VICTORIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 124, 21 May 1853, Page 8

VICTORIA.

We are in possession of a fortnight's file of Melbourne journals, but we are afraid that we cannot extract from them much readable matter. The expediency of fortifying the Heads had begun to be a subject of serious consideration ; and upon this point the Melboiime Herald puts forth the following remarks:—

, " The necessity for some sort of fortification at the Heads, to which we adverted not many days ago, appears tiie more urgent the move we reflect upon it. " War with France," is a cry so often raised that we are apt to forget that the wolf is none the less likely to come at last for having been the repeated occasion of false alarms. If we reflect on the present aspect of European politics, and eliminate the unreasonable portion of our feelings of security we shall perceive that we are at present by no means free from risk. The chances may be against war, but we fancy sporting politicians would at most not offer very heavy odds on the subject; and in the event of war, the chances would be much in favour of our seeing- it rather more closely than it is at all desirable. For many years past Englishmen have become so accustomed to regard war as an evil, almost exclusively felt through those nerves that connect the heart and the pocket, that its direct horrors do not readily rise to our imagination as likely to be visited upon ourselves. Burning towns and destroyed harvests, and plunder and violence, have ceased to be considered by Englishmen as matters of personal apprehension in time of war. The broad continent and the boundless seas have constituted the fields on which England has fought her battles of late, and in the division of European labour it has become a regular and understood thing that, by paying a fair share of blood and money, England shall be exempted from the more immediate horrors of war. Such has been the case since a period far more remote than that which saw the first settlement of Australia, and the disposition to trust our wooden walls and armies abroad in time of war has been common to ourselves and our forefathers for some generations past.

" However just and well founded such confidence may still be in England, it would be much the reverse here. A colony so important as this has recently become would almost certainly be regarded as one of the prizes to be fought for, although in our present condition it would simply fall to the first squadron that thought it worth while to make the seizure. No doubt many of our readers will regard this as very foolish alarmist doctrine, but the feeling' implied in so viewing the question is chiefly owing to a certain misapprehension which could not endure long in minds sufficiently aroused to the subject to give it regular and definite consideration. We tacitly trust to our distance from the head quarters of European war for such delay before its. tide could reach us as would enable us to take steps for our defence. But the delay that must occur before the tide reached us, would be no greater than that which would occur before news of the declaration of war could reach us. It would be a race between the vessel which should bring us news of the birth of this calamity, and the one which should bring the calamity itself upon us. The last news that readied us from England inform us .that war with France would not come unexpectedly at a week's notice ; to-mormo a couple of .trench ingates may provide us, in a most unpleasant way, with irresistable arguments showing how well founded this apprehension as; J" ol\ e of l»e last speeches which the Jiarl ot Derby made in his capacity of Premier, he urged the opinion of the late Duke of Wellington, that every nation should have within itself those means of self defence and self independence, which should not provoke a«r<*ves sion by its weakness-more especially if ufthat weakness be added the possession of unbounded wealth. If we do not come within the catalogue of "nations," the elements of wealth and weakness are at least sufficiently conspicuous here to expose us most obviously to the danger

It is of course quite true (and quite apart from the purpose) that England owes us protection ; but to refuse to take any care of our own safety on this account would be to emulate the conduct of the Thames wherryman who lost Ins life by refusing to row out of"the way of the steamboat, saying he < threw the responsibility entirely upon them.' It would be a very

poor comfort to us after a visit from French men-of-war to reflect that England should have takeu precautions against such a catastrophe."