The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-31 00:00:00

'~' Tjflfl irn

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1845.

Lord ELLENBOROUGH, though the fact has not
been officially announced, is, according to the new
Cabinet arrangements, to be appointed First Lord
of the Admiralty, in the place of Lord HADDINGTON,
who has filled the office for the last four years. We
have no fault to find with the Scotch Lord, farther
than that his health did not fit him for the laborious
and responsible situation, and that in a case of
emergency he might be found, when too late, un-
equal to the task. No personal considerations in a
case of this kind should be allowed to have the
smallest weight, and though the Noble Lord, when
a Member of the House of Commons, and during
his whole career since, has invariably adhered
to what is called the PEEL party, it became
the imperative duty of the Minister to forget his own
feelings when they might interfere with the vital in-
terests of the country. Sir ROBERT PEEL, to his
creditr has acted on this principle, and has substituted
for this consistent, though never very efficient states.
man, a nobleman both younger and disposed to act
with more vigour in any department. Notwithstand-
ing the sulky objections of the East India Board to
Lord ELLENBOROUGH, and his imperative and mys-
terious recal from India by that powerful body, the
public in general entertain but one opinion of Lord
ELLENBOROUGH'S administration in the East. It was
distinguished by great energy, by a laudable at-
tachment to the army, and a regard for
their rights, privileges, and comfort. He found
affairs in a desperate condition ; Sinde almost
at open war with the Indian Company, the troops
in Affghanistan still in great jeopardy, and several of
the tributary states making preparations for open
rebellion. What was the result ? The dispersed
troops of the Affghan expedition marched triumph-
antly to Caubul, avenged the fate of their comrades,
and returned in triumph, after, marches and battles
unexampled for difficulty and danger. Sinde was
subdued, and finally annexed to our Indian empire,
and the whole of our vast possessions so completely
restored to security and peace, that Sir HBNET
HARDINGE found nothing to do till the unsettled
state of the Punjaub began to threaten disturbances
on our frontier. The result of Lord ELLENBOROUGII'S
mission was highly honourable to his abilities,
his energy, and skill, and we therefore confidently
trust that in his new department he will show the
same spirit, and adopt similar measures for restoring
the English navy, furnishing seamen able and willing
to fight in defence of their country, attaching them,
by good pay, kind treatment, and suitable pensions,
to their native land, and thereby correct the fatal
errors committed by so many of his predecessors.
Though we are probably on the brink of war with the
United States, and the causes have been foreseen for
years, the smallest possible preparations have been made
for manning the navy, and rendering it fit to contend
with hostile fleets. The greater part of the American
navy is manned by the best English sailors, and at
this we cannot wonder, though we must deplore the
fact, for they are better paid, better treated, and in
every respect have advantages which must counter-
balance their patriotism, great as it is, and lead them,
much against their will, to fight in the fleets of
enemies, and thereby lend their aid for the purpose
of defeating their own countrymen. Such a
ruinous system cannot be allowed to exist for an-
other session without manifest and imminent danger;
and we, therefore, trust that Lord ELLENBOROUGH
will take U? the subject in a national spirit, and rouse
his colleagues to measures absolutely necessary for
the public safety. A pamphlet on " Manning the
Navy" has just been published by Lieutenant
HOLLAND, R. N., which throws much light on the
subject, and suggests many valuable improvements.
Can anything be more absurd or more ruinous than
the system briefly described by him in these words?—
" At the present moment we are educating about 7,000
individuals (ordinary seamen, landsmen, and boys),
most of whom, after some six years service, are,
by the exertions of their officers, rendered first-
rate seamen. These men are, however, nearly
certain to be lost to the British service, because
whilst in the merchant service they can earn with ease
21. ss. per month, whereas the royal navy will only
afford them 11. Bs., even if they are advanced to the
rating of an ordinary seaman. If left on the books as
a first class, his pay will not exceed 15s. 6d." Can
any man wonder when he learns that all these first-
class men either go into the merchant service, or self
themselves to America ? Lieutenant HOLLAND says
such a system would appear to resolve itself into the
following heads :
"Firstly.—What are the inducements to he held out
to seamen to enter and to remain in her Majesty's ser-
vice ?

" Secondly.—What is the smallest naval force which
should be permanently maintained for the general ser-
vice of the country, and for the especial protection of our
extensive line of sea coast ?

" Thirdly.—What are the probable numbers which
would be immediately required in the event of war ?
What the means of obtaining them, without having re-
course to the objectionable measures formerly adopted,
and with the least possible injury to commercial in-
terests ?

........_ .
" Fourthly—What would be the probable expense of
the proposed measures, as well on their immediate adop-
tion, as on their continuance ?

In regard to the first query, he suggests that the
able seamen of the navy should be divided into four
classes. The first, on entry, and for three years, to
have 221. 4s. per annum ; the second, after three years,
241.; the third, after six years, 2.51. 45.; and the
highest class, after five years' service, 261. Bs.
This we consider not to be sufficient ; but,
in the meantime, pass over that point,
With regard to the second query, he says, " that in
the event of a war 30,000 men would be required to
be added to the home station. During the last war,
from 1798 to 1815, inclusive, the average num-
ber of seamen and marines annually voted ex-
ceeded 123,000; of these 41,000 may be pre-
sumed to have been employed on the home station."
He, therefore, recommends a comprehensive plan
of registration, including all seamen, boatmen, fisher-
men, &c., the numbers of whom, according to the
last census, exceed 300,C00; so that to make up the
compliment of 30,000, only one in ten would be re-
quired. With such arrangements, he considers that
in a very few days 30,000 -able seamen could be
raised, and at an expense not exceeding 290,0001.
But the expense, in fact, is nothing compared with the

interests at stake, and the country would grudge no
expense in such a cause. The Government are only
to blame, and we therefore trust that the new First
Lord of the Admiralty will take up the question with
his usual spirit, and thereby save us from a miserable
system of truckling, and from humiliation and defeat.

The last few days have shown a decided--and the
more satisfactory, because, though decided, not vio-
lent—tendency to reaction from the railway-panic•
There is a time for everything—a time for looking
backward, and a time for looking forward-1-a time
when fears will prevail, and a time when hope will
resume its sway ; and it was inevitable that the ap-
proach of the 30th of November should bring specu-
lation to a standstill, and make every one think of
Standing Orders, and see nothing but difficulties where,
when the day was distant, no difficulties were dreamt
off. A panic was sure to come. Let no panic-mongers
flatter their own vanity by supposing that they made
the panic, though their ill-applied industry may have
aggravated its injurious effects. And now the 30th
of November is a month old, we write, on the 31st
of December, when railway projects will have passed
their second great ordeal, or be for this year fallen.
The meeting of Parliament is approaching, and the
railway public will begin to turn their heads forward;
and already there are signs of life and hope.
We have never given into the mania of indiscrimi-
nate abuse of railway speculation. " There may be
a superstition," says Lord BACON, " in avoiding su-
perstition ;" and it is not necessarily honesty which
will draw no line between railway speculation and
railway gambling. We have net failed to lament
the excesses or reprove the abuses of the late railway
excitement. But, without speculation, how would
our existing railways have been constructed ? The
fact is of speculation as of agitation, that within
due bounds it is a wholesome, if not necessary, stimu-
lant to the body social ; and the evils lie entirely in
the abuse. And even when speculation breaks
through the thin partition that bounds it from
gambling, while we admit that all efforts
should be made to bring it back within
its proper bounds, we should •be disposed
to look leniently on errors and excesses belonging
to a movement so full of promise to the material,
aye, and moral, prosperity of our country as that
which now holds out to every village and every cor-
ner the prospect of railway communication with the
great centres of industry, and commerce, and civi-
lisation.

Parliament has always hitherto treated railway
enterprise as a matter of speculation ; and it will be
too late, therefore, for Parliament, even if it were
disposed to hearken to the recommendations of purists
on these matters, to turn round upon railway specu-
lators as deserving of indiscriminate censure.
Here are one or two striking instances of the
spirit in which railway companie s have been treated,
from the transactions of only last session. Lord
RiDESDALS is giving evidence before a Committee of
the House, and is asked—" Supposing the case of
the promoters of a railway scheme, who have gone
to an immense expense, and have lost no time in promot-
ing their object, and they are defeated by the mere
efflux of time, and by the peculiar circumstances of
the present session, do not you think that that con-
stitutes a case of hardship so great, that the Legisla-
ture ought to do something to relieve the parties from
it ?" Now hear his Lordship's answer :—" I have no
great feeling for them, speaking for myself." That
is, they are a set of speculators, and they must rough
it as Lest they can. A Committee sat last year in
the House of Lords on the subject of compensation
by railway companies to landowners. The Duke of
of RICHMOND, chairman. Here is an extract from
their report :
" The Committee are of opinion that many cases occur
in which it is necessary to consider the land, &c., not merely
as a source of income, but as the subject of expensive em-
bellishment, and subservient to the enjoyment and recrea-
tion of the proprietor.
" Public advantage may require all these private consider-
ations to be sacrificed, but as it is the only ground upon which
a man can justly be deprived of his property and enjoyments,
sn, in the case of railways, though the public may be considered
ultimately the gainers, the immediate motive to their construction
is the interest of the speculaters, who have no right to complain
of being obliged to purchase, at a somewhat high rate, the means
of carrying on their speculation."
To be sure this is landowner logic, and not very
sound political economy ; but we must not be too nice
with a Committee of Peers, with the Duke of RICH-
MOND at their head. A rigid political economist might
expect some consideration to have been given to the
saving of capital—might suggest that the sum which
is to go to increase the country squire's unproductive
expenditure might more profitably remain with the
speculator, to be by him applied to other speculations
from which the country would derive an increase of
wealth. But, as we said before, A e must not be too
nice with a packed committee of noble landowners ;
and, after all, we had rather that the funds of railway
companies went to pay excessive compensation than
in inordinate bills—such as some of the dissolving
bubble companies have lately exhibited—of jobbing
solicitors and projectors.
In the report of yesterday's proceedings of the Lan-
cashire and Eastern Counties Company, which
was projected in the autumn, and is now to be
dissolved, the solicitors' bills are stated at
3,7311., besides 2,356/. to local agents. Up-
wards of 6,000/. to solicitors in less than
six months ! It should be known that the Attorneys
and Solicitors' Act of 1843 (6 and 7 Vict. c. 73),
gives a power of taxing a solicitor's bill, in cases where
no business has been done in any' court of law or
equity, by application to the Lord Chancellor or
Master of the Rolls. We recommend the subscribers
to the dissolving railway companies in allcases where
the solicitors' bills show such unreasonable amounts,
to insist on taxation.

The proceedings last evening at the anniversary
festival of the National Mercantile Life Assurance
Society reflects the highest honour on the general
body of the commercial travellers of the United
Kingdom. Energetic, shrewd, active, and honour-
able they have ever been; humanity and benevolence,
too, have ever characterised the commercial travellers
of the United Kingdom. To these we may now add
foresight and prudence. We rejoice that this impor-
tant and influential body of men have taken
up the subject of life insurance, and that
they are now become as alive to the
permanent interests of themselves and their
families as they have ever been to those of their em-
ployers. The Society is, it would appear, in a most
prosperous condition; indeed, we know not how it
coukl well be otherwise, seeing that it is supported
by, perhaps, the most influential body of men in the
kingdom, the individual members of which come into
daily and hourly contact with every merchant and
trader in every part of the empire. Another very
pleasing feature of the proceedings of last evening
was the announcement, by Mr. CurrLEr, that a school
for the education of the orphan children of commer-
cial travellers had been founded. Four gentlemen
had originally subscribed ten guineas each towards
this excellent charity as a beginning. The school
was to be established as soon as 100 subscribers at
ten guineas each should be obtained. Undaunted by
the sneers of the faint-hearted, who treated the
scheme as chimerical, Mr. CUFFLEY set to work,
like an enterprising and energetic man of business,
as he is, and obtained not one hundred, but two
hundred and fifty subscribers to the school ! Well,
might he exclaim with honest pride, " that such was
the power of the commercial travellers, that if they
embarked in any enterprise with energy and zeal it
was impossible for them not to succeed." As long as
they display their energy and zeal in the furtherance
of such enterprises of charity and benevolence they
will enjoy not only the triumphs of success, but the
heartfelt satisfaction of feeling that their success has
been well deserved, and that every right-thinking
man rejoices at it with them.

We have received Madrid papers of the 23d, but
they bring no news, if we except a statement in the
Gazette, giving an account of the capture of forty-
eight smugglers and a considerable quantity of fo-
reign merchandise in the first week of December.

The Three per Cents. closed on the 22d at 36/ at
GO days, and on the 23d, at 361 for cash, and 36
11-16 at 60 days ; and the Five per Cents., at 24i at
60 days, with premium.

'the accounts from Paris of the state of the funds,
and the prices of railway shares, continue highly
favourable. During the last week all, kinds of secu-
rities advanced, and railway shares in particular had
shown a marked improvement. Paris and Orleans
had risen in the course of a few days about 68f.,