The Sun.
London, England, 1868-05-16 00:00:00

oPrarr OP THE PUBLIC JOURI.TALS,

Even those who are most opposed to the Government
must, the Saturday Review declares, acknowledge that in
the matter of the Boundary Bill they have behaved with
perfect fairness to the House of Commons and to the
country. It is true that there was a little nonsense origi-
nally in the manner• in which the subject of boundaries
was introduced by Mr. Disraeli to the consideration of the
House. He spoke after his fashion, and hinted that some
great secret lay in the revision of boundaries, and that it
was to have a sort of magical effect upon the operation of
the Reform Bill. This secret, like other grand secrets of
the same magician, turns out to be moonshine. The
Boundary Bill, even if passed exactly as presented to the
House, would, according to the acknowledgment of men
of all parties, produce no perceptible results at all on the
general issue of an election. No party interests are
involved. But the House settled last year that there was
to he a Boundary Bill, and it also settled that the revision
of boundaries should mean the enlargement, and in no
case the contraction, of boroughs. This was not at all
logical, and in theory was wholly indefensible. But the
House sanctioned the proposal of the Government, and it
was decided that no reductions were to be made. Com-
missioners were appointed by the House itself, and not by
t:,e Government ; and not only were they men perfectly
weal fitted to the task, but, so far as they represented
shoiks of political opinion, they belonged rather to the
Opos:tion than to the party in power. Naturally, the
Govermnent wished to stand by the bill as it was brought
in ; and if they had been a strong Government they
would have had their way, and all opposition would
have been silenced on the ground that the commissioners
acted as the referees of the House, and their decision
must be taken to be final. But the Government is very
far from being a strong Government, and therefore, when,
the House manifested a wish to control the operation,
of the bill, the Government gave way at once. It is true
they had not much choice. A Government in a minority
must do as it is bid. But a Government in a minority
slay submit with a good grace or a bad grace, and on this
occasion the Government submitted with a very good
grace. It accepted the only possible mode of extricating
the House from the difficulty of dealing with a subject of
infinite details. Mr. Disraeli agreed that a committee
should be appointed by the House, and should sit from
day to day until it had completed its task. It will inghire
into the cases where reasonable objections to the decisions
of the commissioners have been or can be raised. There ap-
pears to be no reason why the labours of the committee
should last very long. They cannot, of course, go into
oral evidence from the boroughs affected. They can only
jock at petitions and memorials, and their first duty will
be to see whence these documents come. Unless they
reps sent the feelings and wishes of a very considerable
number of those affected by the bill, they will not be worth
attending to. If they are numerously signed the com-
mittee can first examine the grounds on which they are
presented, and if these grounds are primd facie valid, they
can tall in the aid of the assistant commissioners if they
wish for further information; and if they do not, they can
pronounce their verdict at once.

The Spectator says that if Parliament cannot contrive
to strengthen our county and municipal arrangements for
Maintaining order, it will wake up one day to find civil was
raging over half the North of England. In those vast
hives of humanity the mining and manufacturing cities,
with their narrow streets and fierce population, there are
plenty of elements of combustion—one alone, the quarrel
between unionists and non-unionists, is of the most
dangerous and wide-spread character—and the roughs of
all classes have at last found out the secret weakness of
the- EngliSh - system —the feeebleness of authority when
opposed by force. It is only a fortnight since we had to
record the seizure of Wigan by a mob of colliers. This
week the prosperous town of Ashton has been the scene of
a still more dangerous, because religious riot, during
which one person has been killed, two left at the point of
death, and some twenty-five 'severely wounded, while no
less than seventy houses have been destroyed, and three
hundred families turned naked, homeless, and moneyless
into, the street for no offence whatever. Now, if English
cities and counties were orsanised on any civilised
principle riots like these could. not occur ; they would be
.ppressed at once in their inception, not by bloodshed, but
the production of force which could shed blood if neces-
sary to restore order. The dragoons took no Ries. It was
the rioters who took lives, and the half-armed police. It
was the wretched policy of displaying force not sufficient for
coercion—.force which could be defied,- or, if needful, over-
powered—which allowed the riot to become so dangerous.
It—is order, common external order, freedom from mob
rule and violent assault, which we are failing to secure,
which appArently our rulers have forSotten how to secure,
now social deferences will no- longer secure it. One would
think, to watch the paralysis of authority all over Eng-
land, that the magistrates held anarchy to be the normal'
and proper condition of things, or imagined that freedom
meant the right of every man to brain his neighbour if
that operation amused him. The art of repressing dis-
order, still alive in Ireland, seems to be lost here, till
authority knows no better device than to send fists against
fists, batons against clubs, cutlasses against revolvers. We
venture to say a reserve detachment of fifty policemen in
Ashton armed with " Sniders," and authority to use them
at the bidding of the mayor, would do more to maintain
external order in Ashton and ten miles round, than ten
thousand special constables. That involves bloodshed?

Not:. bit of it. Let 10,000 rioters know that fifty men
front. of _theta are--. authorised, if resisted, to slay, and
they will-melt I,Way like_ snow in, sunlight. Bloodshed
• maybe regiiirea once; and if it fs, if there is no other way
of protecting-the feeble or the poor in our great cities,
- if, withnut it',4any fool of a lecturer is able to give any

town: in .ngland up to be sacked, blOodshed had better•be.

•
Reiiefe. in criticisinc, ttie. navy estimates,
-venkarlizei#-At present-41S verydenbtfnCthat our ironclads
< 7vi.X.iitirin an. eatlrdate,-b6 able to do the work of our
wooden walls;, certainly not if the Cbief Constructor of
the Navy is allowed to have his way. The report of
Admiral Warden of the performances of the Channel
Fleet during its last continental cruise, much as it does
to repair to the Admiralty the too great candour of his
previous report, is not at all reassuring as to the efficiency
of our ironclads. In anything like a wind they roll and
oscillate to such a degree that they cannot keep their
ports open, and cannot fight their guns. In the voyage
from Queenstown to Lisbon, during which the weather
was fine throughout, only two of the ships—the Achilles
and Minotaur—were able to keep their ports always open;
. the Bellerophon, fcr three days, had most of her ports
closed, though she could always fight her guns ; the War-
rior and Lord Warden had, during four or fiN e days, to
close all-or some of their ports, but were able to fight
their mins, though not well " from rolling so heavily ;"
and the Lord Clyde for five out of the eight days which
the voyage occupied, had to close her ports, and could
not fight her guns at all. The Bellerophon, the Lord
Waidein and the Clyde, are the masterpieces of the pre-
sent Chief Constructor of the Navy ; and of these, the
first makes only an approximation to the qualities of
-- fighting ship ; while of the second it may be said that
nothing could have been worse had not the Chief Con-
structor produced the third. There are three principles
upon which ironclads may be constructed : the first is that
adopted by Sir Baldwin Walker and Mr. Watts, when
the former was Controller and the latter Chief Constructor
of the Navy. They held that the largest proportions were
neceFsa.rey in order to combine heavy armour with great
speed and ensure good seagoing qualities. Upon this
principle six were constructed the Warrior, Black
Prince, Achilles, Minotaur, Agincourt, and Northumbene
land. Two cf these, the third and fourth, were the on 13;
ships which, during the voyage from Queenstown to
Lisbon, could always keep their ports open. The present
Chief Constructor came to his duties with the advantage
of all that had been done before him, yet the best of hilt
ships is inferior to the Achilles and Minotaur, and his
second and third best may almost be said to be out of the
running. His principle of construction is small vessel,
and enormous horsepower. He has himself said that
" speed now means steam-power, and for steam-power
nothing is needed except coal and iron." But this is not
quite true. There is also needed room to put them in.
This is what his ships do not Possess. Enormous engines
in small ships simply means ships that cannot keep the
sea for any length of time-because they have not space for
the requisite amount of fuel. The Bellerophon and
Hercules, -I.llr. Reed'. nest successful achievements, if the
word is admissible when success has not been obtained,
at full speed, three_ days' fuel. Captain
carry only,
Mackinnon justly summed up the results of the Chief Con-
structor's principle of su.all ships and bilge steam-power:
`,2 Commencing with the Enterprise and Research, and
last of Mr. Reed's vessels, he considered
going -down to the
that there existed a most glaring_ evidence of the
misappropriation of public money for building purposes ;
their unseaworthiness ling propensities were re-
ef want of and called for great
•-1 • futtn•a designs from Use
t one vessel_ designed by
11110 as ye
1 Ishould
Mr. Weil l'keved :tile type of another which
follow." The thlriprlnc;iph;7-42pon which ironclad:l may
be built is that of the ferret, which has not yet been fairly
tried. And we may here remark that however true may
be the boast of the First Lord that our ironclad ships are
superior rather than inferior to those of any other country
in the world, that cannot be a satisfactory reflection so
long as we persist in building ironclads upon a principle
which has failed.

mark able evi

.)11

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.—The arrangements
in connection with the Norwich meeting of the Britisb
Association for the Advancement of science are making
15_440.V vrogrmi - -