The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-19 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, DEC. 19, 1857.

A second report has been published by certain
members of the Army Purchase Commission, who
did not concur with the majority of their col..
leagues even to the limited extent to which they
went, in recommending that the important office
of Lieutenant-Colonel, practically the Commander
of the regiment, should be filled by selection
rather than by purchase.
The reasons for that dissent by the Right Hon.
EDWARD ELLICE, M.P., Lieutenant- General
WYNYARD, C-8., and Sir H. J. BENTINCR, K.C.8.,
have only just been given to the community,
although it would appear from the date of
the document, that it was signed on the
of August last, some four months and a half
ag° t We cannot understand the reasons for the
delay. The
present. report runs counter to public
opinion in rc,it
maintain the presgenatrty change, and desiring to
system of promotion by
purchase without Chang©
or modification. it
might, therefore, have been
considered desirable
to withhold it during the parii
arnentary ession
LegitlAtuure-.
as it might have occasioned considera.hleS disc
sion in the popular branch of the
But surely it might have been earlier communi-
cated, so that all parties interested might have
had ample opportunities of studying, and, if de-
sirable, replying to the arguments contained
therein I

Mr. ELLICE and those who agree with him,,
" fully admit the abstract objections to purchase."
Nay more, they declare that they should " not
be prepared to advise the introduction of the
principle if they did not find it already established,
and interwoven with the whole regimental sys-
tem." This admission is fatal to the whole argu-

ment. The nation will generally ask, why should
a vicious principle ; " the introduction of which
could not be recommended," be maintained and
perpetuated, merely because it has for some time
been in operation, and become,
" An aged vice, a grey iniquity 1"

This would indeed be too bad. It would vir-
tually prohibit improvement in any department
of the public service. It could not be
so very difficult to discover a judicious " scheme
of regimental organisation," by whichir the effi-
ciency of the service would be secured, and the
flagrant reproach removed from the nation of
permitting the open and acknowledged buying
and selling of commissions, and thus at the same
time preventing the promotion of meritorious
officers, simply because they have not a large
sum of money at command, and enabling parties
who have nut legitimate claims to get into posi-
tions in which the comforts, nay more, the lives
of our gallant soldiers may be dependent on their
efficiency and discretion.

It is very easy to say that " every improvement
should be adopted, every exertion made still
further to promote discipline and efficiency, and
to maintain the superiority of our regimental
force." But how is this to be effected, if we
ignore merit and deprive young officers of
that which would be the main incen-
tive to zeal and study. According to the
existing system, those who have money know
that they can obtain rapid promotion, whether
they labour or not, and those who have not, feel
convinced that they must spend the best years of
their lives in subordinate situations, no matter
how highly they may be qualified by nature and
education for higher positions. At present the
nation hails with enthusiasm the names of the
Indian officers who have so gloriously
vindicated the national character. But
purchase is not recognised there ! HAVELOCK,
too, the avenger of Cawnpore, the preserver of
Lucknow—for whom, by the way, the Duke
of OAMBRIDGB has done far more than the
Government, and that without solicitation or
pressure—was 23 years a subaltern, and won
his way slowly onwards. Surely the nation can-
not complain of him ; nor would it have been de-
sirable that the tardily acquired opportunities of
gaining distinction should have been withheld
because he could not supply the price of a majority
or lieutenant-colonelcy, and should submit to
others passing over his head, while he remained in
listless and hopeless despondency, conscious of
his own deserts, but unable to provide that
which was indispensable to their due develop-
ment.

The Army Purchase Commission has proved a
failure. The partial change indicated by the
majority of its members would be of but little
practical utility, while the opinion of the minority
would maintain the objectionable principle with-
out change or modification of any kind. The
People must now take the matter into their own
hands, and insist on such military reforms as will
afford the best prospects of promotion to the hard-
working officers who adopt the military profes-
sion, and who are not disposed, at any slight an-
noyance, to vote the service a bore, and talk of
selling out and getting back their money on any
fancied grievance.

The Bank returns for the past week are of an
exceedingly favourable character. The stock of
bullion in both departments now stands at
9,450,8551., being an increase within the week
of 1,381,3661. ; and there has even been a larger
improvement in the reserve of notes, which, in-
cluding the additional 2,000,0001. issued on
securities, amounts to 5,757,1751.—an addition
to last week's stock of 1,856,6901. There has
also been a decrease of 846,2451. in the private
securities, and of 499,2101. in the notes in cir-
culation. The rest has also been augmented by
30,9141., a convincing proof of the effects of the
10 per cent., so far as the pockets of the proprie-
tors are concerned, but very different as to the
trading and manufacturing interests, which are
crushed under the enormous burden.

' It would surely, then, be time that " the Old
Lady" should imitate the conduct of the Bank of
France by reducing the discount. At Hamburgh
the rate has already fallen to 6 per cent., notwith•
standing the severity of the late crisis, and even
in Lombard-street approved bills are cashed on
lower terms than at the quasi national
establishment. Owing, however, to the ob-
stinacy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in
refusing to permit the Act of Indemnity to re-
main in force if the Bank reduced its rate below
10 per cent., the present oppressive charge will
probably be continued for some time longer. The
Directors will doubtless rejoice at so good an
excuse for maintaining a system that enables them
to add more than 30,0001. per week to their pro-
fits, and enables them to look forward confidently
to an enhanced dividend or the distribution of
a handsome bonus. They will, of course,
lament the necessity that exists for putting money
' in their pockets ; but they will submit to it with
Christian fortitude and pious resignation. The
sufferings and privations sustained by the
working-classes—so many of whom have been
thrown out of employment or put on half time,
will not disturb their digestion, or prevent their
enjoyment of the festivities of the season. But it
will be by no means " a merry Christmas or a
happy new year," to those who find the fruits of
their former industry scattered to the winds, and
the prospects in life of themselves and families
blighted through the terrible ordeal which they
have sustained. They will feel bitterly and se-
verely the effects of the storm, and of the tardi-
ness of the Government interference, and the
onerous conditions on which it was granted. The
organ of " the hard calculators" admits that the
failures since October have amounted to more
than fifty millions sterling ; and, although somi
essentially weak houses are included in the black
catalogue, which would have fallen under any cir-
cumstances, a large proportion of the number have
been occasioned by the crisis, and would under
other circumstances have been perfectly solvent.
Indeed, despite forced liquidations and other seri-
ouse evils, many will still pay 20s. in the pound.
What a terrible state of affairs does this indi-
cate. How much misery to both debtors and
creditors is contained in these awful facts, which
were occasioned mainly, if not altogether, by
the stringent regulations of the most impolitic
and inequitable law that ever received the legisla-
tive sanction. We trust that the people will at
length, even at the eleventh hour, be aroused from
their long-continued apathy. If they exert them-
selves steadily and energetically, they will speedily
obtain relief. If they still remain careless and indif-
ferent, more stringent regulations will be adopted,
and they will witness another monetary convulsion
imore frightful even than that of ] 847 or of 1857,
under which we are still smarting.

A eurre .
racY satin fPa
li--ament could hardly
furnisho much Parliamentary inci-
dent. There could
business, since every Member opposition to the main
felt that had he
been a Minister he woulda%
same, and on no other business of have done the
would our prudent Cabinet indicate importance
its views and

furnish ground for a debate. It was not, how-

ever, practicable to keep down Ecclesiastical
questions. If Government wished to be quiet,
some of the restless ones would not let it. Nor
are we prepared to blame them. Both in the
Lords and the Commons, the everlasting Church-
rates were brought forward ; but all that could be
obtained from the Government was that, accord-
ing to Lord GRANTILLE, Ministers wished to'bring
in a Bill on the subject ; and according to Lord
PALMERSTON, they hoped to do so ; but both
Lords were unable to predict the amount and
progress of public business after February, and,
consequently, they were unable to say whether
India, and Parliamentary Reform, and Corpora-
tion of London Reform, would not jostle out
Church-rates, and many other things too.

The Church-rate Abolitionists—and we have
always heartily fought in their ranks—may as
well at once decide on their tactics. If Lord
PALMERSTON'S promise of a Bill last session was
never even attempted to be fulfilled, we may be
quite sure " hopes and wishes" will go for
nothing. One is almost tempted to get out the
scales and to weigh the words of each Minister,
as old ARISTOPHANES tells us there was once
word-weighing, BACCHUS being arbiter, in the
realms below, between two rival poets. GRA N-
VILLE puts in a " wish"—down goes the scale ;
PALMERSTON puts in a "hope"—hem ! a hope
ought to weigh down a wish. But no ; the scales
see-saw a little, and the hope and the wish balance
each other A wish in the Lords and a hope in
the Commons—a wish from grave GRANVILLE and
a hope from joking PALMERSTON, are of much the
same value, and that value we take to be
nothing.
Now, then, we think our friends who share our
hatred of the obnoxious impost, should bestir
themselves out of Parliament. Every parish
Parliament should now be made a vigorous battle-
field. A determined minority even can floor a
tyrant majority, by giving them endless trouble.
That is the way to settle the question. Every
item of a rate can be disputed and a poll taken
upon it. The chairman has no option ; his refu-
sal to take a poll on ss. for washing the surplice,
and after that on 51. for sacramental wine, if the
amounts were objected to, and so forth on every
item—his refusal to take a poll on each, would
vitiate the rate, even on the face of it. When
there is a majority on the right side, there is of
course no difficulty ; but where a tyrant parson
and squire determine to make a minority pay tri-
bute to their ecclesiastical pride and avarice, and
to bribe or intimidate a majority of ratepayers for
that purpose, it is quite fair to fight and divide
and poll for the items, as JOSEPH HUME used to
do in the House of Commons. Church rates,
themselves, are such a wanton abuse of mere parish
power—so grossly at variance with the social
knowledge and intelligence of this old England of
ours, in the year 1857, that no means of opposi-
tion placed in our hands by law can be considered
unfair. Every parish should show fight. We do
not like parish brawls, but a church-rate battle is
no more a brawl, than a fight between the lag-
behinds and the go-a-heads in the Houses of Par-
liament. The question whether any man has a
right to tax his neighbour because his oreed differs
from his own, is one worthy to be fought out
in any assembly, from a parish vestry to the House
of Lords.

Outside the cabinet, Lord JOHN RUSSELL
comes forward again as the Jews' advocate.
Well, we wish him luck ; and we wish Mr.
DrINCOXBE better luck still. Mr. Du/wolfram
proposes to seat Baron ROTHSCHILD in the same
way as the House of Lords refused to seat Lord
WENSLEYDALE, and the people of England
' would doubtless prefer the straightforward plucky
plan. We should like to see who would beat if
the holders of the purse-strings were determined
to be snubbed no longer by the Upper House.
The House of Lords does not deserve another op-
portunity to insult tie people. Lord JOHN
Rlism, himself, is obliged to hold out the pros-
pect of settling the question by accepting a Jew's
affirmation, if the Lords will not assent to
his present bill. To that it must come before
such superstition and narrowmindedness as that of
the Bishop of OXFORD and Lord SHAFTESBURY can
be overcome; and therefore we think Lord JOHN is
unwise to waste auy more time in the old style of
fighting. There is something, too, we think,
very petty about his bill. We would vote for it,
since, if carried, it would attain its object ; but
what can be said for retaining the silly phrase
"on the true faith of a Christian 1" Silly, we
call it. Because, logically, an infidel, a Mahome-
tan, or a Jew might use it. He would swear. not
by all that a ChriStian believes, but by so much
only of it as was true ; and we suppose it must
i have been with such an interpretation that GIB-
BON, and other known sceptics, who would not
have taken a false oath, did not hesitate to take
this. As the Christian and the Jew believe
so much in common, Baron ROTHSCHILD could
honestly regard much of our faith as a true faith.
It has, however, now become a point of honour to
deal with the phrase ad animum imponentis, and
to regard it as meaning what it was intended to
mean, that the whole Christian faith is true. So
Lord JOHN would keep the precious sentence, and
authorise Jews to omit it. Are "Noble Lords" to
be caught with such a bait ? If so we should de-
spise them. In their place, we should feel it
much more dignified to concede the point on the
constitutional ground that the Lords ought to
yield to the reiterated demand of the Commons,
especially after a dissolution.
Another little Ecclesiastical affair was brought
forward by Lord SHAFTESBURY. The Noble Lord
delights in shutting Jews out of the Hous© of
Commons, although, for valuable episcopal con-
siderations, no doubt, he gave a grumbling help
to Lord PALMERSTON'S bill, but his lordship does
not like being shut out himself from Exeter Hall.
As our readers well know, he and some dosen
Church STURQEONS, commanded in chief by the
Archbishop of CANTERBURY and the Bishop of
LONDON, undertook to preach a working-class
gospel to the million in Exeter Hall. The Rev.
A. G. EDOUART forbade them all. He stood up
for the parish system against the associated mag-
nates, and they quailed. Not relishing their de-
feat, however, they handed the whole thing over,
the Litany and all, to the good-tempered Dissen-
ters ; and poor Mr. EDOUART has no power to
"inhibit" these irregulars. Not content, how-
ever with such revenge, Lord SHAFTESBURY wants
to triumph too. Helintroduces, therefore, a Bill
into the House of Lords to checkmate the Edouarts
by requiring a Bishop's counter-signature to the
incumbent's inhibition of an occasional service. It
was intended to have settled the matter in the ten
days' session, but the Bishops of OXFORD and St.
DAVID'S were too quick for him ; and the whole
thing must stand over till February. The former
even charged the Earl with " indecent haste." A
charge which he did not appear to relish at all,
and plaintively replied that the Archbishop of CAN-
TERBURY did not think him " indecent." There
can he uo doubt that Mr. EDOUART'S power is au
absurd one in a place like Londuo, ,ilore congre-
gations pay no regard to parish boundaries ; still
there is a grave question involved in the whole
affair, which should be settled, not with reference