The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

In discussing the difficulties which surround the carrying
on of government in Italy, the Times looks upon them as
not so much political as personal. Italy exhibits the
melancholy phenomenon of an orderly people living under
an anarchy. The Italian people ask for nothing better
than rule and guidance ; their political men, or what we
should call their governing classes, give them no other
example than that of discord and impotence. There is
nothing but delay and inconsistency in legislation ; nothing
but confusion and helplessness in the administration ; the
equal distribution and punctual collection of the taxes, the
maintenance of public security, the prompt execution of
justice, all the merest rudiments of government, are still
insoluble puzzles to Italian statesmen. With the most
extensive means they obtain the least results ; with
le most numerous and complicated staff of func-
tionaries ever known, they have arrived at the
most complete dead lock in the management of
public affairs that the world has ever witnessed. The
evil springs from a variety of causes, but from one chiefly
,—that Parliament is split into parties, none of which is
either able to govern or willing to allow the others to
govern. The predicament in which General Menabrea now
finds _himself is a flagrant case in point. The necessity
for a strong Conservative Government is universally
Acknowledged. The talents and principles of the present
Promier are unanimously admitted. His conduct under
most difficult circumstances defies criticism. His devotion
in accepting a charge which everybody else declined
meets with the approbation of friends and foes.
It is neither ambition nor rivalry that keeps good
and true men from him ; but there are a variety of
petty antipathies, of mean punctilios, which bind
most public men to a narrow line of action, array
them in bigoted -sects and brotherhoods, and tie
them down to paltry local interests, till the general
policy of the country becomes with them an object of
indifference. No party at the present crisis has given
evidence of more glaring personal and provincial selfish-
ness than the Piedmontese, who, from the day Turin
ceased to be the capital, seem determined that Italy her_
self shall cease to be a country. There are no abler men
in the Chamber than these sullen sub-Alpines, but Pied-
mont, which was originally the bulwark of national unity,
has been turned into as active an element of dissolution as
Naples and Sicily ; only more dangerous. For, after all—
painful as it may be to avow it—ltaly is in danger of dis-
solution, and from internal disorders rather than from foreign
violence. If Italy falls it will be by her own hand ; by the
improvidence and infatuation, by the blind selfishness of
hei, leading men.

The Post believes that the London Fenians, at any rate,
are hares who only want hunting, not fighting. We have
tried hunting them with greyhounds under the strict laws
of coursing, and failed completely. What we want now
are a few lurchers who know how to run cunning ; instead
of which we have set on a pack of bull-dogs, and thereby
produced much uproar,
sand nothing else. The specials,
indeed, are not only useless against the Fenians, but they,
are also very dangerous to ordinary people, and if they are
really sent "on duty " to any extent, we may look for
some unpleasant incidents. A special walks his beat full
of patriotic ardour and suspicion, " spoiling for a fight,"
and too ready to see in any soul he meets a promising
Fenian with whom to bring it off. To send out untrained
youths to patrol the streets of London, in fact, involves a
very great danger, only to be incurred under the pressure
of the greatest necessity. Fenianism has not produced a
necessity either•of that gravity or of that nature which is
to met by such means ; and as the fashion of raking special
constables has been so extensively followed, we can only
hope most devoutly that the custom will be grafted upon
it of not allowing them to do anything whatever in the
way of duty.

The Standard pictures the astonishment of a British
artisan returning to this country after a long absence, and
witnessing the precautions at Woolwich Arsenal. What
would he think of the throng of soldiery within, and of
constabulary without the Tower, and the perpetual acti-
vity displayed? Or the lighted river front of the Houses
of Parliament, and the guard upon its terrace ? Or the
double sentries at St. James's and Buckingham Palace ?
Or the watch for " suspicious " casks and parcels arriving
by the after-dark trains ? Or the wild stories from the
provinces? Or the packages of gunpowder picked up in
unlikely holes and corners ? Or all the table-talk and
newspaper correspondence concerning nitro-glycerine and
other explosive substances, wet sand, uninilammable wood-
work, decoctions of soda, iron shutters, woollen curtains,
a six-shooter in every house, and even " the unspoken
word,' martial law for Ireland ? What, indeed, of the
false alarms, the wicked and foolish hoaxes played off by
brainless and cowardly scoundrels, the silly meddlings
of ignorant people by anonymous letters? What,
finally, of that name which the wanderer returned hears
upon every lip, sees flaming in the columns of every
journal and defacing every wall—the centre of the public
thought, the topic of the public conversation, the chief
anxiety of statesmanship, the principal 'care of adminis-
tration, the great mischief, crime, and folly of the day—
Fenianism ? When the Londoner, who has come home,
to see these strange doings in the pacific metropolis of
Great Britain, and meets at length with an individual less
perplexed, who can give an explanation, what will he
learn ? That there is a wretched conspiracy underground
somewhere in England, Ireland, and Wales. That it has
broken forth in outrage and murder, and excited fears for
the peace—though not for the safety—of the kingdom.
That it is a plot difficult to unravel and trace to the last
recesses of its dreary labyrinth. But also that it has
evoked, from end to end of the land, an utterance of
loyalty so loud and so emphatic, and has induced both the
authorities and the citizens to make such efforts for the
defence of law and order as to convince public opinion of
the fate which, notwithstanding its powers to terrify and
to destroy, is reserved for this stranger's marvel—the
Fenian treason.

The appointment of Sir Henry Storks as Controller-
General at the War Office seems to give general satisfac-
tion. At the same time the Herald reminds us that, as
shewn in Abyssinia, it is not only at home and in the chief
offices that there is clashing, Want of system, and want of
unity ; and the' Controller's department must spread out
in every direction before its advantages can be thoroughly
appreciated. General Balfour's appointment as Assistant
Controller is an additional guarantee that this good work
will be speedily begun and judiciously carried out ; and we
Lope before long to see the time when every general of
division and every brigadier will have his own controller,
to whom alone he need look for all matters connected with
transport and supply, and who will have supreme control
over those departments, just as the chief of the staff has
over the military departments. Then we are not likely to
hear of transports lying idle for want of supplies while
supplies are accumulating for want of transport. Then,
too, the general on whom devolves so grave and onerous a
task as that which has been confided to Sir Robert Napier
will not be saddled with the burden of arranging every
detail of transport and supply, and will be free to turn his
attention to his own proper duties. If our authorities will
only read aright the lessons that have been taught by every
war, great or small, since the days of the Peninsula, they
will strive with might and main to hasten the completion
of a system by which both economy and efficiency are
likely to be, secured.

The Telegraph deprecates the idea of our carrying out an
Affghan annexation policy. It urges us to shun it like the
plague, for the simple reason that we have no right to the
country. _We do not want it, because we are stronger
without it. And, once advanced to Cabul, we should have
to go on to Herat, to Candahar, to Persia, to the sentries
of the Russian camps themselves. Those who think it so
terrible that Russia should be near us in the East, may
already tremble ; for on the Kashmere frontier there is
nothing but a predatory chief between India and the out-
posts of the Bokhara expedition. Should Bokhara, be-
come Muscovite—and some fighting remains to be done
before it can be so— the Czar's soldiers could snap up this
khan at a mouthful ; and then the British representative
at Srinuggur would look over the frontier and see the
black and white flags. That prospect, however, would
occasion us no such disquiet as the news that the wise
example of Gilbert, after the battle of Goojerat, had
been forgotton. He drove Dost Mohammed along with
his Affghans from the field, and hunted them across two
deserts, and over two rivers, till they filed, dead-beaten
into the dark shadows of the Khyber. There he left them,
and called his horsemen off, like an M.F.H. whose fox
has gone out of his own country. Did the Affghans and
Afreedees say in Cabul that the Feringhee had not dared
to follow them home ? No ! they said in the bazaars " The
snow is melted at Jellalabad which wasred with the blood
of the Lords of the Indus."

INCENDIARY FIRES IN ESSEX.—During the past
week three or four fires have occurred near Colchester, in
Essex, all cf which are supposed to be the work of incen-
diaries. On Friday night a farm homestead was almost
totally destroyed, the total damage being expected to
amount to not less than £2,000. All the premises were
safe shortly before the outbreak, and no cause can be
assigned for it except incendiarism.

RESIGNATION OF THE BISHOP OF MAURITIUS.
It is stated that the Right Rev. Dr. Vincent Ryan, Bishop
of Mauritius, who has recently arrived in England, intends
to resign his see. The bishop, who was formerly Principal
of the Training College at Islington, was consecrated in
1854, and immediate* afterwards went out to his distant
diocess. The income of the see consists of an allowance of
rl5O, as senior chaplain, from colonial lands, and interest
of £6,150 granted by the Colonial Bishoprics' Fund and
invested in the colony. The bishopric is in the gift of the
Secretary a tAt,§lQr_tbv wouico.