The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-16 00:00:00

THE SUN.
LONDON, SATURDAY, NOV. 16, 1861.

England will understands, if France does not,

that there is but one means to effect a large reduc•

tion of expenditure—reduction of naval and mill-
rary votes. In India and at home the budget for
the year has had our defensive establishments for
its barometer. We do not deny that the miscel-
laneous expenses have increased considerably, but
they have, for the most part, given us a quid pro
quo. The cost of army and navy is, on the con-
trary, merely so much paid for insurance against risks
—better to pay it than run the risk, of course : but
risks, and prevention of risks, are unproductive.
If an Irish Encumbered Estates Court, or national
education, cost us something, or even a packet or a
telegraph, we still have some permanent return in
the benefit to trade or social morals the
army and navy we expect nothing from, but
to prevent our neighbours from breaking into
our house. When the Duke of WELLINGTON de-
termined on economy, it was at the Horse Guards
he began, and he could safely do it, for no "EM-
PEROR" was at the mercy of his own fickle temper,
and the still more fickle temper of the peasantry
and army of France. When Indian finance must
be righted at any cost, neither Mr. WILSON nor
Mr. LAING could do anything without reducing the
army, and this process has Already almost brought
about a balanced account. But no mighty military
neighbour looms like a thunder cloud on the horizon
of India.

Possibly the French Government understands
. . this quite as well as we do. There are, indeed,
11 indications that M. FOULD does so, though he may
Inot speak too openly. The French army and
I navy will, however, be the test of Louis
I NAPOLEON'S sincerity. He can, in a few
1 years, have a full Exchequer, if he only re-
nounce his ambition of military predominance.
I M. FOULD suggests to him the truth when
he hints that his financial policy compelled
all Europe to arms ; of course he meant that the
extravagance he proposed to check was mili-
tary extravagance. If the Budget was only to be
foundel on estimates not to be exceeded, but if
these estimates were to be as large as the sums
hitherto voted, and the supplementary credits corn
bined, this so far from relieving the Exchequer, or
from quieting the just apprehensions of Europe,
would still require new taxes or loans for the
former, and compel the latter to keep up as large 1
armaments as ever. Nothing worth doing is done,
till the core of the evil is reached—and that is the
ambition of France—for it is the country which
makes its EMPEROR—to speak with authority over
Southern and Central Europe. Could we but be
sure of the temper of France, and, therefore,
of that of her ruler, we could as easily return to
twenty millions for defensive insurance, as we
once were content with little more than half that
sum. France and her EMPEROR are solely respon-
sible to the taxpayers of England for inflicting on
them the burden of an income tax. Her army and
her navy together. we hold to be nothing less than
a defiant outrage on this country. We have never
had an army large enough to render our navy for-
midable to the shores of France. France could
spare an army large enough to occupy an English
county, and persists in having a navy fully equipped
to transport it and protect
its landing.
this policy deserves to be characterised i t ;
but
w by epithets
we do not care to bestow u
it is about to bo reversed. E
We think
ew.
slow to proceed pari passu in disarmamentpllhope
1
ogland will not be
with the
threatener of her shores; and if such be really the
Case, we shall then, and then only, look on the
commercial ercial treaty as an honest shaking of hands.
The finances of France had, indeed, got almost
into the last difficulty—in ten years M. FOULD
tells the Imperial spendthrift that he has made away
with £112,000,000 sterling by extraordinary credits;
that to raise that amount he has seized on every
accumulation of money on which the State could

lay its hands ; not only has the old resource of loans
been freely used, but when the bank enlarged its capi-
tal the Treasury directly pocketed £4,000,000 of it ;
again it bagged five millions and a half sterling, by
laying its hands on the army dotation fond ; no
money came amiss to meet the demands of these
truly "extraordinary" credits ; even a new species
of loan was invented, called the obligations tren-
tenaires, by which also the prodigals contrived to
raise about another five and a half-millions
sterling. This splendid Governmental ex-
travagance, accompanied by not much bet-
ter thrift municipally and in private life,
could not have lasted much longer, let the har-
vest have been as good as it might. But happily'
we believe, for France, as the potato rot for
Ireland, the seasons came in to hasten
the winding up of the folly. The system,
if such extravagance can be so called, must have
come to an end of itself; but when a deficiency of
food and of trade came upon such a course of
national improvidence, there was nothing for it
but to draw in or be drawn down.

At the same time, it will be universally acknow-
ledged that the EMPEROR has done a manly thing.
He has turned on all who may charge him with
inconsistency, as the late Sir JAMES GRAHAM
did in the late corn law debate, when per-
secuted with quotations from his published opinions,
—saying "I've changed my mind, and there's an
end on't"—we confess we look upon the man with
some respect who feels himself strong enough to
say so. Better, of course, never to err ; but since
we all of us are pretty conscious of sharing largely
in that human tendency, we all like better the
manliness which owns an error, than the evasions
and excuses which are often proferred to make
the best of it. Only—to a magnanimous confession
of error, like that of Sir ROBERT PEEL, or of Sir
JAMES GRAHAM, the essential thing is sincere
and thorough adherence to the new policy. If the
Emperor of FRANCE will now pursue the policy
which his new financial proposals demand, if he
cease to maintain armaments perfectly useless, ex-
cept to compel others to do the same, if he thus
enable us to diminish our war expenditure, and
relieve us from the accursed income tax, he may be
quite sure of creating very different sentiments in
this country to those which now axists towards
him. We shall test the value, therefore, of
his present act by Mr. GLADSTONE'S next budget.
We have a Chancellor of the Exchequer who is
certaily quite as hostile to reckless expenditure as
M. FOULD can be ; and if we have not a bad har-
vest here, we have a people smarting under the
most odious, because most inquisitive and unjust of
war taxes, solely because we do not choose to lie at
the mercy of France. England would soon follow
France in reduction of expenditure, and much more
willingly than she did in its increase.

In consequence, we presume, of the lamented
indisposition of the venerable President of the
Law Amendment Society, the annual series of
meetings of that learned and laborious association
was inaugurated, on Monday last, by the pre-
sent Solicitor-General, and not, as hitherto, by
the noble and learned ex-Chancellor. Lord
BROUGHAM having already taken his departure
from our shores, in search of health and repose
at his southern residence near Cannes, Sir
ROUNDELL PALMER undertook to discharge, in
his Lordship's stead, the responsible duties of
Chairman. Those duties, it will be remembered,
are of no ordinary character. They are not
merely the customary pro forma duties of a chair-
man of a public meeting. They necessitate, in
the first instance, a capacity on the part of the
acting President of the Association to take a
comprehensive survey of recent law reforms, to
give a lucid digest of the changes for the beaur
brought about in that way during the late session
of Parliament, and, above all, to epitomise clearly
and succinctly those other ameliorations or mo-
difications of the law, as it is, that the Society
proposes to itself to advocate in the shape of prac-
tical amendments. Happily for the general inte-
rests of the community at large, and for the espe-
cial interests of the Law Amendment Association
itself, the Solicitor-General proved himself emi-
nently well qualified for the task devolved upon
him by the absence of Lord BROUGHAM. His intro-
ductory remarks on Monday evening were every-
thing that could have been wished. Nothing
could very well have been more inspiriting, in its
way, than Sir ROUNDELL PALMER'S insisting, at
the very commencement of his address, that the
time had surely now arrived when " a greater
amount of the Society's attention should be directed
to the amendment of defects in the substance of the
law than had hitherto been given to that part of the
subject." Nay, further, said the hon. and learned
gentleman—" No one could help feeling that the
law was unsystematic, and that in many respects it
was productive of injustice." In proof of which he
remarked at once as about the aptest " case in
Point" that could be particularized, that " There
was a pretty general agreement amongst that
branch of the profession to which ho belonged that
it was in the highest degree desirable to simplify
land transfers and land titles. But," he added,
"be for one felt that there was a little disposition
to shut our eyes to the inherent difficulties of the
object. It might be desirable that the transfer of
land should take place with the same facility as the
transfer of stock ; but then it was not desirable that
one man should have an easy mode of selling the
property of another man." And so in regard to
titles. " If," said the Solicitor-General, " any sys-
tem of clearing them by Parliamentary process
could be devised without injury to anyone, he
should be ready to apply it to any extent. He did
not think," he added, " any scheme which would
lessen the dominion of the owner over his property,
or which would make it less valuable for useful
purposes, would be acceptable to the possessors of
land, and he doubted if it would conduce to the
prosperity of the country." All which is, of course,
perfectly judicious in its way—conspicuously wise,
cautious, and temperate. But the intimation of all
this by the second law officer of the Crown, was so
far unsatisfactory under the circumstances that it
indicated, as plainly as possible, that the Govern-
ment has no intention whatever—at any rate
as yet—of introducing any measure at all upon the
subject referred to. Indeed, the Solicitor-General
acknowledged (rather superfluously, we cannot but
think) what any one might have predicated without
his acknowledgment—that if the Government had
any intention whatever of the kind he, at least, was
ignorant of it ! Observing at the same time, that if
he were entrusted with such a measure, in his
capacity as Solicitor-General, he should certainly
endeavour to give it effect. Very earnestly do we
trust that under any circumstances, but more par-
ticularly after this assurance volunteered by Sir
ROUNDELL PALMER, while presiding ever the in-
auguration meeting of the Law Amendment Society,
in the autumn of 1861, that when the parliamen-
tary session of 1862 shall have fairly commenced,
Sir 1
lUGII CAI will not
allow the matter to
raecnicoaninntaab of the present do-nothing
nyle longer
apathy neglected,by reason of the un-
Administrat ion.

As to the necessity there is for further improve-
ments in the L?,Nv of Patents, the Solicitor-general