The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-01 00:00:00

Erma OF TM PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The Times is anxious for us to bear in mind that the
new year will not have done many months of its weary
work before it brings us fresh, and, perhaps, still more
painful illustrations of the evils which sit heavily on the
public breast, and disquiet the peace of a great nation.
But what remedies do we expect it to bring ? At home,
at our very doors, there is a widespread conspiracy, the
professed objects of which are ridiculous, but which is daily
becoming more reckless and more mischievous. That is
the evil case in which we begin the yetr at home, and it
cannot be forgotten that circumstances may arise, from
beyond the seas, which may teach us to our cost what it is
to have a divided family. But England hardly knows
better how to deal with her own industtial difficulties—
sometimes even more embarrassing than these fantastic
Irish delusions. Our trades unions have lately suffered
disgraceful exposures and signal reverses'; but the spirit
remains, and there is not a branch of enterprise that is not
endangered by it. Every day brings new proofs of the
advance made by our foreign rivals, while 0117 masters are
engaged in internecine feuds with their men. For this
and similar evils we might look for relief to improved
education, amended law, higher commercial morality, and
a sounder state of trade. But here are the very tasks
which seem only to grow as we gaze at them, and elude
our grasp when we would handle them. He must be a
very sanguine man who expects to see before he dies a
national education which, without offending class preju-
dices and violating religious scruples, shall reach all the
children of industry and really prepare them to do their
duty in their station of life. Can we expect even an
earnest of such a measure this year? For some time past
Parliament has been oscillating on the subject, alternating
between liberality and cheapness, between progress and
accuracy, between insulated efforts and comprehensive
results. As to law, the stoutest British spirit must feel
itself crushed at the colossal work before it. That we are
actually driven into the path that leads to codification only
shows the general sense of impossibility that paralyses
law reformers. Then we come to what seems even a more
utterly hopeless affair, as beyond the reach of all laws and
all legislatures. What is to be done to resuscitate, not
commercial credit, but commercial morality? What can
be done to close the gambling-houses which a nation sorely
addicted to respectable disguises tolerates and encourages
under the pretence of legitimate enterprise? The financial
management of the immense and complicated companies
we have allowed to grow up among us, and to share among
them these isles and this metropolis, now passes all con-
trol, all simplification, all conclusion. They defy remedy
as if they were huge natural disasters. Will the year now
commenced see even daylight in this jungle ,of mad specu-
lation and scarcely questionable management? England
has, it is true, taken a new lease of her public life, in tire
shape of a Reformed House of Commons, which is to
be at once popular, honest, and wise. That hope is
for future years. This year we have to complete the
great measure, the utmost possible glory of which will
be that it reflects the national character, for good and
for ill.

Perhaps, consolingly urges the Telegraph, we must not
expect any improvement in our revenue returns while
commercial depression continues, but the most inveterate
grumbler will admit that business must revive some day,
and with it national prosperity. A very slight circum-
stance may bring about a revival. An unexpected an-
nauncement that the Abyssiuian war had closed might,
by giving a fillip to the languid energies of the nation, at
once start us on the road to recovery. Such would
un4uestionably be the effect of peace on the Continent
and a fair prospect of an abundant harvest. We must,
further, bear in mind that the dulness of which we com-
plain is due to a complication of Causes. The wants of
the world do not cease, though the operations by which
they aro sat.zfi,A may for a season be curtailed, and tha
industry of civilised Escape sl,e edily be summoned to
put forth renewed exertions. A revival may t place at
an unexpected time and in a most unforeseen way, and
our national revenue will at once benefit by the wholesome
impetus. Meanwhile, of course, it is not a nice New
Year's gift which Mr. Disraeli has just put on our break-
fast tables. But, in addition to the vague hope of better
things, we may console ourselves with the reflection that
we are better off than many of our neighbours. When
the tide begins to turn, Great Britain will certainly not
be the last to profit by the change.
The Herald reminds us that our merchants are conti-
nually pressing towards new points of departure from the
sea to the great crowded interiors of the East ; and in the
long run, impatient as we may be of the proceA we do
advance. Within living memory our importation of tea
amounted to no more than the sixteenth part of an ounce
a day to each individual. And so we might run throull
the category, proving how large the development has
been, but proving also how slight it is in comparison wall
the practical facilities of the universal market. In Europe
c:mmercial treaties are even more difficult to negeVate
than in Asia ; but we are carrying our coarnc:.ce vic,
toriously into nearly all its harbours, the statistics of
winch are, on the surface, satisfactory. In reality are they
so? The Board of Trade return st.ates that "the export:::
are stated at their declared value, the imports at their
computed real value." This, of course, is an utterly fal-
lacious estimate, because with these declared and com-
puted values we never really know—never, that is to say,
with any practical certainty—what becomes of our mer-
chandise shipped, whether for foreign countries or the
colonies. The fluctuations of those markets consume the

profits of the home producer, and this is an active cause
• of the discrepancy we behold between the nominal immen-
sity of our commerce and the frequent tremblings of our
positive social prosperity. The main figures, grand as they
are, suggest a sensation of pride, which the underlying
facts in some measure destroy. We are apt to forget that
there are panics in the East as in the Vlest, and that we
have to deal where the exchanges are not less prccariou3
in their of erations than those of Europe.

The ,7tcr confesses that it would faco the future, eves.
when it began to brighten, with a most assured thankful-
ness and serenity if philosophers and legislators had
done their best to equalise the vicissitudes of speculation,
and to make it at once the obligation and the policy of
traders to trade soundly as well as to venture spiritedly.
If this were only a moral aspiration our contemporary
would not obtrude it in a financial article, but it believes
it to be capable of practical fulfilment by commercial
le7islation, and with facts and figures to prove the
existence for nearly two years of panic and stagnation, it
is high time the question should be seriously dealt with.
People not at all bitten by currency monomania are in-
clined 'to', believe that Chancellors of the Exchequer
have hitherto viewed commercial crises too exclusively
through the gold spectacles of Bank directors. As to our
present fiscal condition, we are reduced to the meagre and
miserable form of gratitude which confesses that "it
might have been worse." Or, in Mr. Gladstone's more
graceful language, though absolutely the state of the
revenue is discouraging, it is bettor, relatively to the
circumstances we have been passing through, than we could
at any former period have expected.
The Daily News is highly pleased at the choice which
has been made at Eton. It says : In selecting the Rev.
James John Hornby as Dr. Balston's successor, we
believe the Provost and Fellows have shown a wise dis-
crimination, and have deserved well of the school and of
the country. Mr. Hornby was, of course, an Eton boy,
and, we may add, a boy distinguished alike in the studies
and the games for which Eton is renowned. But he is
something more than an Eton man. He has been an
active and able tutor at Brasenose College, Oxford ; he
has been head of a hall at Durham ; and he was until
Tuesday second master at Winchester, where he has done
much to give a now life to that fine, but somewhat dry
and crusted old public school. It is not perhaps always
the most unexceptionable testimony to the merits of any
man in public or in private life to say that all his friends
speak well of him. But to have been a popular and dis-
tinguished Eton boy, and in early manhood a fellow and
tutor at two Universities, and second master at a public
school, and to have earned in all places and capacities, as
boy and man, as pupil and as master, the general esteem,
seems to indicate a force and superiority of character
which may be pronounced scarcely less important, scarcely
less indispensable, than those intellectual capacities and
attainments, which in this case aro certainly not wanting,
to the complete fitness of a Head Master of Eton. Mr.
Hornby has a great career before him at Eton. We cor-
dially trust that a renovated Eton may date from his
reign.

There have been, the Standard admits, more blunders
than are necessary in the preliminary arrangements of the
expedition to Abyssinia. There has certainly been
nothing to discourage us, or to make us lose our faith
either in the commander or in the cause. A certain pro-
portion of loss we must make up our minds to bear, as the
inevitable part of the charge of the Abyssinian war.
But it is both absurd and useless to call fortune to witness
to the dangers of the Abyssinian expedition. Whatever
those dangers are, we are bound to undergo them. We
Lave, and have had from the first, literally no choice. To
against the war because of its remoteness and because
of its difficulty, is surely only the part of a foolish and ill-
conditioned child. Such as it is we hays incurred it, and
we cannot escape from it. Blunders or no blander:, we
Inuit go through with it, and the necessity for it would be
neither greatcr nor less, if the whole army of General
Napier perished before it reached Magdala.

To the Post, it is impossible to avoid feeling more or
less sorry about the new panic which has seized on the
public mind as to the designs of Russia in Eastern Europe.
It would really matter very little what those designs may
be, if there arc designs, for it is quite clear to all men who
know anything of the subject that Russia has no means
N.•:latever of executing any projects of a hostile nature.
The truth is that the very idea of a war would be in the
last degree distasteful to every man of sane intellect in the
Czar's dominions. Russia has nothing to gain by a war,
:Ind if she had she could not afford the outlay necessary,
to accomplish her object, for war is, like most other enter-
prises of importance in this world, an investment which
demands a great deal of capital to be prosecuted success-
fully. All that we hear about Russia at this moment is
more Petersburg toa-table talk, filtered through a thousand
channels of very doubtful purity, till it reaches us consider-
ably adulterated and deprived of its original shade of
meaning ; still people who indulge in nervous stimulants
do
_strange things,