The Sun.
London, England, 1857-02-12 00:00:00

sent to. IL is true that Major REED has, for the

second time, yielded to ministerial blandishment,
and refrained from pressing an incmavenient mo-
tion. But, notwithstanding the defection of a
self-constituted leader, the fiscal reformers will
proceed steadily and energetically—they will not
yield a single point, without a fierce and de-
termined conflict. They have had convincing
.proofs of the advantages to be obtained by un-
ceasing and determined agitation, and
they will profit by the salutary lesson.
Now that the reduction of the impost has
been virtually accomplished their work has only
begun, so far as the second phase of the question
is concerned. The burden must now be more
fairly and equitably apportioned. The wide dis-
tinction between the proceeds of accumulated and
realised property, and the precarious earnings of
industry must be fully and unequivocally recog-
nised. We must obtain justice for industry !
Now that the fiscal reformers are " well in har-
ness" they must not be contented with a single
concession. If they only continue their exertions
they will obtain a new and far more equitable
assessment, that will at least approximate
to something like fair play. We shall, of course,
hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If he
submits gracefully to the popular will, clearly and
distinctly expressed, well ! If not, another storm
must be let loose against him, from which he
I will soon be anxious to crave forbearance. As
we have repeatedly explained it is useless to hope
thatt he impost will ever be completly surrendered.
The battle may as well be fought in 1857 as in 1860 ;
and were we even assured that the burden would
be removed in that year there is no reason why
the community should consent to gross and pal-
pable injustice, amounting to a complete swindle,
for three years, two years, or even a twelvemonth.
The game is in their own hands if they take due
advantage of the golden opportunity before them.
If not they will deserve the contumely with which
they are treated, the robbery to which they are
exposed. Let them still give " a long pull, a
strong pull, and a pull altogether," and no com-
bination of parties—no union of Whigs, Derbyites,
and Aberdeenites—can long resist their just and
equitable demands.

It seems we are to have in all likelihood, before
much longer, a visit here in London, from that
very outlandish gentleman FERITKII KHAN, the
Persian Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Pleni-
potentiary. It is very sincerely to be hoped that
while FERUKH KHAN is receiving our hospitalities
—such hospitalities at least as can be accorded in
simple courtesy to the Ambassador from a declared
foe—the war with his Imperial master may be
oarried on by the British Fleets and the British
Forces with the utmost vigour and determination.
We cannot insist too often, or too earnestly,:upon
the necessity of our Ministers ever keeping
in their recollection the memorable warning
against this country ever embarking again upon
a Little War, pronounced some years ago by the
authoritative lips of the Duke of WELLINGTON. A
Little War the Duke considered, wisely and
humanely considered, to be a Great Evil. It is
even more than this, in truth, to our thinking.
It is not only a Great Evil, but a Great Crime. It
is the wanton and idle squandering to no purpose
of so much blood, of so much gold, of so
many lives, of so much treasure. The
ravaging of a territory, the desolation of a
community, the ruin of a people, the devas-
tation of cities, the violation of social exist-
ence, the profanation of the temples of Religion—
all this, and more than all this—because of
the merely pettifogging spirit of a parsimonious
or a Llandering Administration. A new and
frightful theory of war has latterly come in to the
obvious, and inevitable, and enormous enhancement

of the horrors naturally resulting from this blun-
dering and from this parsimony. It was the sys-
tem upon which England entered, together with
France, Turkey, and Sardinia, into the late war
with the legions of the Russian AUTOCRAT. The
avowed system of fighting at the mouth of the

cannon and of the rifle, at the edge of the sword

and at the point of the bayonet, with a pre-
conceived and pre-announced determination, in the
event of victory, not to injure or humiliate the
enemy ! A monstrous system. An inhuman
system. A system which is literally an incentive
to battle—an encouragement to our antagonisti—
a provocation to more wantan, more continuous,
and more disastrous carnage. If war is to be
made at all, it ought to be made thoroughly. If

it originates in some glaring outrage on

the part of the aggressor that outrage
ought t) be expiated on his part, by his oppo-
nent doing him not only injury, but the ut-
most possible amount of injury, by his subjecting
him not merely to humiliation, but to the utmost
possible degree of humiliation. It was so in the
old time; when men fought in earnest as we pre-
tend to fight, namely, in the name of Right, of
Truth, and of Justice. And the wars thus fought
were, what proved in their resulf-, to be the most
securely productive of Peace, not simply nominal
and illusory, but complete and protracted. So—
for nearly half a century—the great sea fights of