The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOVENALO.

The Times publishes a letter from Genital Peel on the
Exchequer. Criticising it, the leading journal notes that
the want of anything to counterbalance the tendency to
increase in the army estimates is the defect of General
Peel's letter, as it is of all the apologies that have been
put forth for the present Government. There is no
compensation to be discovered anywhere for the (new
sources of expenditure which are sprung upon us.
Under the previous Administration the transforms.
tion of our army had begun. New experiments in
gunnery were constantly tried. The principles of war-
fare were in process of change. As the Times wrote
last week—and General Peel quotes the statement in his
letter to confirm it—" the work of conversion was begun
before General Peel entered upon office, and generally the
increased efficiency of the army is but the development of
changes inherited by the present Ministry." But under
Lord Russell's Government and the later years of Lord
Palmerston's Administration the introduction of new
arms an,l the development of new ideas had be' n accom-
panied a reduction of the generhl ---r-sualme. As
soon a ord Derby succeeded to power - course
of diminution in the estimates was turned backwards.
General Peel talks of Lord Derby's Government as abso-
lutely responsible for the expenditure of the year 1866-7,
and in the same way he says, in the earlier part of his
letter, that the total military expenditure for the year
1858-9, for which Lord Derby was resporisible, was
£13,528,776, but the expenditure rose in the next year
under the Whig Government to £15,312,675. The Times
thinks these statements misleading. When a change of

Ministry happens in the middle of a year, so that one

Government proposes the estimates and another Adminis-
tration balances the accounts at the close of the twelve
months, the responsibility for the financial policy of the
year rests, as a ganeral rule, more upon the first Govern-
ment than on the second. Supposing—no improbable
hypothesis—that Mr. Disraeli be ousted from place
in December, in spite of his unparalleled tenacity of
seat, upon whose Government—upon his or upon the
Government that succeeds him—will rest the respon-
sibility for the expenditure of the year ending next
March ? It is too plain to be doubted that the blame
or praise must lie with Mr. Disraeli's Administration.
In the same way such relics of economy as were
perceptible in 1866-7 were due to Lord Russell's Ministry.
Still more to the point, the statement that the military
expenditure rose from £13,528,776 in the year 1858-9,
under Lord Derby, to £15,312,675 in 1859-60, under a
Whig Government, must be received with the greatest
qualification. The change of Ministry in 1859 did not
occur till June, and, though the estimates were not voted
at the time of the change, the nature of the charge for
the army for the year had been previously determined.
_ The Herald remarks that the drift of Mr. Horsman's
Proposals is plainly to make of the Upper House an
inferior assembly, small in point of numbers And unin-
fluential in the sense of politic& But does anyone believe
that Mr. Horsman really contemplates such a revolution?
''het he affects to assume that, the British principle having
failed, the Scottish and Irish should be substituted
throughout the kingdom. Notwithstanding, it is admitted
even by him, that "we must proceed gradually." How
," gradually?" By " eliminating the inert elements,"
whatever that may mean. It is only at the conclusion of
this astonishing electioneering letter that we get at its
true signification. We must " warm to the work," and
not desist " until it has wiped off those arrears which now
provoke a contrast between the inefficiency of the here-
ditary and the popularity and vigour of the representative
Chamber." In what sense is the House of Lords not repre-
sentative ? Mr. Horsman wishes to make it more so, but
even he, with the free audacity which belongs to him,
cannot originate a plan.

The Paily News rejoices greatly over the proposal made
by Mr "forsman to reform the House of Lords. Our
contemporary recently thought that it should never again
witness him coming to the front as a champion of pro-
gress. His determined resistance to Reform at a time
when his services in aid of the good cause would have
been invaluable almost cancelled the obligations he bad
laid the Liberal party under by the zeal and ability he
expended in its service. But, threatened with a for-
midable opposition in the borough he represents,
Mr. Horsman has certainly made a high bid
for the support and countenance of these with
whom he once worked so heartily, and whose
good opinion he still professes to value so highly.
If other Adullamites should prove to be as thorough-
going Radicals as Mr. Horsman has become, and as Mr.
Lowe promises to be, we shall see the advanced section of
the Liberal party receive such an accession of strewth in
the Reformed Parliament as will render its victory easy
as well as complete over the party of reaction. With
regard to the proposals of Mr. Horsman themselves, the
Daily News observes that if Mr. Horsman would effect
his purpose he must aim at getting rid of the mere stop-
gaps, as well as endeavour to elect for life those who
would add dignity to their order. The whole question,
however, is better fitted for discussion than for legislation.
There is none which should be dealt with more cautiously.
The Standard, commenting on Mr. Brand's and Lord
Hartington's speeches on the Irish Church, becomes sati-
rical over the denunciations uttered by those hon. mem-
bers of the iniquity of the Irish Church. Why, it says,
addressing the Liberals, since you have thought so
strongly upon this question, have you done nothing
towards the abatement of the evil? Why have you per-
mitted this scandal to remain, having the power and being
in the place to remove it? For the last quarter of a cen-
tury, continues the Standard, with rare and short inter-
vals, the Liberals have had the fashioning of the Irish
policy in their own hands. Whatever has been
done for Ireland was done in accordance with
their theories. For whatever was left undone they
alone are responsible. They have boasted of
their large majorities. They have had Mr. Brand him-
self to drill them, and to shew them the way. The Irish
.Church, if it is an evil at all, is no more an evil now than
when Lord Palmerston was at the height of his power,
with Mr. Brand as the compeller of the Liberal votes.
The cheeks of the honest Englishman, if they should be
blushing now with shame because of the Irish Establish-
ment, ought to have been burning the whole time that
Mr. Gladstone was in power, with Mr. Brand still as
Liberal whipper-in. Is the burden more intolerable now
than it was three years ago ? Or is it only now that the
discovery has been made that to maintain a Protestant
Church in Ireland is a sin and a scandal?

The Telegraph, dealing with the Irish Church, apropos
cm Mr. Bright's address, and speaking on behalf of the
Liberal party, says : "We do not touch religion at all "
that is one fact. We strike down an infamous political
. institution—that is another fact. In striking it down,
not only do we inflict no injury on Protestantism, but we
confer on it a signal service, by breaking the unhallowed
bond which unites the Protestantism of Ireland with
systematic injustice—that is a third fact. These three
facts sum up the creed of the Liberal party with respect
to the disestablishment of the Irish Church."

The Times fears that, in thinking of the most horrible
part of the Abergele accident, the public will overlook the
real causes of it. Happily, it cannot be an ordinary
or frequent occurrence that waggon-loads of paraffin
should be travelling about the railways in the path of
express trains. But it does appear to be a very ordi-
nary occurrence, and part of the daily routine of a
railway, that goods trains are performing complex. and
difficult evolutions and undergoing manipulations
requiring. at least one pair of rails on the main line,
if not both. If it must be so, and if race-horses
and broad-wheel waggons are to run the same course
and fit in as well as they can with one another, it is
evident the remedy is to be found in larger sidings and a
larger staff of servants to expedite these hazardous pro-
.cesses. Nothing will ever persuade the public that the
break-van behind these two waggon-loads of paraffin
should have been left for a single instant with neither a
man upon it nor a break fixed. One or the other there
ought to have been; and if it be maintained that rail:
ways cannot afford the staff of men sufficient for such
precautions, Parliament will have to interfere and assert
the claims of public safety over the profits of private
enterprise.

After telling the engine-driver's story over again, tne
l'elegraph, says that evidently the goods train was so long
that it embarrassed the men at the siding ; it is not abso-
lutely certain that, even by " squeezing," the whole of it
could have been accommodated there. In any case, on
the very spot where a clumsy rnanceuvring of a train 600
feet long was going forward, the Irish mail was due in
three minutes ; and it seems impossible that the goods
train could have been got out of the way until
the mail had been at least delayed for some time
at the distance signal—which warned the mail of danger
at the siding, but could not secure it against collision with
the runaway trucks. Could anything, more plainly prove
that the arrangements for the security of the mail did not
exclude the possibility of preventible disaster, than Alfred
Sara's account of the doings at Llandulas siding ? And, if
the goods train had not been too long to go into the siding
easily and at once, would it have been necessary to leave
the paraffin trucks, or any others, standing even for a
moment in the direct path of the express ?

Everything, the Post declares, seems to point to ttie
eventual assumption by the State of the whole railway
system, and in the event of its doing so the appointment
of a staff of Government inspectors would be a very
desirable preliminary, for these officers would soon become
intimately acquainted with the working of the whole
syztrin, and's() be prepared to take up any part of its manage-
ment when the transfer was effected. It certainly seems
very odd that the working of mines should be subjected to
continuous Government inspection, while that of railways,
in which there is very nearly, if not quite, as much risk,
should be under the control alone of men whose great aim
and object is to scrape together the largest dividend they
can. Clearly, however, something must be done to
remedy the now generally admitted evils of the existing
system.

The Daily News lays down that while the question of
"privilege" is being fought out between the cabowners
And the railway companies at the expense of the travelling
public, it would be well to consider whether the whole
frystem and management of street cabs might not be re-
arranged with advantage whenever the Chancellor of the
Exchequer will permit Parliament to deal with the
revenues produced by this branch of traffic. A reduction
of taxation would be a boon to the cab intend which they
W9lll4l.PPltCiatt

THE INCREASED ARMY EXPEIMPTIEK

General Peel has written a long letter to the Times upon
the army expenditure. He wonders that it did not occur
to any gentleman at St. Helen's to ask Mr. Gladstone how
it was that he (whose duty it was as leader of the Oppo•
sition and of a majority in the House of Commons) had
not demanded information of the cause of increased
expenditure from the Ministers who were responsible for
the estimates, and capable of explaining them, and, if
not satisfied with the answers given, had not proposed
to reduce the amount of the votes, instead of leaving
it to voters to ask an explanation from candidates who
could know nothing of the details of the estimates.
The General, in allusion •to Lord Hartington's address to
his constituency, gives the following figures :—" Lord
Palmerston's Government succeeded Lord Derby's in 1859.
The total military expenditure for the year ending
March 31, 1859, for which Lord Derby's Government
was responsible, was £13,528,776. The expenditure
rose in the next year under the Whig Government
to £15,312,675, in 1861 to £15,883,160, and in 1862
to £16.060,350. A portion of this incr.-^e was
owing the Chinese war, but :t also ' .de 1 the
following sums for the purchase and manufacture
of warlike and miscellaneous stores—in 1860-1,
£2,830,625 ; and in 1861-2, £3,006,049—a great
portion of which was for the 110-pounder Armstrong
guns which had been adopted into the service without any
sufficient trial of them, although Lord Derby had recorded
his opinion that it would not be wise to order guns of a
larger calibre than those intended for field service (the
12-pounders) without further experiments. From the
expenditure of 1862 there was a gradual decrease, arising
from three causes,—first, the termination of the Chinese
War ; secondly, that after the failure of the Armstrong
guns no pattern had been decided upon to replace them ;
and, thirdly, that the army was gradually reducing itself,
and at the end of each year it was found that the
number of men required had not been raised by several
thousands ; and this brings me to the last year of the
Whig Administration and the expenditure of 1865-6, of
which Lord Hartington appears so proud. The number
of men voted was 142,471, and the estimates amounted to
£14,348,447. Now, although the average number of men,
raised during the year was only 140,578, or 1,900 men
short of the number provided for, there was an excess of
expenditure over the estimates on Vote 1 for pay and
allowances of £43,197 ; on Vote 2, for the Commissariat,
of £213,473 ; on Vote 3, for clothing, of £27,875 ; and
on Vote 7, for medical establishments, of £25,101;
and the total amount of excesses over the esti-
mates was £358,765, which would have raised the
expenditure of this pattern yeafto upwards of £14,700,000,
if there had not been a so-called saying upon Votes 12 and
13 for the manufacturing departments and warlike stores,
amounting to £515,000, the causes of which saving are
thus stated in par. 7 of 'Receipt and Expenditure for
Army Services for the year ending March 31, 1868 e
Suspension of Manufacture in the Carriage Department,
the pattern not having been determined upon ; non-comple-
tion of 50 wrought-iron guns, method of rifling and sighting
not having been decided upon ; and the pattern for small
arms, percussion caps, cartridges, fuses, rockets, and
projectiles being in abeyance.' That is to say, that these
guns, gun-carriages, and warlike stores were not provided
in the year in which they ought to have been, and the ex-
pense of them was thrown upon the following year's esti-
mates, but it reduced the actual expenditure for the year
1865.6 to £14,114,733. The estimates for 1866-7 were
brought in by Lord Hartington, and were originally
£14,095,000; but on being appointed Secretary of State for
War in July 1866, I immediately obtained a supplemental
vote to the amount of £245,000 for the purpose of pro-
viding 200,000 breechloaders and ammunition instead of the
40,000 provided for by Lord Hartington. There was a further
addition of £48,000 arising from the inadequacy of the
original estimate for the votes depending upon tl'e num-
ber of men (there was an excess of more than £10( 000 on
the Commissariat vote). This raised the absolute
expenditure of 1866-67 (the first year for which Lord
Derby's Government was responsible) to £14,388,479, or
an excess of £273,737 over the previous year ; but that
expenditure included £1,569,629 spent on the production
of guns, gun-carriages, Sniders, ammunition, &c.,
against £943,707 spent on the same service
the previous year, or upwards of £625,000 for
which there was valuable war material to show, includ-
ing 180,000 breechloaders." The General proceeds
to say that he was obliged to provide for the first
time for all the military expenditure in the Straits Settle.
ments and allowances to the troops in Ceylon and the
Mauritius, which had been hitherto defrayed by the colonial
Governments, who now paid instead a sum of £120,000 into
the Treasury ; and that he proposed to spend £160,000 more
on guns and war material than Lord Hartington had done
the previous year ; and that the whole difference between
the estimates of 1867-8 and the actual expenditure of 1865.6
was very nearly accounted for on these two items, as
they amounted to £612,000. Although the late Govern-
ment had adopted Mr. Snider's patent and had employed
him personally for some months, they had made no provi-
sion for any remuneration to him whatever, and £16,000
for this purpose was included in the sum obtained froin
Parliament for the increased number of Sniders. The
operation of the Contagious Diseases Act caused an increase
of expenditure ; the adoption of the suggestions of the
Royal Commissioners, that an additional quarter of a
pound of meat should be given to the soldier, and that he
should no longer pay for his shell jacket, cost more than
an additional 2d. a day to his pay. General Peel cannot
comprehend how the very men who in the course of the
last few years forced upon the country the gigantic system
of fortifications arising around us, and who boast of having
encouraged and fostered the great Volunteer movement,
which is perfectly useless if we can never be in danger, can
object to our supplying the fortifications and the Volun-
teers with the arms necessary to render them of any use.
" Are we to build iron-plated and turret-ships constructed
to carry the heaviest guns without providing them?
Did the late Government commence these great
undertakings without calculating the cost of finishing
them, and propose to leave them in a state
that all who look upon them shall mock us ?"
He concludes : " I write this letter for no party objects,
for I belong to no party, and am not a candidate for a seat
in the next Parliament. Still less do I write it as a de-
fence or apology for my conduct as Minister of War, for I
do not consider it requires either the one or the other, and
I shall always look back with pleasure to having supplied
the army in the shortest possible time with breachloaders,
and having recommended an addition to the pay of the
soldier. My only object is to point out to the country
that 'reduced expenditure arising only from a failure
to provide what is necessary to insure efficiency is not
only not economy, but is neither wise, statesmanlike, nor
safe."