The Sun.
London, England, 1861-03-11 00:00:00

ROYAL ENGLISH OPERA,
COVENT -0 A RD EN.
Under the Management ofilliss Louisa Pyne and Mr. W.
Harrison, Sete Lessees.
1.3 EVENING LE DOMINO NOIR. Hiss Louisa
Miss Miss Leffler ;Messrs. Henry Haigh,
,orri, A. St. Albyn, and Horncastle.
l'oaow,l by Mendelssohn's Operetta, THE SON AND
STRANGER. Misses Thirlwall and Leffler; Messrs. St.
4111,v Corri, Lyall, and Flornca.stle.
Codductor—Mr. Alfred Mellon. Commence at 8.

•ir,ATRE-RUYAL, HAYMARKET.
Lessee, Mr. J. B. Backstone.
'! ft IS EVEN lila-, the nertortnanees will commence with
TEE SUN AND THE WIND. The Leclercqs, Sze.
After which, a new and original comedy, A DUKE IN
DIFFICULTIES. 3lrs. Stirling, Miss Fanny Stirling, Mr.
Dockstone,
,And MY WIFE'S DAUGHTER.
Commence at 7.7

1
iOYAI, PRINCESS'S THEATRE.--
Lessee and Manager, Mr. A. Harris.
THIS EVENING, the Farce of SUSAN SMITH.

To be followed by DON C2ESAR DE BAZAN. Don
Cmsar. Mr. Fechter. Supported by Messrs. Basil Potter,
F. Matthews, J. G. Shore, Miss M. Harris, Miss C. Leclercq
Arid Mrs. Weston.
:r To conclnde with a comic ballet, THE JOLLY MILLER.
. T ipinosa, Mr. Garden, &c.

ITRATRE - ROYAL LYCEUM.
Soie Lessee and Directress, Madame CELESTE.
Last Six Nights of the Winter Season.
THIS EVENING the Butletta of T lAT RASCAL,
JACK.
Followed by the new drama, THE HOUSE ON THE
), TDGE OF NOTRE DAME. Principal characters by
lir. G. Vining, Mr. J. Johnstone, Mr. Villiers, Mr. Clifford,
Sfr. John Rouse, Mr. Forrester,
sor. M Morris ; Miss M.Ternan,
Miss K. Saville, Miss L. Thompn, and Madame Celeste.
After which, the Lyceum Christmas Comic Extravaganza'
I'itYSTABELLE s or, The Rose without a Thorn, showing
THE VISION OF A ROSE, ITS FADING AT EVE;
AND THE M AY-BLOOM OF THE WILD BRIAR.

AD ELPHI, NEW THEATRE-ROYAL.
sole Proprietor and Manager, Mr. Benj. Webster,
THIS EVENING, AN UGLY CUSTOMER. Messrs. J.
L. Toole, C. Selby, and Warde ; Miss K. Kelly, and Miss E.
'horns.
After which, THE COLLEEN BAWN. D. Bouoicault, D.
Billington, Falconer, Stnlhenson, C. J. Smith, Romer.
Miss Agnes Robertson, Miss Woolgar, Mrs. Billington, and
Krs. Chatterley....
_ _

To conclude with a new Burlesque Extravaganza, entitled
:.31..UE BEARD - FltOM A NEW POINT OF HUE.
Messrs. J. L. Toole, P. Bedford, C. J. Smith; Miss Woolgar,
K. Kelly, Laidlaw, and E. Thorne. •
Doors open at half past 6—Commealte Ott 7.
Box-office open from 10 till 5.,
No charge for booking.
Private boxes, .£2 2s. ; Family Boxes, £l.
Orchestra Stalls, ss. ; Balcony, Is. ; Front Circle Stalls, Ss.;
Pit Stalls, 2e.; Pit, ls. 6d. ; Amphitheatre, le ; Gallery, 6d.

Acting Manager-51r. Wm. Smith.

CANTERBURY-HALL CONCERT S !!!
Westminster-road.
Proprietor .... C. Morton.
A Grand Selection from Verdi's new Opera,
IL CORSARO,

- -
(This opera has never been produced in this or any other
country, except at these Concerts), having met with that de-
cided success which charactise , the most popular works of
this great Master, will be performed EVERY EVENING ;
together with a Selection from LA FIGLIA DEL REGGI-
MENTO, by Donizetti,
_Principal Artistes—Miss Russell, Madame Maria, Miss
Tyrrell, Mr. 11. Herbert, Signor Tivoli, 11. Drummond, and
C. W. Bernard. Director, Mr. F. Jonghmans.
The Comic Department comprises Messrs. E. Marshall, A.
R Hollingsworth, J. Blanchard, F. Bell, W. N. Welland, and
the Brothers Conrad.
John Martin's Three celebrated Pictures will remain on
view a short time longer in the Fine Arts Gallery of the
Establishment.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, 2h. 10m.—Afternoon, 2h. 27m.
T o onnow. -Morning, 2h. 40m.—Afternoon, 2b. 54m.

I.'ll WEATHER.—Stix OFFICE, MARCH 10, 1861
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
57—highast since noon yesterday.
48 —lowest this morning and during the night.
55—this day at"noon.!

BARomETErt-29.98.
WIND—South-Westerly—light; with very fine weather
Afternoon fresh and squally, with rain from W.N.W.
MARCH 11.

THERMOMETER, TN THE SHADY.
58—highest since noon yesterday.
38—lowest this morning and during the night.
45—this day at noon.
Bano3tETmu-29.38 ; a fall of nearly an inch since yes-
terday.
WlND—West-North-Westerly—fresh ; blowing a gale,
with sudden squalls. There must be a storm in the Chan-
nel, and along the south-western and north-western coasts.

If *1),
4 , 9?
c.
r
os, / •
i ll. role
s 717;

THE SUN.
LONDON', MONDAY, MARCH 11, 1881

Me. LINDSAY'S motions upon the Navy—down

- AL-, P,- , ALA

mean anything, " Wait ! Diminish the Supplies !
Interrupt all the efforts now being made with a
view to the immediate reconstruction of the Royal
Navy of England ! And—when we have done all
that—let' us allow a few more years to elapse,
while we are spending several millions sterling
additional in making a new series of
costly and inconclusive experiments !" Mean-
while, the other maritime "powers that be"—
especially in Europe particularly France—
building with the utmost skill and despatch en-
tirely fresh fleets, iron-built, steel-cased, and screws
in all but the expenditure they involve ! Anything
more suicidal; anything more irrational, anything
more preposterous than the course suggested, to be
adopted now,`by the hon. member for Sunderland is
absolutely, in respect to our navy, not to be ima-
gined. . _

The importance of the decision arrived at
by the House of Commons in regard to Mr. LIND-
SA Y'S resolutions is so supreme that we must really
give the very words in which they are expressed
upon the Parliamentary papers for this evening.
It will be there found as the nineteenth paragraph
in the long catalogue of the Notices of Motion for
Monday the eleventh of March—" Mr. LINDSAY
on going into committee of supply on navy
estimates, to move, as an amendment, the fol-

lowing resolutions: —l. That it is inexpe-
dient to sanction ally further expenditure
for the construction or conversion of wooden
line-of-battle ships. 2. That it is inexpedient to
incur, during the present year, the expenditure re-
quisite for the completion of the line-of-battleships
now on the stocks; and that, during the present
year, it is not expedient to commence the construc-
tion of any wooden vessels which carry guns on
more than one deck. 3. That it is inexpedient,
without further experience, to sanction the expen-
diture of any money for the purpose of adapting her
MAJESTY'S dockyards for the construction of iron
vessels." Now, if these three resolutions mean
anything they mean exactly what we have said.
When Mr. LINDSAY objects to the further construc-
tion of wooden line-of-battle ships—the objection,
viewed by itself, particularly in the light of recent
experiments, proving the inferiority of teak built
ships generally, of even the most admirable heart-
of-oak men-of-war that can be turned out of the
yard of any shipbuilder in the United Kingdom,
when compared with iron-made, steel-cased vessels
like La Gloire, or still better, like the two glorious
war skips already launched in British waters—so
viewed, we say, exclusively in regard
to itse in the light of those facts, and
apart from every other consideration, the
objection is in some respects reasonable enough, is
at any rate Perfectly comprehensible. But when
it is foimd that, in the third of these damaging reso-
lutions of Mr. LINDSAY, that hon. gentlemen goes
on to doclare it to be 4,
inexpedient without further
experieqee, to sanction the expenditure of any
of adapting her MAJESTY'S
211 oney Pm. the purpose
Dockye.rds for tke construction of IRON vessels
into Cie bargain" the proposition becomes
ridiculous. In fact
nothing could
in() re flagrantly unpatriotic than the
serious suggestion to the British House of
of Commons that no mole money should be supplied
" withot tt further experience" having been obtained
—in oth, 1r words, until more years shall have been
consumed ell(' more millions shall have been

simply

wasted in making a series of additional, and, for •
the most part, wholly superfluous experiments.
The alternative that the country has to decide
about sooner or later, now at once or at some in-
definite time in the hereafter, is in two words
the alternative between Wood and Iron. And
already the preference has been pronounced far and
wide, here and upon the Continent—the experi-
ments having all gone to demonstrate the now
notorious fact of the superiority of iron
over wood for shipbuilding purposes. France
is already taking advantage very wisely of
the result of these lengthened and costly experi-
ments. A little while longer and the French navy
will be an iron-built, steel-clad floating force, setting
at defiance all the old wooden fleets now in exist-
ence. And while France is thus straining every
nerve to accomplish this grand labour of construc-
tion, England (according to Mr. LINDSAY)—Eng-
land, forsooth, among all the powers in the world,
is to wait idly, so far as ship building is concerned,
is to construct neither wooden ships of war nor iron
ships of war, until yet more time and money shal
have been consumed in testing the relative advan-
tages of wood and iron ; or, to use his own gene-
ralised phrase, until in the matter of wood and
iron for shipbuilding we shall have gained a
little more experience.
Earlier among the notices of motion for to night
than the three resolutions above particularised—
there appears, as the seventeenth paragraph, another
and briefer notice, in connection with the name of
Mr. LINDSAY, who, it is there intimated, will call
attention to the ex'penditure upon the navy, imme-
diately upon the House going into Committee of
Supply on Navy Estimates. Now, even in our
character as ECONOMISTS, we must, at once, depre-
cate, in the very strongest terms, the notion
of applying our economy, at the out-
set (of all the departments of the public ser-
vice !) by preference to the maritime department.
Begrudging expenditure, there to begin with, would
assuredly be the most egregious mistake into which
the House of Commons could possibly blunder.
Cut down our naval estimates, as Mr. LINDSAY
hints at,—stop all the vitally important efforts in
the way of iron and wooden shipbuilding now
going on in our dockyards, as he also suggests—
allowing France all the while to persevere without a
rival in the course upon which she has already
wisely adventured—and you may imagine the con-
sequences!

" Hang the Ballot !—Why pester us with it this
year—Didn't Lord PALMERSTON promise, or as
good as promise, us, a Reform nap for a twelve-
month—too bad—too bad—BERKELEY is a bore—a
good fellow too—but those who back him won't let
him rest."

Such, we doubt not, is the tone and spirit of the
remarks on both sides of the House when the Hon.
Member for Bristol's motion is really in sight. And
on the appointed day the wronged members who
must be troubled to vote for, as well as against the
motion, have their plan ready. Mr. BERKELEY thus
described it, with the remedy which he prescribes :
" If he was heard at five o'clock, probably his
speech and that of the seconder would work the
debate on till seven o'clock, which was about the
feeding time of the menagerie, and of course at that
time—as all animals are ravenous at their time for
feeding—there would be uncouth noises, and they
would hear nobody else. Now, a young member,
especially one who wished to make an argumenta-
tive speech, did not like to hear roaring lions and
bears, and bucolic noises of all sorts made during
their speech, so they sat down. Nothing could be
more ungentlemanly than their treatment of Mr.
LAWSON when he had risen to make his maiden
speech. He must have had nerves of iron to have
stood what he did. He had suggested the course
of adjourning the house. At every interruption
some one should rise to move the adjournment, and
put the threat into execution."

I rag...." ca ua, is We only mode of compel-
ling a different treatment of the subject in the
House, to that which we have so often seen of late
years, it has been the endeavour of the half-hearted
Liberals and the whole-hearted Tories to shirk a
debate, and to let Mr. BERKELEY have all the talk to
himself; but a determination to move the adjourn-
ment of the debate, if the subject were burked in
this way, would soon bring even the country mem-
bers to their senses. "He might talk for an hour
and a half or two hours, and they would hear him
in the House, but they would not hear any one else
on the same side. That had been the mode of
operation lately. When such men as COBDEN, and
BRIGHT, and WOOD—who was now Vice-Chan-
cellor—and men of that calibre, who were resolute
in standing up for the ballot, addressed them, they
always wanted to adjourn the house if they:were not
heard. The only way to get a proper hearing for
the ballot would be to find him a certain number of
members who would say, "We will adjourn the
house, and bring you gentleman out of your leather
boots and breeches from hunting in the country
two or three times in the course of a month, in
stead of once, to vote against the ballot. We will
bring you from your shooting boxes and from New-
market. If they found him a certain number of
members to do that, they would have a fair debate
on the ballot, but until then the matter must rest as
it did now."

We hope Mr. BERKELEY and his friends will
act on this advice in April, when the motion for
leave to introduce a bill comes on. Some 230
Liberal members and a large part of the
Ministry have voted for the ballot, and
a Reform which can muster so many votes is
not one which cught to be put down by the
cries of gentlemen, merely clamorous, to go to
dinner.

May we also counsel the earnest Parliamentary
' friends of the Ballot a little on their tactics.
The subject, it is justly said, is settled so
far as argument can settle it. All the hypo-
critical cant of professed moral opponents, all the
chatter about its being un-English, all the
pretences about failures in other countries, all
the nonsense about trusteeship for non-electors,
all the pretences against every elector's doing
his own voting, have no doubt been all scouted
I/ to the heart's content of all who had hearts
more yielding than SIIYLOCKS but if the
fallacies and the replies to them have
become known to every one, the illustrations of the
necessity and value of the ballot as a means of free
and honest voting are endless. Now, cannot the
Ballot Society beat the dinner-men of the House
of Commons by a little arrangement. Suppose
they made a division of labour for their friends—
allotting to one the English counties, to another
the Welsh, to another the Irish ; suppose they
took a little travel, and assigned toa fourth member
the American ballot, to a fifth the Australian, to a
sixth the Belgian, Sardinian, and Genevan; to a
seventh, the ex-zosure of the vices of the Imperial
management of the ballot box, with the wonderful
fact that it would often, nevertheless, foil the cor-
ruption of Maires and Prefets. Suppose English
boroughs, and the evidence furnished before Com-
missioners, and before the House itself, formed
another branch. By a careful division of work of
this kind, and by pretty good briefs full of un-
deniable facts, put into the hands of men who
would not be daunted by the tactics above

described, we should think a fusillade even •
from one side might be got up which
would give a good evening's entertainment to the
House, even if opponents should sit in silence to
hear it all. Let them sit, and sit till they were
tired if they pleased. They would find that they
I could not prevent a good discussion of the Ballot,
however one-sided they might like to make it.
Probably before 12 o'clock their patience would
fail. Lord JOHN would pepper away a little
of his spite against what he once proposed, but now
hates as being the most real of reforms. Sir G. C.
LEWIS would bring out some of his heavy "Edin-
burgh Review" pages ; if they did, so much the
better, provided a speaker, ready at reply, had been
kept back as a reserve against a bringing up of
Cabinet forces. We do not underrate the difficul-
ties of a determined attack like this, but that it
would succeed, if resolutely made, we have not the
smallest doubt. The Corn-law Repealers, when
argument had long lost its novelty, found no diffi-
culty in providing abundant new illustrations of
old arguments to make a good and a dreaded dis-
play. Oar Ballot friends should do the same.
If there be Liberals disposed to complain of an
annual motion for the Ballot, the reply is, what
would you suggest to those who do not mean to
give up till they get what they want. Every
other important liberal measure has been thus
forced on the attention of the Legislature and the
public. What would opponents themselves say if
for a single year, in which no special obstruction
arose, a motion was not made, and a division taken
by the friends of free voting ? This year the pro-
' posal is more than usually appropriate, beckuse the
Corrupt Practices Act—An Act which Sir W. G.
HAYTER acknowledged to be worthless, is to be
proposed for renewal—if Cabinet Whigs can be
found perverse enough to do this after the revela-
tions at Gloucester, Wakefield, and Berwick, they
will, with an ill grace blame those who insist on
proposing the remedy which the most practical of
men—COPPOCK—and such philosophical Liberals
as GROTE and MOLESWORTH, have alike asserted
to be the cure, and the only known cure for half
the mischief which the trumpery Whig
Act undeniably does not remedy. We
retort the charge of being bores, on the
men who plague the house with such solemn hy-
pocrisy as these bills designed merely to evade the
remedy they :dread—a remedy which we reassert
has but one fault in the eyes of Lords PALMERSTON
and RUSSELL and Sir G. C. LEWIS, namely,—that
it would cure the disease. It would cure rich men
of buying what they could not be sure of; and
landlords and others who had power over their
neighbours from coercing their votes. We deem
it no want of charity to say that this is the only
reason why Lord J. RUSSELL, and Liberals like him,
hate the ballot so bitterly. They know it would do
its work too well for territorial ascendancy. They
know it would give reality to Representation, and
they want only a manageable and seeming repre-
sentation—a representation nominally of electors,
practically of landlords and their nominees. They
may, however, rest assured that, fence as long as
' they will, the ballot will break their guard at last.
' It will be the law of England. It is but a potion
of time. And, as it is no party question, so, when
it is carried, as in Australia, all parties will join
in its praise, and wonder they were fools enough
to resist so long such a simple means of quiet and
honest polling.