The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-13 00:00:00

made upon our side, upon the side from which all
such efforts ought to have emanated, no sufficient
efforts whatever to bring about a reconciliation of
difficulties. Precisely, as Mr. C. FORTESCUE started
forward the other evening, with a view to the in-
stant vindication, in toto, of the Governor (Governor
BROWNE), from the charges directed against him,
or rather against his policy by Sir JOHN TRE-
LAWNY and Mr. SELWYN, do we find that the
Governor (Governor BROWNE) started forward
in furtherance of the white man's plea, there in
New Zealand against the tawny aborigines, deter-
mined to withstand in toto the claims advanced by
the native population, especially the Maoris, and
to maintain through thick and thin at
the flash of the rifle, and at the point of
the bayonet the absolute supremacy of the
English Sovereign. Granted the necessity for in-
sisting upon the maintenance of that supremacy of
our Government over the inhabitants of New Zea-
land, whether Europeans or aborigines : still those
savage natives, whose regions our arts and sciences
are now reclaiming from barbarism to civilisation,
have their own rights, their own inalienable rights—
rights particularly of a territorial character—rights
that ought, in reason and in justice, to be strictly
and honourably recognised. It is because, how-
ever, we cannot but think that in the out-
set of this quarrel with the Maoris, we dealt
with those inalienable rights of theirs rather too
carelessly, and cavalierly sweeping them, for the
most part, altogether out of consideration, that we
are disposed to look with more even than our usual
repugnance, under similar circumstances, at this the
last of England's little wars, this wretched struggle
with the infuriated tribe of the Maoris.

Never was legal perplexity greater than that
in which the Emperor of AUSTRIA now finds
himself. He appeals to the law courts of England
as King of HUNGARY. The illustrious defendant
meets him with proof that he is not King of HUN-
GARY. And though it is said that an English
Judge will make short work of it by refusing to
go into the question, it would seem that public
opinion will not accept such a rough and ready
settlement of a paint of international law against
a noble exile. It would surely be a monstrous
hardship, when the whole question tarns on, who
is the supreme authority in Hungary—when one
party says " I am ;'' when the other party replies,
" You are not, but I am; and to me, therefore,
belongs the power to do what you invoke
English law to restrain." It would be injustice,
indeed, if de facto possession were made a
reason for rejecting a de jure title. The de facto
possessor of stolen goods would, by such a principle,
be the man entitled to deal with them as proprietor.
That our Government has—we wish we could think
through ignorance or carelessness only—recognised
FRANCIS JOSEPH as King of .Hungary, if indeed it
has done precisely that, is no more proof that he is
so than the purchase of stolen goods from a thief
by a third party would prove that the thief was
their legal proprietor.
Very lately the act of abdication by which poor
FERDINAND V. renounced the Imperial throne
was published here. It was in that act
apparent how carefully the poor weak man
guarded against a renunciation at the same
time of the Hungarian crown. The act left
him the legal King of Hungary. The Hungarian
Diet only learned the fact of his abdication from
the newspapers, and private sources. By the
same means they learned that FRANCIS JOSEPH
claimed to be not only Emperor of AUSTRIA, but
King of HUNGARY also. On this the Diet passed
an able resolution, recounting the laws of the land
relative to the succession of the Crown, and to the
case of a Regency, showing that without the con-
sent of the Diet and a legal coronation, which
involves a full recognition by oath of the funda-
mental laws of the kingdom, no one could be
King of Hungary—and finally enjoining on all the
authorities to refrain from in any way recognising
the authority unlawfully claimed by FRANCIS
JOSEPH. Thus far the Hungarians have a clear
case, and the resolution, which is a long one, is
complete proof of the not merely technical and
formal, but substantial soundness of their position.
The speech of Count APPONYI, at the opening of
the Hungarian Diet this year, is also before us to-
day ; and, so far as it goes, it may fairly be put in
evidence before the English Chancery judge by
LOUIS KOSSUTH. The COUNT, it is signifieantly
remarked, never uses to the Diet the title of king.
This could only be from consciousness that FRANCIS
JOSEPH is not yet king. It shows that, as the
COUNT lays before the Diet the documents relating
to the abdication of FERDINAND V., the Minister
is aware that •until the Diet accepts the abdication,
FRANCIS JOSEPH may be what he pleases in Austria,
but he is not legally King of Hungary.
The Royal Speech, for such it must be considered,
is a very gracious affair. All difficulties may be
removed by "mutual good-will and sincerity ;" the
"paternal heart of his Majesty" has had " deep
wounds" inflicted on it; he asserts that by his
uncle's abdication he was called on to rule over
Hungary and the connected states ; he is inclined
to concede to their lawful demands ; he has assim

lated the other parts of his empire to the kingdom
of Hungary by giving them representative insti-

tutions, and now, therefore, he concludes that the
time for amalgamation is come, " the institutions
in the other provinces of the empire being assimi-
lated to the Constitutional institutions of his

beloved kingdom of Hungary." The Hungarians

will know well how to deal with all this. - Their

kingdom is much larger than any province of the

empire, and it is for them to say whether they
...

will consent to be a mere Imperial province. We

hope they never will.

IRON MEN OF WAR.

TO THE EDITOIt OF THE SUN.

Sin,—Having read your very judicious and instructive
remarks on the above-named subject, in The Sun of yester-
day, stating among other facts, that the present iron built
men-of-war are proof against shells charged with
liquid fire, molten iron, &c, I fully admit that
they are proof against such shells as are now in use,
but I will engage to pierce them with my well tempered
steel bolt-shells charged with liquid fire, and fired from
Captain Blakely's straight forward muzzle-loading rifle
cannon, of a sixty-eight pounder calibre. lam confirmed
in this opinion from the experiment I made with
a liliputian steel bolt-shell at Windsor barracks'
twenty years ago, and again, with a shell constructed
on the same principles and fixed frame, as two-groove
military rifles, at Cork, in 1852, in presence of several
members of the Council of the British Association for the
encouragement of the Arts and Sciences, held there in the
summer of that year. This fact 'was fully and clearly
reported by Colonel Beamish, one of the council present, in
a letter to the Times, and also to the editor of the United
Service Journal, of August, 1852, copies of which were
sent, at the expense of the committee, to the Lords High
Commissioners of the Admiralty, the War-office, and the
Horse Guards. I am, Sir,

Your obedient seryant,
J. NORTON,
Late Captain, 34th Regiment.