The Sun.
London, England, 1828-02-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The moving the Army Estimates is the House of
Commons has always furnished -an opportunity for
discussingesubjects of high interest to the country,
and of more various and extensive denomination
than the immediate question before the House.
Lord Palmerston proposed on Friday evening a vote
of 2,000,000/. on account, for the pay and sub-
sistence of ninety-one thousand. men. This large
force is independent of 25,5.59 men employed in
_lndia, and paid by the India Company. The main
divisions of the service to which this army of
90,000 men is applicable are two—the home ser-
vice, and that of the colonies; to which musta be
added a third, viz. • the transit duty, whiCh requires
that about 5,000 men should be always in motion,
either going to or returning from the .distant pos-
sessions of our scattered empire, for the purpose of
relieving or being relieved. A good deal was said by
Lord Palmerston about a difference in the mode of
presenting and charging the cost of certain colonial
corps, to the amount of 3,000 men, who, it appears,
were formerly made to figure as an item in the colo-
nial disbursements, although the charge was regu-
larly met by draughts upon the Army Pay-Office.
The charge is henceforth to be inserted directly
among the ordinaries of the army, and it is said (but
as are used to such assurances) that the national
treasury .shall be hereafter credited with the
amount of it against the colonial exchequer. A
large demand was made upon the approbation of the
house, because this matter of obvious regulation
" had been suggested " by Lord Bathurst. Then,
if Suggested by that inefficient Minister, why was it
not adopted by him ? That part of the question was
left for Mr. Huskisson ; and it is, after all, a mere
simplification of account, and consequent opportunity
of sending some useless clerks about their business,
a.' public benefit which, in principle and on the widest
practicable scale, it is the bounden duty of every head
of a department, not to suggest, but to bestow upon
the country. Sir Henry Hardinge affirms that the
Duke of Wellington, while Master-General ,of the
Ordnance, succeeded in securing for the nation a
aecluctirm in the expenditure of that once-wasteful
establishment of nearly 390,000/. per annum. Now
the whole Ordnance estimate, civil and military,
does not exceed 1,565,000/. ; and the portion
of that estimate which the Duke of Welling-
ton did not reduce, but left in a stronger condition
than when he found it, viz. the effective branch Of the
service—amounts to 1,200,000/. The remaining
portion, viz. the non-effective=amounts to 365,0004;
and it was from this branch that we now learn, on
authority, that the Duke of Wellington cut off little
short of 300,0001. After such an evidence of the
Duke of Wellington's firmness and downright spirit
of unflinching economy, it would be uncandid to with-
hold from him the praise of having set an example,
not less encouraging to those who are now charged
by Parliament with the duty of enforcing a just and
frugal administration of the finances, than disgraceful
to such of his. own former colleagues as have gone on
from year to year enlarging the number of their subal-
terns, on pretence of an increasing exigency in the
public service. If the Duke will resolutely sweep the
gulfs of the Treasury, the Excise, the Customs, and
she Colonies, he need not doubt of dragging into;
day a mass of hidden and unsuspected plunder, at
which foreign nations will stand amazed, and all Eng-
lishmen, but the old courtiers and their minions, be
at once rejoiced and confounded. It is not as.a Mi-
nister that we have felt it our duty to impugn and
deprecate the Duke of Wellington, but as a com-
pound of the Minister and the armed soldier. But
in respect of the two great objects for which it ap-
pears that so numerous an army is required, it is
equally mortifying and to us unquestionable, that
they both result from the most grievous and match-
less impolicy. At home,—that is, between England
and Ireland,---there may be distributed 'about
45,000 men. What occasion can be imagined for
this eriOrmeetts force in a free country, where Abe-
civil power may reckon
.on., au auxiliary in every
man who wears a decent coif, or has a house tta
ahelter him ?. What but the moat insane departure
from every law of sound government or legislation,
can produce a necessity for upwards of 20,000
troops in Ireland, together with an armed and disci-
plined police in every village of` the island ? Does
Lord Eldon think " Be just and fear nor," a maxim
of no virtue but when an oppressed woman is to be
condemned ? Then for the other 20,000 or 25,000
troops which are usually stationed in this country,
we are told that the color ies require such frequent
reliefs to their wasted garrisons as would render it
impossible to diminish the average force at home.—
Then let us ask why the colonies are estimated at so
;mmense a value, and retained at a sacrifice so
frightful ? There are 40,000 men banished from
their country to these charnel-houses, and kept
there to perish at the national expense, at such a
rate, that in the lapse of five years, a regiment sent
to a \Vest India station often loses nine-tenths
of the individual men and officers of which it
at first consisted. Here, then, is a loss of life,
which can never be enough deplored, but a loss
of money likewise, which we are borne out. by
the concurrence of' every man of sense in England,
when we ssaert, that it ought no longer to be tole-
rated. If a colony cannot pay for its own protection,
abandon it : there is no other prudent course. What.
advantages are now derived to the nation from -any
colony which is not a maritime station, to defend
the freedom of our commerce ? We answer plainly,
none,—not sixpenny worth,—if there be one particle
of truth in the commercial doctrine which Mr. Hits-
kisson has enforced, so far as the Aristocracy would
permit him, if we want tea, sugar, or spice, we can
pay for it with our manufactures, on easier terms
than by sending our troops to rot upon the soil which
produces some of the articles in question, or suffering
ourselves to be !flied by a band of monopolists for
the enjoyment of others. There is, indeed, one
interest, but it is not ail honest or a public interest,
which would suffer by a reform of our carupt
colonial:,system—the interest of the Lord Charleses,
as it was well remarked by Colonel Davies. The
pride of the aristocracy forbids them to work, 'and
the poverty of their younger branches compels them
ao rob,—tlionah they will not labour,—to rob the
istd-ustrious Englishman, whom they despise and rail
at, by quartering themselves upon him in the mani-
fold shapes of extortion afforded through the mainte-
nance of otherwise unproductive colonies. We do
not believe that such a system can last for a much
longer season : it has been so boldly attacked in
Parliament, so languidly if'at all defended, and is now
so thoroughly understood dimughout the nation, that
-it would not surprise us to see 4 colonial reform,
a
upon the principle of colonies payity their own
costa, carried by assault before the Wellington Admi-
,nistration shall have expired.--Times.
The Shell that was fired the other night into the
sere; Influence Party has exploded with marvel-
lous upset. The consternation in a certain quarter is
extreme. The " Invisible," as we have elsewhere
hinted, has disappeared. Besides the reason tnr his
absence there Oven, it is aaid that there are some
accounts which it would be awkward to produce be-
fore a Finance Committee. We trust, however,
that the committee tvill not be put off the snout by
so shallow an expedient. The "substantial form"
begins to think the allusion to him not quite so flat-
tering
as it appeared at first ; he is reported to have
despatched couriers both to Paris and Vienna, in
degree of pleasant •
order to ascertain the precise pleasantry
and adulation belonging to Mr. Dancombe s descrip-
. t
la to
a know,
side
,
live reference; in other words,
he wishest
according to a vulgar saying, vinwi
of his face he is to laugh. Mr. .i ernes
has been talked of for the Gov, rnment
of Jamaica. After standing fire so v rll "
Thursday in the House of Commons, it is Fapposed
a,
that he will easily bear the brunt of any e, who"
ther tropical or moral. His demeanour or, that
evening has shown that his intrepidity is t least
equal to his moral sense. His colleague- \vished
him to be silent, but with a self-devotion V, t thy of
A better cause, be rttheti to the breach, as, la pie,

though of course not in a sinister sense, the language
of the poet,—
" Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread."
The result is known : the soldier generally leaves his
life on the spot where his desperate courage has
carried him. Mr. Herries, on his forlorn hope, gal-
lantly lost his reputation. It is said that. Lord
C'lanricarde still intends to force some further kxpla-
nation. Lord Goderieh will perhaps speak oufmore
plainly when subjected to the " peine forte et dure."
—lbid.

Sir Henry Hardinge stated on Friday night, that
from the year 1820, the first year of the Duke of
Wellington's being at the head of the Ordnance, to
the year 1827, when he resigned. that office, there
had been a saving of 230,0001. yearly, as compared
with the previous expenditure ; and if all the bran-
ches of the Ordnance were included, the saving
would amount to 320,0001. yearly. The greater
portion of this saving had been effected, not by the
reductions in the Military force, but mostly in the
Civil Establishment." Mr. Calcraft considered that
this was " some earnest, that as he, while at the
head of the Department, had acted on the strictest
principle of retrenchment, he would enforce economy
in all the Departments of the State now, as he did
then in that particular one." The same Honourable
Gentleman the same evening said, "he confessed
that he had expectations of great public benefit from
the Administration of the Duke of Wellington. He
did sincerely think that he was a man much more
likely to make reforms in the expenditure than any
man he knew, with one exception, a Noble Lord

whom he had the honour to call his friend. The
objection to the Noble Duke's Administration, that
it was a military Government he little regarded.—
It seemed to hire little better than nonsense to sup-
pose the Noble Duke would allow his military cha-
racter to participate in the discharge of his politieal
duties. The country had lately had the benefit da
civil, a very civil Prime Minister; and he was
glad that they now • had one who carried with
him more authority than the one they had re-
cently lost, for whom, personally, he had the
greatest respect and regard." • We agree with -Mr.
Calsraft that a great deal too much has been said
about the danger to the C'Oristitrition from the same
individual being at the head of the Army and 'the
Treasury. This language can only be held' by those
who either mean to deceive, or have never reflected
on the nature of the Government (we speak of the
actual Government, and not of the theoretical) tin-
der which we live. If Mr. Canning, in a letter to
the Duke, approved of the constitutional objection,
when started by his Grace himself, we must bear in
mind, that of all possible objections to a man for
office, the most offensive must be want of ability to
till it ; and if Mr. Canning gladly laid hold of an ar-
gument urged by his Grace himself, which freed
him from the necessity of stating a more unpalatable
reason, we can hardly blame him much for want of
sincerity. If the Duke of Wellington be fit in
other respects for the Premiership (and we are far
from saying that he is), we make very light of his
connection with the army, in any other sense than
as in itself affording a presumption, which ought to
be rebutted by evidence, of want of acquaintance
with the business of Government. The army and
all the establishments of this country, are all parts
and parcels of the Aristocracy, and there is no great
danger of any power conspiring against itself. If,
indeed, the English Constitution were in practice
what it is in theory,—if the House of Commons
were composed, not of branches of the Aristocracy,
who either buy or intimidate the small number of
individuals who pessess the elective franchise,
but of persons who really represent the people,
there might be some danger from a soldier of
fortune at the head of a mercenary army overturning.
the Constitution, and assuming a Dictatorship.
There is no great danger of his Grace turning his
army against the King and the Parliament; and if
there should ever be occasion for employing the army
against the people, we should suppose he would
have no occasion to extort an authorization front
Parliament '• at' the point of the bayonet. Mr. Cal
craft has great hopes of his Grace's services irr'the
way- of retrenchment, and it is but just to adniit, that
what he has done in the Ordnance seems to sanction
the view taken by him. The strongest Ministry is
the most likely to succeed in the difficult task of re-
trenchment, provided a good will exists; for the
stronger the Government the less necessity there is
of recurring to corrupt influence. We should be
disposed to overlook any deficiencies in his Grace,
if he set vigorously about the reduction of our ex-
penditure. One circumstance we have heard, dis-
poses us to credit his wish to retrench—namely,
the preference to set about reduction himself im-
mediately, instead of waiting for the Inquiries and
Reports of Finance COmMittees. We can easily
conceive why an Administration should prefer
giving effect to the recommendations of a Fi-
nance Committee to the unpleasant task of ori-
ginating retrenchment themselves; but it is not
the less true that the work can be both more
quickly and effectually done by Government than
through the intervention of a Committee, and that
Parliamentary Committees are an usurpation on the
functions of Government, and their very appoint-
ment is a proof of the functions of Executive and
Legislative being confounded. . In one of Charles
Davenant's works there ananitme sensible observations
on the practice above alluded to, when it was less
general than it is now, " It does not seem impossi-
ble," he says, " but that a Government may at least
be so well managed that the Legislature shall not he
necessitated to take upon itself in a manner all the
Executive power,•and be compelled to interpose in
the whole ailminiatration of affairs. No doubt there
can be nothing more dangerous than to mingle these
two authorities, which in a well-formed model are
in their nature so distinct, and cannot be confounded
together without an entire change of the Constitu-
tion : as, for example, that of England is called a
limited Monarchy, but if the Executive power as-
sumes an authority to make laws, it then degene-
rates into tyranny. On the other hand, if the bu-
siness of the State is always so mismanaged, that
there lies a necessity upon the Legislature,
to do what properly belongs to the Exe-
cutive power, the Government must in time
become Aristocratical, though here it would
be most likely to end in a Democracy.—
In the natural body the head does not walk, the
hands digest, or the stomach think ; but each member
has its proper and separate performances. 'Tie the
same in a State well regulated, whereof all the
parts that compose it, have their distinct and peculiar
functions. Sovereigns, in their legislative capacity,
with the other parts composing the Legislature,
ordain ; what has been, or is from time to time thus
ordained, they, their Ministers' and officers, .put in
execution; and when to all this the people give due
obedience, the Commonwealth is perfect. But in a
State, whose affairs are out of order, all this proceeds
quite otherwise; the Legislature cannot consult
maturely for the public in making laws, by reason their
time is wholly taken up with inquiries, and in per-
forming that which should have been done by others,
and the MiniSterial authority, tempered by it
superior power, remains astonished and imactive ;
and having given offence by doing, or by being
thought to do amiss, thinks to attone by doing no-
thing. In the meanwhile, good Princes, who de-
sire to please•their people, are uncertain how much
of the Executive Power they shall leave to the Legis-
lathr e, how far they shall act themselves,and how much
may be committed to their Ministers; and what
does this uncertainty produce but an Administration
both impotent and careless ?" We have had but
too much experience of the truth of most of these
observations. Everything is brought into Parlia-
ment, and the consequence is that nothing is done.
Into that Assembly come the affairs of alt our co-
lonies, our foreign and domestic policy,public and pri-
vate laws ; and the consequence is impunity to all
abuses,and a state of the law a disgrace to civilization.
We do not see,that the Government are tinder the ne-
cessity of delaying their reductions till the Committee
has Commenced. their inquiries. 'We should be sorry
to baulk the desires of his Grace, if they lead him
to retrenchnwnt, Let him by all means set to work I

and anticipate the Committee. What we most
dread is, that the recommendations of the Committee
will come forth at a time when there may not be the
same wish for retrenchment there is BOW. His
Grace cannot signalize himself by long speeches ; he
cannot be a Minister of words; let him then be one
of deeds. One circumstance is in his favour; none of
those who have been under him speak well of him ;
now, it is a suspicious circumstance, when, a head is
too popular with those under him. It is,, indeed,
objected to him, that he is too fond of good things
for himself and his own particular favourites ; but
if he be rigid generally, the being a little too in-
dulgent to himself, may be overlooked. It is your
kind good-natured men, who can never say no, who
are the ruin of States.—Morning Chronicle.

Though we do not profess to be more in posses-
sion of state secrets than the rest of the world, we
may appeal to our readers whether we have not, on
many late occasions, thrown suite as much light upon
some apparently obscure transactions as those who
would have us believe that they derive ail their
knowledge " from authority." Such having been
the case heretofore, we, with the more confidence,
venture again to supply a chasm in matters of great
interest at the present moment, which authoritative
channels either cannot or must not supply. We
have said heretofore, and we repeat our belief, that
the whole secret ; history of the late Ministerial
changes and intrigues will not see the light at pre-
sent, and will only become known, when they have
lost all material interest,among the ana of half a cen-
tury hence. Conjecture, however, is actively alive,
and its appetite is not A little sharpened by the tan-
talizing kind of half-knowledge which some of the
principal actors have thought proper to ittipait. It
now seems pretty generally admitted that the squabble
between Messrs. liluskisson and Herries, relative
to the proposed nomination of Lord Althorp to
the Chair of the Finance Committee, neither
was nor could be the real cause of breaking lip
the Ministry. The. whole country must, indeed,
have seen, without the disclosures which have now
taken place, that Lord Goderich's Administration
carried on its very front the seeds of its own disso-
lution_ Without a competent head the other Mem-
bers of the body can never act in unison or with
effect; and a deficiencyWhlch is- thus fetid 'to the
powers of the natural body is so when ap-
plied to such a one 'as that which We -are alluding
to. The Whigs, we believe, seeing the weakneSs
of the leader, and judging that, Weakness to be their
strength, had formed, towards' the 'close of the au-
tumn, and as the .Ses'sjori of Parliariient approached,
a fixed design of increasing their numbers and their
strength in the Cabinet—in furtheranee of which,
we have little iltnibt but it will turn out that by
dint of alternate teasing, menace, and persuasion: a
reluctant assent had been obtained 'from a high
quarter to introduce two influential members- of 'that
body into the Cabinet; and it was to bring about
this arrangement that Lord Goderich's first tender' of
his resignation was made. On Lord Harrowby's re-
fusal, however, to assume the Premiership, that
tender was recalled, and Lord Goderich resumed
his station, under an implied assent that his new
Whig adherents would be admitted into the Govern-
ment, not then, but at Easter ;—a sort of poStpone-
ment of " the evil day," which no one who bears all
the circumstances in mind can much wonder at. Then
comes the intrigue, -which has not been explained,
which overthrew and circumvented this purpose. It
is now confidently said that the person who could
explain this, that he may not be called to the bar of
the House of Commons to do so, is non est inventus.
Those of our readers who mix in the first political
circles will readily know who and what we mean.
The rest will, in all probability, know it vets/ soon.
Suffice it for the present to say that the Whig in-
trigue was thus broken up. Like greater men than
ourselves, we cannot say all that we know or hate
heard upon the subject ;' but we have probably said
sufficient to show that mare is meant by certain Par-
liamentary explainers than has as yet met the ear,
as well as to, account for the soreness of those who
have suffered so grievous a disappointment "between_
the cup and thelip.m-ltforiiing
One' of the :principal difficulties attending the
quarrel with Turkey arises out of the position which
that power has hitherto taken up, and which it' may
still preserve. If the Porte should fit out another
fleet for the purpose of reducing those rebels, whom
it has declared it will never pardon on the terms pro-
posed by the Allies, there might be an opportunity
for carrying to the Turks, by a second defeat, the
conviction of the hopelessness of their obstinacy,
which the first had failed to impress. In the same
manner, if they should venture on the madness of
invading the territories of Russia, the army of the
Czar, which is lying, like a licin couched, ready to
spring upon its prey the moment that it stirs, might
then read to them a lesson of wisdom as striking as
that of Nayarit]. But if the Grand Seignior con-
tent himself with his present position—if he resolve
to await the attack without provoking it, otherwise
than by refusing the conditions which the Treaty of
July sought to impose upon him, what are the
Allies to do ? Lie will evidently have placed them
in a very awkward predicament, or, rather, they will
have so placed themselves. There can be no doubt
that Russia might pass the boundary line, and might
perhaps, by one battle, perhaps without one, march
to Constantinople—but will she do so ? Or, rather,
will the rest of. Europe allow her ? In adverting to
this subject a considerable time age, we noticed that
mere physical force was not enough in such cases ;
that -moral force was also requisite, and that any at-
tempt to re-enact the drama of Poland, in Turkey,
would fail, even were the cases as similar as they
are contrasted. Were Turkey to enter on the of-
fensive,' the course of Russia would be clear, and
she would in all probability move forward in it with
as much promptness as vigour; but while Turkey
does not attack, it is difficult to see upon what
principle Russia can advance. The Treaty of
July 6, provided for the peaceful settlement of
Greece, by placing Consuls in her ports, and by the
recognition of her independence. But, in addition
to the causes of trouble within herself, the degraded
character of her natives, which has not been mended
by six years of worse than civil war, helium plus
pant civile, renders such a plain, easy, and mercan-
tile settlement, as the treaty contemplated, a matter
of great difficulty, if not of impossibility. The
planners of the treaty, whatever it-bears on the face
of it, never anticipated such an obstinacy as Turkey
has manifested. The three Powers thought that the
terror of the alliance, aided by a few threats, would
compel unwilling submission. Whether the terrible
rencontre, as we may call it, of Navarin, were
" toward," or " untoward," would require a
knowledge of till, character of the Turkish Go-
vernment, and a faculty of piercing into ' the
future, to which, we suspect, neither the last
Cabinet, nor the present, have any just
-.But, estimate it as we may, one thing must
now be obvious, that other battles must be
fought, and other victories won, before the question
of the Morea and the isles can be put to rest, ac-
cording to the Treaty. In such a case it beComes a
'matter of discussion how far it may or may not be
expedient to press its conditions. The three
Powers have pledged themselves to gain for Greece
a certain modified independence, and they have, for
that purpose, agreed to adopt certain measures.
Those measures have failed to produce the effect an-
ticipated. Are they at great risk to the interests of
all Europe to adopt other measures to produce it ?
Or are they to consent to lower their terms, and to
accept of something less in form, though differing
but little in reality, from what they demanded and
Greece was content to receive ? By the Treaty,
Greece was to be independent; but was to pay a tax'
for her independence. The Turks will not consent to
such an independence in name, but theyma
may consent
theironsent
to grant to the Greeks the power of electing
own Prince, or Hospodar, or call it by any other
name, that ruler being subject to the Porte, in the
same way that the Pacha of Egypt is; and as, in a
laser sense, the Rulers of the Barbary States are.
Unless its views have been misrepresented, the
Turkish Government might be induced to consent
to some arrangement of this kind ;
,and it is worthy

of the deepest consideration, .whether such an ar-
rangement, though, in some points, not altogether
so desirable as that proposed by the Allies, would
not be preferable to a war, with all its chances and
imeertainties, to say nothing of what is neither con-
tingent nor uncertain—its expence. If it be said
that we are bound to our Allies, it ought to be re-
collected that the same consent which bound may
absolve. The hints we throw out are not valuable
to Great Britain only; repose, is not more essential
to her than to Russia and France. If we go to war,
the Finance Committee may close its sittings as
soon a 4 it pleases. Reports on retrenchments are
soon drowned amid the din of reports of battles.
War will not halt its march until the Member for
Montrose has calculated the " tottle of the whole"
of its cost.—New Times.