The Sun.
London, England, 1859-07-12 00:00:00

already, within these few first evenings, had to
submit to two or three defeats in rapid succession.

Like the Austrian host in Lombardy, they have
shown themselves perfect masters in the difficult
tactics required in retreat—they have, like their
German prototypes in northern Italy, preserved
their discipline to the last with stoical in-
difference while being conquered. An im-

pression gaining ground, however, among ob-
servers, in spite of all this apparent unity of
action among them even while defeated, that the

powerful Coalition presided over by Viscount PAL-
MERSTON, no less surely than the powerful empire
ruled by the House of Hapsburg, is composed of
materials so heterogeneous, so entirely wanting in
th

e first essential of all for preservation or perpetua-
ion—coherence--that we may in each instance
.00k forward with entire confidence to the inevit-
able catastrophe of an internal disruption. Hence
the source of dissension may be discerned at a glance
here in the mutual hatred notoriously subsisting

between Croat and Hungarian, between Bohemian

and Tyrolese, between German and Transylvanian.
Here no less surely may we note the premonitions
of ulterior decay in the common hostility no less
notoriously influencing in their affectedly amicable
relations with each other, Whig and Peelite,
Canningite and Radical, Conservative-Liberal and
Liberal-Conservative. Perhaps of all the victories
recently won over the unhappy Austrians by
their formidable antagonist, the most notable and
the most signal has been the arrangement of this
startling Armistice. As probably, among all the
recent defeats of the Coalition Ministry, that suf-
fered by them last nigbt was, all things considered,
the most lamentably ignominious.
The significance of Sir JAMES GRAHAM'S amend-
ment was this—that it was intended as a slight to
the late Government ! That_Government had had
the high moral courage, last year, to enter into an
agreement, at all hazard of responsibility, for the lay-
ing down, as speedily as might be possibly managed,
a continuous submarine and overland telegraphic
cable the completion of which would bring the
mother country at length into instantaneous com-
munication with her vast Asiatic empire in Hin-
dostan. Recollect that at the date at which this ag-
greement was made—that enormous empire was
still imminently jeopardized by the perils resulting
from the then yet unconquered Sepoy insurrection.
Everything at that period combined to force
upon the attention of the nation and of the
Government the necessity of bringing the East
and the West thus together by the magical agency
of the electric telegraph. After mature delibera-
tion the only feasible plan then apparent was de-
cided upon by the Government—happily not a
Whig Goverenment, for in that case the whole
project would still have remained to this very day
altogether in nubibus, floating about in vague re-
ports and idle references, in the empyrean of Circum-
locution! As we have said the Departments being
last year in the hands of Administrators who were not
Whigs—something was actually decided upon in the
matter of the Red Sea and Indian Telegraph. An
understanding was actually arrived at between the
Company and the Government. The latter, among
other things, guaranteed to the former for fifty
years to come 41 per cent. upon all capital—a
guarantee involving annual payments by the Exche-
quer of £36,000 upon a paid-up capital of £BOO,OOO
—annual payments which would, of course, be
enhanced to £45,000 per annum in the event of that
capital of £BOO,OOO being raised to the proposed total
of £1,000,000. But, in return for this, there would
not only be the electric telegraph laid down between
England and Hindostan via the Red Sea, but the
priority of the use of that vitally important means
of instantaneous communication was to be gua-
ranteed upon all occasions that might be required
by the Company to the Government. There was
a distinct quid pro quo. Granted that those annual
payments of the Exchequer might in the course of
the stipulated half-century have reached a total of
£2,250,000 sterling. Yet, whatever the expenditure,
supposing it even to have attained that maximum
—two millions and a quarter—those two millions
and a quarter would have been spread over fifty
years, and might by that time have secured us
upon many and many an occasion in the interim
from the peril of altogether losing our Orien-
tal possessions. Let it be borne, however,
particularly in remembrance now that the
partisans of Lord PALMERSTON'S present
Government are declaiming against what
they deem the monstrous extravagance of the
DERBY Ministry, in guaranteeing 41,- per cent.
during fifty years to the Red Sea and India Tele-
graph Company, that the preceding Government,
the Government actually presided over by our pre-
sent First Lord of the Treasury, guaranteed for
five-and-twenty years, not 4i per cent., but 61 per
cent. to the Mediterranean Company for laying
down a telegraphic cable between Malta and Cag-
liari. We object not in the least to the Committee
of inquiry into contracts —on the contrary, we
deem the appointment of this Committee to be
one in every way most judicious and most
desirable. But—as regards the Bill actually
before the House last evening the time
was gone by long ago for any such root and branch
reconsiderations. It was simply preposterous for
Sir JAMES GRAHAM to propose the re-examination
of this contract by the Committee of Inquiry now
when £400,000 of the capital of the Company
has already been actually paid up—now when 1,159
miles of the telegraphic wire have been already paid
out along the route successfully—now, in fact, when
the great enterprise is already partially accomplished
upon the solemn guarantee of her Britannic MA-
JESTY'S Government! A postponement like the one
proposed last evening by Sir J. GRAHAM would
either moan (what would be folly) just Nothing, or
it would mean (what would be not less monstrous
than disgraceful) the threat of Repudiation. Re-
pudiation may be all very well for Sir JAMES GRA-
litm and Pennsylvania, but it will never do at all,
we may rest assured of that, for JOHN BULL and
Britannia. So said the House of Commons last
evening—a house of 312 confirming by a
clear majority of 47 upon division that
the Lords' amendments should be at once ac-
cepted in confirmation of the contract entered into
last year by the late Government. It is worthy of
particular observation, by the way, as illustrative
once more of the extraordinary consistency mark-
ing the Parliamentary proceedings of the right
hon. gentleman the member for Oxford University,
that while Mr. GLADSTONE, fn the course of his
impressive remarks in the discussion of last even-
ing upon the contract for this Red Sea and Indian
Telegraph, observed in solemn and memorable
words, words worthy of falling from the lips
of a Chancellor of the Exchequer : " The matters
we are dealing with are of the extremest delicacy,
and the public faith ought not only to be sustained,
but ought not even to be suspected"—the right hon.
gentleman, by way of supporting this high standard
of national integrity, actually supported that
insidious, and specious, and sinister proposition for
a postponement, which we have said either meant
Nothing, or meant, at least, the Threat of Repudia-

tion.

Attention was called last evening by Mr. KIN-
NAIRD to the opportunity presented by the pulling
down of Berkeley House, for the opening of a suit-