The Sun.
London, England, 1868-12-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TSB PUBLIC JOURNALS

The Times speaks in the very highest terms of Mr.
Childers's programme for the future administration of our
naval affairs. It remarks that the head of the new Admi-
ralty has contrived in a very few words to give the country
as comprehensive a pledge for the due administration of
his department as could well be conceived. In allusion
to the promises given by the new Lord of the Admiralty,
it says he will not cut off one single source of our
maritime power, but he will bring down the estimates to
more satisfactory figures. On each of these points—
that of maintaining the fleet and that of cheapening its
charges—he speaks with clearness and sincerity,
leaving nothing to be desired. " I will endeavour to
increase to the utmost the efficiency of the navy—to put
or continue the navy of England in the state in which the
country expects the navy to be, the navy being her espe-
cial pride and her first protection in the event of foreign
difficulties." Mr. Childers, we are told, expressly states
himself that he will have no false economy, but insists on
our navy being "strong." He adds, however,
that a strong navy is not incompatible with
"such economy and reduction of the public burdens
as will be satisfactory to the taxpayers of England."
And, adds the Times, this is precisely what the country
wants ; it is precisely what the country has been told,
time after time, is perfectly practicable ; but it is what,
for all that, we have never seen accomplished yet. Most
heartily do we wish that Mr. Childers may be the firsi to
solve the problem.

On the subject of future improvements in the working
of our departments, the Star observes that the First Lord
of the Admiralty is to be really chief and responsible, as
he never has been before. The office of Secretary to the
Treasury has been virtually divided, so as to render it
feasible for all demands of the different departments to be
canvassed by the Treasury with searching severity. The
War Department is to have a Treasury attache, whose duty
it is to be to understand and criticise and place on their true
footing all the army charges on the public money. And in the
House of Lords certain departments not otherwise repre-
sented are to be spoken for by young peers,whose al ready tried
abilities establish their fitness for usefulness, and in whom
the personnel of the Court itself will be made to co-operate
with the Government for the general good of the public
administration. We were persuaded from the first that
these alterations were not the results of mere personal
emulation for office, or even of individual zeal on the part
of subordinate members of the Government. And we
now find from Mr. Stansfeld that " the changes
in the workings of our Treasury were conceived some two
or three years back by the Prime Minister himself."
Further information on this subject is promised ; for,
observes the Star, the House meets on the 29th to issue
the remainder of the writs, and it would not surprise us if
the country were then to be put in possession of facts
which cannot but confirm the hopes which the late re-
arrangement of offices has created.

The Telegraph makes the following observations :—There
-was but one member of the Cabinet who did not and could
net share in the spirit which animated every other
Minister on Monday last. - Mr. Lowe has won his present
place by force of intellect, in default of sympathy, and
and under an amnesty for the bitter things which he has
done and said against the aims of the Liberal party.
Alone of all the gentlemen following Mr. Gladstone, upon
his patent of office is written, " Quamdiu bene se gesserit I"
lie has to shew us whether the Mettus Fulletius of
the political battle can be an honest soldier when
the victory is won, and when nothing is to
be gained by egotistical rhetoric and terror of the
people. In undertaking the finance of a country which
he declared must be irrevocably ruined by 111 r. Glad-
stone's Reform Bill, he has shewn that kind of cheerful
self-recovery which Varro exhibited when he had gone all
wrong at the battle of Canna?. The Romans thanked
their unlucky leader for " not despairing of the
Republic ; " and Mr. LDwe serves the purpose of pleasantly
chewing that we are not to be " ruined ;" at any me, just
at present. So much public service his aiN ointment has
rendered. Upon the further instalment which it may
furnish by the resolute support of economy in every de-
partment, and by the transfer of his strong will from the
abuse to the relief of the people, depends the condonation
which may be finally extended to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer. There is a golden bridge built for his retreat
from the old and hard opinions to the courage and hope of
those shared by his colleagues. If he has crossed in earnest
he shall have no reminders of what he said and did against
the leader whom he now serves ; but the joy felt in Heaven,
and other places, over repentant sinners, depends upon the
reality of their conversion.

The Standard is nothing if not critical, and so comes
back to the subject of the speech at Greenwich on Monday
last. It remarks that Mr. Gladstone is a master in the
art of saying as little as possible in as many words as
possible, and his election speech on Monday is not the least
successful of his achievements in that direction. States-
men practised in official life, especially when they happen
to be Premiers, are not wont to regard the hustings as a
fitting tribune for an exposition of Ministerial policy. The
mistake of 11Ir. Gladstone's speech is, that it takes the
form of an elaborate declaration of his programme for the
future, while in reality it simply evades the necessity
which it creates. "Itis a tale told by " a Premier
afraid to compromise himself, " full of sound and fury,
signifying nothin:_c." It gives the outline of a scheme of
legislation sufficiently ample in its scope, but the mischief
of it is, that Mr. Gladstone neither pledges himself to deal
with any one of the questions which he mentions, nor
indicates the spirit in which he is disposed to look at
them. He holds before the country the bait of sound and
copious legislation, while in the same breath he pleads
that everything must give way until the demolition of the
Irish Establishment is accomplished ; and there are plenty
of people who will regard such an announcement as an
intimation that there is little hope of any useful legislation
for many a long year to come.

Commenting on Mr. Cardwell's speech at Oxford, and
his expected policy as War Minister, the Daily News
remarks that the speech followed in its most important
part the key-note struck by Mr. Gladstone at Greenwich.
Economy in the Administration of the public departments
is the idea which the Prime Minister declares to have
governed him in forming his Administration. The ex-
planation applies only to some of the chief offices of State,
and other ideas might reasonably have been allowed their
share of influence. But in the post to which Mr. Cardwell
has been called Mr. Gladstone's ruling motive or passion
finds free scope, and the selection is singularly judicious.
It is further observed that it is satisfactory to find the
Minister of War echoing the Prime Minister's anticipation
that the estimates of the coming year will give pledge of
a substantial reduction of expenditure, and a sound policy
is prefigured in Mr. Cardwell's suggestion that this re-
trenchment will be obtained by throwing upon the colonies,
to whom we have almost given complete independence,
the obligation of self-defence as the correlative of self-
government. Economy is a matter of detail ; but it is also
a matter of policy. The details must be governed by a
principle, if they are to converge to any great result. A
Government, it is added, in which Mr. Gladstone, Mr.
Bright, and Mr. Lowe arc the devising intelligences, con-
tains within itself, three-fold, that impulse to economical
reform which ordinarily has to be transmitted from with-
out.

The Post calls attention to the Association for the Pro.
tection of Shareholders in Public Companies, which will
probably prove useful, and is certainly significant. It may
not improbably tend to revive the formation of really
sound industrial undertakings at home. At present the
energies of even successful and respectable promoters
remain paralysed, and would-be investors in com-
panies commanding their confidence have no heart
to embark in home-made concerns, and are either
hoarding their wealth or placing it in Government
or foreign stocks, or securities of that description. Con-
fidence is the one thing needed to dispel the financial
glamour, and this the new society is calculated, if properly
constituted and worked, to produce. The significance of
the association consists in its pointing to the fact that
crowds of shareholders have been befooled and duped, and
in intimating that they mean to look after their own
interests in a more systematic manner than they have
hitherto done. After some lengthened relnarks on the
commercial panic of three years ago, and itreonsequences'
the Post further remarks that there are many excellent
commercial and industrial undertakings which would cer-
tainly " pay '' if entered upon, mid it observes that
it is really very hard that such undertakings should be
obliged to contend against, perhaps, an unjust and adverse
public feeling ; a. d it would be greatly to the advantage
of the public to encourage the formation of an association
like that question, and to assist it in obtaining trust-
worthy information. It will he a great object with the
new society, we are informed, to obtain certain judicious.
alterations of the law relating to limited liability com-
panies, and the proposed changes, it is asserted, are
viewed in a favourable light by the Master of the lions.

In pursuance of its quarrel with the Liberal press orfali
subjects, the Herald remarks that Mr. Bright's organ
assures the Greeks that if they will fight the quarrel out
thoy will have its "good wishes," and describes the scan-
dalous breaches of neutrality committed by the Greek
Government, and its aid in a hopeless struggle, involving
much bloodshed and the greatest misery, as "patriotic
endeavours." But reasoning of this kind finds no adhesion
outside Greek circles and the ranks of the Peace Society,
and the great business of the advocates of Greek dis-
honesty and folly is to represent the energetic action of
the Porte as the consequence of foreign influence, and the
Greeks as the victims of huge schemes for disturbing
the peace of Europe. Thus we• are told that Austria
induced the Porte to take its present decided line of action,
not, of course, front any conviction on the part of Austria
that such a course was necessary or desirable in the interests
of the Ottoman Empire or of Europe, but to serve certain
objects of her own. Moreover, it is added that France,
having previously concerted the plan with Austria, and
with a view to the injury of Prussia—the common object
of these two rowers—warmly supported l'arou Von Beust's
recommendations and that this crisis is one not of
Turkey's own seeking, but forced upon her by European
diplomacy. Not the slightest ground for such reasoning,
we arc assured, can be found in the course pursued by
France or Austria.