The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-28 00:00:00

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S PAPER

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Prince and:people, and to insist 0.
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ovary community, when the place dfrfnife ,
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trate is vacant, to choose its own 4
are :scarcely doctrines likely to find issue ay.i4
an asnembly where Russia and Austria - ld Min- ''_.,
ence, and where their application is adverse to the
policy of the Emperor of the French. But, even
were the Austrians capable of conviction on these
points, and were France and Austria for some 'in-•
expected reason outvoted at the instigation of
England. there is the important fact that France•
has 60,000 men in the country the destinies or
which are to be pronounced in this - Congress.
.Nap-sleon 111. is scarcely so ductile ,r politician as
to march these troops away in imniedia.te'obedience
to a note of Congress. Suppose lie shotild throw
those 60,000 bayonets into the baj,knce—can'wc
quite see the issue of such an untoward conjuncture, i
or can we quite calculate how far we should be led
from advocacy to action ? Or, even failing these
remote possibilities, can we,.if we once go into this
Congress, hold ourselves unf.-2ttered by its acts ?
Or, if a " note of Congress" should authorise Aus.
tria to,reinstate the Grand Dukes and should com-
mission France to restore the power of the Pope in
the Romagna, can we avoid being made responsible .
for arrangements which we may in no way ap- , prove ?
On the other hand, to stand wholly apart is not
a desirable position. A first-rate Power cannot
withoi.t loss of character in the community of na-
tions sulkily withdraw from counsels, in which all
other nations are taking part. We cannot wrap
ourselves up in our own virtue and enjoy our own
barren sympathies apart without suffering some re- •
proach from those we do not help and some con-
tempt from those we do not hinder. Isolation is the
neat thing to war. It is a declaration of moral
hostility. ,It is a position which every Power active
in the task which we refuse must at least mentally resent. 'Jo refuse this invitation would undoubtedly
be considered by those whO give and those who ac-
cept
it to be an invidious act. Moreover, we may be asked whether we have a right to refuse to our
convictions'the small aid which What some other
nations call our "selfish polio"- allows us to give.
If we will not fight—and the proprietors of every •
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nationality and every cause assume the right to -.-- :- -
sneer at England for not fighting it out for them
—we may at last give Italy the advantage of our
advocacy. Have we a right, after all that has
been said by the mouths of our public men and
by the voice of our press, to abandon Italian
interests entirely to the despotic Powers? Even if
we were to withdraw, as we did from the Congress
of Verona, shall we be in a worse position than
if we refused to join. We shall at least have
said our say, and shall have manifested our wil-
lingness to heat- what the other Powers have to
put forward. We shall at least have made our
protest against what We could not help. Thus the •
matter stands. The incon Venisnees of either accept-
ing or declining this coming invitation to go into
Congress seem to be almost equally balanced. We
have attempted to state them without bias to either
course of . action. Perhaps the objections to an
attitude of absolute isolation slightly prepondereite
But, whichever may be the course resolved upon by
those upon whom the responsibility rests, their de-
cision
must be fraught with most important conse-
quences to this country, as well as to Italy.

NATIONAL DEFENCES.

TO THE EDITOR OF TIIE TIMES.

Sir,--We all expect war, and accordingly we
have built big ships, provided ourselves with rifles,
and even volunteered to use them.

There are, however, just two points—and those,
unhappily, the really important ones—in which we
are behindhand. We have not a sufficient number
of either sailors or soldiers, and the. quality of both
is still more defective. The cause is well known—
we underpay them both.
With regard to the sailor, we pay the Queen's
sailor less than the mercantile marine does. That
the discipline is not, the deterrent-is shown by the
fact that the American navy gets an ample supply
of the best hands. Their discipline is.even harsher
than our own, but the pay is far higher than that
of oven their amply remunerated private sailors.
We have, or rather we ought to have, about 40,000
sailors. By raising the sailor's wages £1 per month
we should incur an expenditure of £480,000, or Id.
in the pound income-tax, and this increase would,
I apprehend, be ample.
The new order of the Admiralty, giving £6 per
annum to the private sailor who volunteers for im-
mediate service only in time of war, acts in time of
peace to, its whole extent as a bonus to the merchant
service, to the detriment of the Queen's service.
The sailor will say, " I can now enjoy the high pay
of the mercantile navy is peace time, and in tha
event of war (when only the Queen's service is at-
tractive) I shall have my share of honour and prize-
money, and in either alternutiTo get my pension."
The pay of the soldier of the Line is now ls. ld.
per diem, with a prospective addition of one penny
a-day on acquiring a good•conduct badgo—wages
less than those of the ordinary unskilled labourer;
in fact, it is just what it was 40 years ago, though
the wages of every other kind of labour have since
risen at least 50 per cent. Out of this sum the
soldier has to feed himself, pay for part of his cloth-
ing and accoutrements, provide regimental neces-
saries, and even the repairs of his barrack-room
furniture.

The marine is allowed his messing nearly free,
and hence the popularity of that branch of the ser-
vice. One well-trained marine would outweigh in
the scales, as well as thrash, two of tile pale, lathy,
sickly recruits you now get--the physical and moral
refuse of large cities, instead of the hale, red-faced
boys whom we formerly had.
The French Emperor gives 2,000 f., or 1:80, to
each soldier who re-enlists for seven years at the
expiration of his forced service, besides 10 centimes
per day (or one penny) additional pay. So anxious
is he for the quality of his soldiers.
I should propose to raise the soldier's pay by 6d.
per day, or to ls. 7d. in all, which increase would
nearly provide for his messing, and thus give him
his pay to spend for his own comforts, less the de-
mands of the service before alluded to. This would
put him fully on a, par with the marine.
Estimating our proper force (India excepted) at
150,000 men, this would cost us £1,700,000, or in
round numbers 14-d. in the pound income tax ; the
increase of pay to both services together amounting,
therefore, to 2d. in the pound of additional income
tax.

Seeing that we arc the only great continental
nation where the military and naval services are
voluntary, threatened as we are with war at our
very doors, this does not seem too large an expen-
diture. It should, moreover, be borne in mind
that, with a large and fully-manned fleet, and 100,000
soldiers at home, besides volunteers, the chances of
war are infinitely lessened. But neither soldiers
nor sailors are made in a day; each probably re-
quires at least a year's training to make him really
efficient, so that we have no time to lose.

The Admiralty and the Secretary at War have full
power in these matters, and must be held respon-
sible for the omission to man the fleet or till the
ranks of the army. Parliament has granted funds
with no niggard hand, and will continue to do so.
Expenditure, provided it be well directed, is now
the road to popularity. Any Government which,
at this crisis of our fate as a nation, shows itself
unequal to the erAergency—which is afraid of
spending the money which it ought to spend, of
dismissing the men whom it ougnt to dismiss, of
employing the men whom it ought to employ, or of
despising the routine, the forms, the privileges or
the restrictions which it ought to despise—will
perish and ought to perish amid the execrations of
the people.—Your obedient servant,

ONE WHO HAS SAILED AND' SOLDIERED.

am told that we are sending a battery of
Armstrong guns to China. Have wo enough at
home? If we have not this seems madness.

The Prussian Chambers of Commerce intend to
establish a committee composed of delegates of all the cham-
bers, and whose mission will be to watch over the interests
of Prussian commerce. This committee will assemble regu-
larly and et fixed periods, and will be independent of the
Government. The following- is its programme :—Esta-
blishment of uniformity of commercial usances ; abolition
of the laws on the restriction of rates of interest; reform of
the aailway tariff; abolition of transit dues ; Improvement of
river navigation ; reform of the customs tariff, &c.
MURDER • IN TIIE STREET.—lfenry O'Connell,
third mate of the American ship Flying Scud, has just been
committed by Mr. Reece, the coroner for Cardiff, for trial,
for the wilful murder of Antoni Tesmacher, another sailer.
under circumstances of great atrocity. The town of Cardiff
bas an unenviable notoriety for the number of brothels of
the lowest order which it contains, and which are the com-
mon reset tof the sailors from tbe merchant ships. The
deceased had been living for several days at one of these
with a girl named Clara Isaacs. On Tuesday last O'Connell
quarrelled with some parties at a house in Frederica-street,
used, as a brothel, and rushed into the street, where ho offered
to fight any person who would engage with him. Deceased
and Isaacs hearing the noise, had come into the street and
were standing looking on, when O'Connell rushed up with
a knife or dagger in his hand (it was a two-edged knife with
a spring at the back) and plunged it into the deceased's
bowels, repeating the stab six or seven times, while the de-
ceased was on the ground. When picked up by the by
the blood spurted from the deceased's, clothes in a
stream, and he died almost immediately. One of the wit-
nesses of the affray named Robins deposed, "As I ran to-
wards O'Connell he was stooping as if in the act of pushing
something into the bowels of the deceased, who cried I'm
stabbed, I'm stabbed I seized O'Connell by tho hair of the
head and had t 9 hit him in the face before could get him
off the deceased. He kept on working his elbow at the de-
ceased." The surgeon who made a post mortem examim s
tion of the deceased proved that both ventricles of the he: rt
were cut through. The deceased's liver was cut through in
six places and covered with blood. Th 3 prisoner will be
tried at the winter assizes