000, by the way, including
besides the augmentation (by 5,000 men) of the
marines, and the annual augmentation (by 1,500)
of the boys enrolled in our maritime service, and
entered on board training ships such as the Bri-
tannia! The number of boys so entered at present
being no more yearly than five hundred in all—
we should by the adoption of that one sug-
gestion alone secure no less than two thou-
sand annually of those stripling tars, who are
for warlike purposes the hope and the glory of
England.

Hereupon we cannot possibly do better than
quote some most sagacious, most patriotic, And
admirably timed remarks, which appear in the
course of a masterly paper upon the " State of the
Navy," in the new number of the Edinburgh. The
reviewer therein observes, in reference to the sug-
gested improvements in our maritime organisation:
Tide tendency of the reforms and improvements
loudly called for, and gradually obtained, in the
ad.minis tration of the military and naval depart-
ments is ,to break down those al:elusive professional
barriers wi'tich have so long been the bane of the
service. Tb •c true strength of the army and navy
of England is that they are identified by the
closest ties v rah the nationals feelings, the en-
terprise, the industry, and thy: ingenuity of the
country. WI ten the gallant forces in the Crimea
were at their • dreariest hour, crushed by a foe
more powerful than the Russians, sanitary
scienos,elril ; administration, ;female devotedness,
and national ietermination snatched them back
from the verge of destruction.. Civil engineering,
which nowhert achieves greeter triumphs than in

this kingdom, has gradually enabled Mr. FERGUS.
SON to conquer the prejudices arrayed against his
system of fortification, and Sir WILLIAM ARM-
STRONG to mount his guns upon our batteries.
Whatever may be the resources of the royal dock-
yards, they are equalled if not surpassed by the
immense private establishments which form part of
the ship-building power of the United Kingdom ;
and, in the fabrication of machinery, the workshops
of the Clyde and the Thames are constantly lend-
ing their forges to the Government. There is too
great a tendency in purely naval critics to argue
the question as if our whole maritime strength
were comprised in the Navy List and the
dockyards. The reverse is the case ; and the
true problem we have to solve is to render these
vast resources promptly available for the defence
of the country, which at present they are not."
As a striking foreign recognition of the too noto-
rious fact that they are not, the reviewer then
quotes the opinion to that very effect, expressed in
1851 before the Commission d'Enquete, by Captain
de MONTAIGNAC. Appended to this, however,
immediately afterwards, are the impressive words
recently addressed to her MAJESTY by her own
Royal Commissioners. Those words are in many
respects, we cannot but think, very remarkable,
and in their tendency fraught with encouragement.
They are these :—" Your MAJESTY," say the
Commissioners, " possesses in the merchant service
elements of naval power, such as no Government in
the world enjoys. It is true, that hitherto no suf-
ficient organisation has existed for securing to your
MAJESTY the immediate command of these re-
sources. During a long peace, reliance has been
placed, either on the improbability that danger
would arise, or on the efficacy of impressment to
furnish the means by which danger could be con-
fronted and overcome. Changes in public senti-
ment, and in the circumstances of the case, have
shaken that reliance. We rejoice to believe, that
by improvements in the administration of your
MAJESTY'S Navy, and in the regulation of the
merchant service, other resources have in the
meantime been placed within the reach of your
MAJESTY'S Government, and that it is now in
their power to substitute for untrained compulsory
service, a system of defence, voluntary, effective,
and calculated to draw closer to your MAJESTY at
the moment of danger, the loyal enthusiasm of
those on whom your MAJESTY will rely. We
therefore humbly and confidently submit to your
MAJESTY the adoption of measures which, while
their primary object is the protection of this country
from the hazards of war, must at the same time
improve the position and elevate the character
of the British seamen in the two services, and
unite them together in the firm bonds of reci-
procal good feeling and of common interest."
Let those two services so be brought together, so
bound by common ties of sympathy each to each, and
the Commission will not have sat in vain. There
would remain no hazard then of the recurrence of
these periodical fits of national, and we may say
also of rational, solicitude. Englishmen will then
have practically recognised—recognised in deed as
well as in word, the literal truthfulness of those
thrilling words of the patriotic lyrist :

" England needs no bulwark,
No towers along the steep ;
Her march is on the mountain wave,
Her home is on the deep."

If the Ballot Society bas not risen yet to the
magnitude of a "great fact," the facts which con-
stitute its best arguments keep flowing in from
every quarter. Melbourne has borne its perfectly
satisfactory testimony to the success of leaving
every elector to " do his own voting," irrespective
of the influence of the briber, the intimidator, and
even the personal canvasser; and that colony is now
waiting with some curiosity to see what will be the
working of the ballot with a suffrage almost " uni-
versal." Meantime the news arrives of its success
in the oldest Australian colony—the colony which
must contain the largest number of those who have
eitker been criminals, or been brought up by those
who have been convicted of considerable crimes, the
colony where the " currency" must, we may sup-
pose, largely preponderate over the "sterling."

An extract, which we give in another column,
from the Sydney Morning Herald, can hardly fail
to interest all our readers at this time. There is
one point which at /east will inevitably attract at-
tention in its relation to the builders' strike. The
really odious thing in these strikes is the despotism
of noisy, arbitrary demagogues over prudent and
industrious men. It is but too certain that work-
ing men are the worst of tyrants over each other,
and that many a poor man who would gladly con-
tinue to labour steadily his ten hours and take home
his wages on Saturday night dares not do it.
Many persons fear similar conduct if the fran- 1
chise be made to include the class which now
orders a strike at the Messrs. TROLLOPE'S, and
certainly not without reason. It would, to
be sure, be but adding the intimidation of
one class more to that of the landlords and others
who practise it so largely already, but wchave in-
timidators enough already, and it is not, it must
be confessed, desirable to hazard its increase ; we
want, rather, to get rid of that which already exists.
It is, therefore, gratifying to observe that on this
point the Sydney journal testifies very expli-
citly : " The working classes have enjoyed the
benefit of the Ballot ; not in relation to their em-
ployers, but in reference to each other." The Editor
goes on to observe with truth enough, " There are
everywhere noisy, dogmatical, and oppressive men,
who, by force of will, domineer over their neigh-
bours. Thus many, rather than incur the opposi-
tion and contempt of people with whom they have
daily to work, have often voted against their incli-
nations and their conscience. From this necessity
they are now (by the Ballot) relieved. If the
despotism of wealth and official authority is to be
deprecated, how much more oppressive is that
grinding insolence, which, clothed in vulgar and
oppressive forms, assumes the name of liberty."
Our readers may remember how at Berwick, here,
and it was once the case, we believe, at Stockport,
the working men combined to intimidate the trades-
men with whom they dealt ; all this intimidation
of each other, and of the class just above them, is
found to be, in Sydney, counteracted by the Ballot.
The general testimony of this writer on the spot,
and one evidently not biassed in favour of the bal-
lot, is that " the ballot has tended greatly to abate
the outward excitement of the election, and to give
every man ample freedom in exercising his fran-
chise." There has been, we are told, in Sydney, as
was the case at Melbourne, " much less impor-
tunity.manybee haven
deemed Mentlu'os haveuelgel ss t
to felt indisposed to ask what
prio)puerh
retaosecosnucpepaol:t and
deimt
demand
pledges, since the class of men who would give pro-
mises under pressure are just the class of men who
would avenge themselves by breaking them."
Officials in Government employ are mentioned as
specially benefited by the Ballot ; and though the
writer anticipates that attempts at fraud will be
made, he does not think it difficult, as we know it
cannot be, to counteract them. The " bunchin,,,
system—that of voting in regiments—is broken up
by the impracticability of the requisite surveillance.
The Australian " poor man," richer there, as here,
than many who are obliged to dress better, is now

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