The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT-OF/THE PUBLIC►3OURNALS:

~~. ,).

The discnAston which took pliee on the night of the
army estimates on the increase of the capitation grant to
the volunteers, leads the Times to take up that larger
subject, the constitution of the entire British army. The
present Government has recognised the truth that if danger
threaten this country at any time the regular army will
be insufficient to avert it, and that the subsidiary forces of
militia and volunteers must be brought into more complete
union with the regulars and with each other if they are to
form one well-ordered and effective whole. In pursuance
of this conviction a step has been made by uniting the
militia, volunteers, and the reserve, which were heretofore
each under its own separate colonel. They have now
been placed under the command of a general officer of
high rank. Now, we think that though an increase of the
capitation grant would not be objected to by the public,
such a grant ought to be combined with a more
complete discipline, and be conditional upon it. The
nation will not grudge 205., nor even 405., more
per man if it has the assurance that the men for
whom it pays will be really available in case of war.
What is wanted is to make the militia and volunteers a
more thorough army for home purposes, and to accustom
them to act with the regulars, so that these should be con-
sidered rather the nucleus of the British army th:::n the
army itself. The numbers of our domestic force are at
present quite large enough for all purposes of defence.
We do not want snore volunteers, but we want those that
are enrolled to be more thoroughly trained, and the
increase of the capitation grant might be made conditional
on this. It is only fair the State should demand from men
whom it is disposed to deal with liberally that they should
give a day occasionally to military exercises on a larger
scale, and thus fit themselves to take their place in a real
'army. It is needless to recapitulate the arguments which
have been already urged in support of such a combination
pf our military elements. We have had the examples of
America and Germany to instruct us since the volunteer
force was formed ; and while they fully confirm the prin-
ciple of that force, they enable us to judge how far it is
deficient, and how it may best be organised for modern
war.

The Stardard takes up the question actually before the
House. The arguments of the applicants for an increased
grant urge that the force has now been in existence for
several years ; it has worn out its first uniforms ; it is
becoming a more costly burdn upon the members ; it has
to be kept up by artificial stimulants ; the enthusiasm and
the resources of private associations begin to fail ; the
purses of the officers are overtaxed; the regimental bands,
though indispensable, are costly ; and the exigencies of
drill and display, drawing large numbers together at
points of the country distant from their homes, are
growing more onerous year by year. In one quarter,
therefore, it was urged that a systematic increase of
the Government grant for the whole force equally,
should be proposed with the estimates, while in
others it was only suggested that volunteers should
be recouped in their authorised, certified, and unavoidable
costs out of pocket. The latter proposal is to a certain
'degree acquiesced in by the Secretary at War, but he in-
dicates, at the same time, a truth which cannot be gain-
said. The original idea of our volunteer army was un-
questionably that of a self-supporting force, supplied, in-
deed, with weapons from the national army, yet otherwise
dependent upon its own powers of self-sacrifice. So far
from this theory having been acted upon in its integrity,
the riflemen now cost the country £400,000 a year, and
their colonels are soliciting an extra donation of nearly
half that amount. Agreeing with Sir John Pakington,
that the claim may be made out on a future occasion, we
agree with him also in thinking that this is not exactly the
time to press it.

The bill which the Chancellor or the Exchequer was
prevented, by protracted debates in committee, from
introducing for placing the telegraphs of the United King-
dom under the control of the Post-office authorities, is, in
the opinion of the Post, one which must meet with uni-
versal approbation. Whatever may be said of the evils of
monopolies, there are circumstances under which they are
productive of unmixed good. And these circumstances
are very easily ascertained. The Post Office is a gigantic
monopoly in the hands of the State, but no one can enter-
tain a doubt that greater perfection of administration,
stricter economy, and a more complete protection of the
interests of the public are secured by placing the postal
arrangements of the country in the hands of a particular
department of the State, than by adopting in this respect a
free-trade policy, and allowing any person who thought
proper to establish a system of letter-carrying with a view
to his own profit. The Ministerial scheme has the un-
equivocal merit of being open to no objection as to prin-
ciple. Of course, persons 'may be found to differ in
opinion as to the best means of carrying the object of the
bill into effect ; but all must agree in considering that the
transmission of all property in, and control over, the tele-
graphs of this country to the Government is eminently
calculated to benefit the public. The fact of being sole
masters of the field, and being in a position to turn their
resources to the best account, must enable the authorities
to use their wires at a lower cost, and, consequently, to
transmit messages at a cheaper rate, than companies many
of which are acting in opposition to each other, and which
are constantly the prey of conflicting interests. We cer-
tainly do not much care for what are termed paternal
Governments, which do everything for their subjects, and
leave them little opportunity of doing anythihg of a
general or public nature for themselves ; but this proposed
amalgamation of the postal and telegraphic systems in
this country is undoubtedly a step in the right direction.

The Daily News notices Mr. Disraeli's letter to the Earl
of Dartmouth bn the Irish Church question. The opinion
'of the Prime Minister, it says, which he thrusts upon his
'antagonists in spite of their disavowal, that the mainte-
nance of the Protestant Establishment of Ireland is essen-
tial to the union of Church and State in England, involves
the principle of government which for centures has per-
verted the relations of the two countries. Ireland is to be
ruled, not for her own advantage, but the interests of Eng-
land. A State Church is to be kept up there, in order to
secure the safety of the State ChUrch here. This practice
goes far to justify the revived demand of the Limerick
clergy for legislative independence. It is only by dis-
claiming it for the future, and undoing the effects of its
operation in the past, that a real union can be secured.
If we admit the duty of ruling Ireland for the Irish, and
not for the English, and adopt Mr. Disraeli% doctrine of
Church and State, the establishment of the Roman Catho-
lic Church is the inevitable consequence. To this con-
clusion all Mr. Disraeli's theories lead. It does not suit
him at present to allow this. He may condescend to
obscure the real tendency of his arguments by winking at
the cries of " No Popery" and " Protestantism in Danger,"
which his followers are already beginning to raise. But
the logical development of his doctrines is clear. The
results to which we are led may be briefly summed up.
The Protestant Establishment in Ireland can be justified
only on the principle that it is right to govern Ireland for
the benefit of England; and this side of Mr. Disraeli's
doctrine we commend to the Irish Catholics. The abstract
principle of the union of Church and State in its applica-
tion to Ireland involves the establishment of the Roman
Catholic Church ; and this side of Mr. Disraeli's doctrine
e commend to the Protestants of the empire, to whom,
however, it will not be more distasteful than to Roman
Catholics themselves.

Is Herod of Jewry, asks the Telegraph, come to life again,
that we are to hear of nothing but massacres of the inno-
cents? Dead babies thrust into hOles in back cellars ; live
babies set on the fire by drunken nurses ; little school-
children immersed in wash-house coppers by ignorant
governesses ; little boys burned with red-hot pokers by
female fiends ; girls of six horsewhipped within an
inch of their lives by their 'stepfathers for not giving
them alight for their pipes properly ; babies drowned, babies
chopped up, babies hidden away,—this is but a sample, in-
deed; of the catalogue of infantile horrors which has
been published within the last month. And now we
are again told the sickening story of the baby-boiling in
the Wigan workhouse. A girl named Catherine Dawber
was tried at Liverpool; on Tuesday, for the manslaughter
of a female child, seven months old. The girl was neither
more nor less than an idiot ; yet, her imbecility notwith-
standing, she was entrusted with the washing and dressing
of a child. The wretched simpleton filled a bucket with
boiling water, and plunged the poor little baby's body in
it. That was her idea of washing the infant. It needed
drying afterwards, and, although it screamed dreadfully,
the idiot scrubbed it with a rough towel, causing the skin
to peel off. In a few days the baby died from the injuries
it had received. The girl was, of course, acquitted.
The Herald, in a leader on the impeachment of the
President of the United States, does not go so far as to
affirm that the American Commonwealth, unfortunate as
it at present looks, is sick unto death. It would be a
daring thing to assert that there are not in that
extensive fasciculus of territories the honest, energetic,
gifted men who may do for it what Cato and Brutus failed
to do for Rome, and all our modern Republicans failed to
do for France, England, and Italy. But, if so, where
were they these twenty-five years timing which Napoleon
111. was refounding France ; and how happens it that the
most eminent and trusted of their politicians is standing
at this moment at the bar impeached as a chief
traitor ? Perhaps the real hope of the Repul lic lies
the other way—for when a commonwealth is in diffi-
culties, it is as possible for it to live the ough the
want of great men as in the more collusion ease to
perish by their possession. If the Republic hail at this
moment a Cresar, or even a Pompey, within its boundary,
who shall say that the dictatorship which Mr. Johnson is
charged with might not be in the possession of somebody
else ? In the meantime the marvel of the impeachment
of the chief of this great commonwealth must be left to
its results as another of the agents threatening a disinte-
gration. liis suspense may not mean that of the execu-
tive energy of the-country, but in a Republic, where the
administrative power is proverbially weak, it can hardly
be unattended with bad influences. So much government,
so much obedience ; and when the chief depositary of
power is paraded as its chief debtor, it looks as though
the very principle of authority were gone, and that the
whole iikesarchy of order had fallen into fatal diaeolution,