The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-18 00:00:00

-13-iitlY OF THE PIYttiOIVOWEV-

The Saturday Review remarks that the Prince of Wales
goes to Ireland without the shadow of a suspicion DA
representing either a faction of that country or a faction
of this. He is in Dublin because he and Dublin belong
to each other, and both are only factors in a great empire
and a common cause. He stands happily and serenely'
apart from all our parties, sects, theories, policies, and
plans. He flaunts neither Orange nor Green. The
Imperial standard of the realm, one and indivisible, not
so much the United Kingdom as the Kingdom, is the only
banner with which he greets his fellow-subjects. It is not
Protestant ascendancy or Ultramontane tyranny, disen-
dowment or agrarian reform or revolution, that he comes
to recommend or to reason about, but simply to shew that
Ireland has no cause, no interests, no duties which belong
to the four transmarine provinces of the empire by any
specialty or privilege. And if the Prince of Wales imper-
sonates and represents this one political truth, he will in-
deed have discharged an " imperial work and worthy kings."
It is not very respectful to what is called Irish patriotism,
nor does it argue a serious apprehension of the miserable
past, to talk with infinite courtesy and polite contumely
about the pomps and vanities of the show, as though
Ireland were some fractious baby to be soothed with a
gewgaw toy or a sugared comfit. If Ireland has no greater
troubles than can be appeased by the popularity and
gracious demeanour of a young lady and gentleman who
have never had more serious duties than the art of making
themselves agreeable, a good deal of trouble might be
saved in Westminster, and we are just now wasting very.
serious experiments on a very worthless subject-matter.
If the question of Ireland can be settled by a levee, a
review, a horse-race, and smart bonnets, the British
people and Parliament are just now making themselves
supremely ridiculous. The terrible murder of Mr.'
Fetherston, on his actual return from the Dublin festivi-
ties, may teach caution to the eloquent soothsayers who
tell us that the great problem of the day is to be thus
cheaply solved. Let the royal visit be taken for what it
is worth ; that worth is real and important enough neither
to be made too much nor too little of. If, on the one
hand, it is to be taken as a mere show, or if, on the other,
it is elevated to the rank of a stupendous feat of statecraft,
it may do as much harm as good ; possibly more harm
than good. Anyhow, peoples, as the phrase is, like other
guests and hosts, are susceptible to the very ordinary
influences of fine weather, good looks, best clothes, smiles,
and cordiality, and none of these not very superfine
elements of success seem to be wanting. Even Erin-go-
Bragh and Ccad ma Failthe—we are not sure of the
spelling—have their value. So let us shout with the
shouters.

The Spectator hardly thinks that Sir Robert Napier has
had his meed of praise. Let us see what he has done. It
must be remembered that he is followed every day and
almost every hour, by a dozen restless, watchful, and, in
part at least, hostile eyes, eager to criticise, paid to inves-
tigate, often, we fancy, not unwilling to condemn ; and
what have they, in the way of blunders, to report? That
a Quartermaster-General reported the wrong route to be
impracticable, that somebody else found the right one, and
that Sir Robert thenceforward became his own Quarter-
master• General. Disorder enough there was to begin
with ; but he was not responsible for it. He remedied it,
then carried an army of thirty thousand men—for every
follower is as much a burden on the General as every sol-
dier—away from the pestilent coast on to the healthy high-
And—we hear of no crowded hospitals ; then marched for-
ward 200 miles—as far as from London to Leeds, esta-
Dlishing camps as he went, till his communications are
guarded as by a line of fortresses ; then stripped a brigade
for action, ordering off all superfluous impedimenta, till
the Indians were loud in wrath and remonstrance ; and
then, never hurrying, never stopping, losing no men, aban-
doning no needful appliance, over passes 2,000 feet higher
than Mount Cenis, through ravines where ten men ought
to have stopped an army, drawing water from the rocks,
turning the population he has invaded into eager carriers
and suttlers, making no rushes, but also making no
failures, the calm old man has carried the most composite
army which ever fought, straight to its goal, a mountain
fortress in Africa further from his base than Turin is from
France, and with three ranges of Alps instead of one between
them. The gentlemen who muddled Monday's march to
Portsmouth do not, we believe, think the feat a great one ;
but we should, we confess, prefer to hear the opinion of
Marshal Bazaine, who knows what marching Europeans
through a terra cal iente means, or of any officer who ever
entered Afghanistan, or aided in a march over the Suleiman.
We do not believe any General ever accomplished a greater
feat in military organisation than this invasion of Abyssinia,
ever displayed more of the best qualities of a commander
than Sir Robert Napier has done. He has no dash ?
Dashing on boulders is brainless work ; but when Sir
Robert Napier, with a handful of wearied men, flung him-
self right across Tantia, Topee's path, and turned a march
which would have raised all India in insurrection, want of
dash was not the precise foible attributed to him. There
are no incidents? Incidents in a campaign like this—a
campaign of explorers—mean blunders, and the expedi-
tion is eventless only because the General has committed
none. He has risked nothing, forgotten nothing, hurried
nothing, but has tramped on straight to his end, and will,
we firmly believe, after accomplishing his object and
rescuing the prisoners, carry back his army to Bombay as
perfect in discipline and organisation as when he left it,
ready on a telegram from Sir S. Northcote to invade
Egypt, or Japan, or Thibet. It is but poor encourage-
ment to English Generals that service like that, the exact
and punctual performance of an immense task, a task
it which two British Governments craned for four years,
should be received in silence, or even seem to require
apologetic explanation.
The London Review declares that of all the reviews of
our citizen army, that of Monday last was at once the
most unlikely to succeed, and the most successful. A
)reakdown would have surprised no one. There were
many reasons why such a mischance was even probable.
The number of volunteers taking part in the review was
several thousands greater than on any previous occa-
sion. It was held at a much greater distance from London.
There was, moreover, the special disadvantage of the
hitch which presented itself some eight days previously,
and the consequent doubt whether there would be any
review at all. But, as if there had been none of these dis-
advantages, the whole affair passed off with the utmost
smoothness and punctuality, and never have the volun-
teers acquitted themselves so well as on Easter Monday
1868. But, after all, a military force, whether brought
together by enlistment or volunteering, must be judged by
is efficiency for military pm-poses. Will our citizen army
stand this test ? or was Lord Ranelagh right when he
startled and offended it by declaring that for military pur
poses it was a " sham ?" The term was a strong term.
Was it just? It has been too bitterly resented, mainly
because it was misunderstood. Lord Ranelagh was very
far from wishing to reflect on the courage, the discipline,
or the patriotism of the volunteer force. All that he did
was to compare it with the regular army ; and in so far as
it wanted..what was essential to such an army, he called
it, and properly, a " sham." We suspect that the
Volunteers, who at first were indignant at this plain
speaking, are coming round to his lordship's opinion:
Thoughtful judges admit that they possess the best qualities
of the soldier. When the volunteer movement was first
started, there was something curling on the lip on the part
of the regulars at the citizensoldiers, and military red tape
would not believe that they could be converted into reliable
troops. That prejudice has long ago disappeared. But
mere courage, mere individual pluck and efficiency, are
not sufficient to make an army. The volunteers have all
this and more ; but there remains much which they can.
not of themselves acquire, but which must be added to
their organisation, To this extent the force is a "sham,"
and Lord Ranelagh merits praise for the courage by which,
at the risk of drawing upon himself a clatter of indignant
tongues, he used a bold word to express an important
truth.

The Imperial Review observes that there is probably no
public man of any note who has made so few slips in
public speaking as Mr. Disraeli ; and there is, it pre-
sumes, no statesman now alive who would venture to claim
an equality with him in the command of felicitous and
graphic language. And, as we have said, the mere fact
that he so rarely, if indeed ever, is betrayed into any ex-
pression which can be turned against him by his critics,
makes the gentlemen whose business is to find fault doubly
watchful to detect a single unguarded sentence, and trebly
vociferous in their delight when they think they have
found one. It is satisfactory, continues the Imperial
Review, to observe the complete and explicit manner
in which a few short sentences serve to remove the
absurd suspicion that the leader of the Tory
party was about to identify himself • and his friends
with that noisy and really insignificant clique of
which Mr. Whalley is the best-known type. The obliga-
tions which this country owes to the High Church party
are not likely to be under-rated by the statesman who
has derived so much of his political inspiration from
Bolingbroke. But there are few writers of the present
day who could so gracefully acknowledge what is due to
the one great phalanx of earnest Churchmen without
wounding the susceptibilities of the other. It may, of
cou suit the purposes of unprincipled opponents
to confound the " extreme faction of very modern
date," whose unconstitutional aspirations the Premier
has censured, with that distinguished array of
men who were both pious Churchmen and illus-
trious Englishmen, of whom we count so many in
the past, and so many, also, we are glad to think, in tho
present. But it will not be easy, after this declaration on
his part, to pretend that Mr. Disraeli ever entertained the
slightest intention to cast a slur upon the Constitutional
High-Church party. . The claims upon national gratitude
which may be asserted by the other paietytoAaeronend,rriilti,id I, as
significant,
eithersl
he allows us to iilfer,
riot less \Newel-11h bs
so
hard for any sensible
frank a recognition of the great scrvict•s of both,

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