The Lyttelton Times. Saturday, August 4.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 288, 4 August 1855, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. Saturday, August 4.

The most unsatisfactory intelligence to be gleaned from the English papers is the growing opinion expressed by the French press, that England has proved, by the way in which this war has been conducted, that she is on the decline. Such an opinion is unfortunate, because, for a time', it will tend, in some degree, to lessen the mutual confidence and respect which has lasted to the present moment between the two countries. When the French understand their English allies better, they will see the groundlessness of their present apprehensions. The fact is, that the large majority of the French nation understand thenatiorjalcharacteristicsandthe form of Government of their neighbours as little as they understand the court of the Celestial Empire. All this turmoil— all these recriminations—these Commiitees of Enquiry—this determination, at whatever cost, to find out and to extirpate the roots of a long-standing evil—ail these signs are not those of decadence. It is when a nation attempts to conceal its misfortunes and to avoid inquiry that we may justly be suspicious of its powers and its prospects. At this moment the French are concealing the extent of their losses—we are magnifying ours. They do their work in their fashion—we do ours in our own. And no alliance will ever make the two nations adopt the same fashions of making war or of ■writing histor . The French system may gain a momentary advantage over the enemy, but it is dearly purchased by the incredulity which the official despatches have often inspired. It is well known that during the Peninsular war the French went to the English papers to get at the truth concerning the state of their army, and that the iuventions of the Moniteur, (Napoleon's official org-jm,) were universally disbelieved. The exiiranie set by Government was followed by the Generals of the French army; and Napoleon was himself misinformed of the events of the war at a most perilous and critical juncture. The manner in which every check was, in England, dragged to light and magnified by the opposition, whatever momentary mischief it

may have done, had this good effect, that our allies were able to believe our official despatches implicitly, at a time when the transmission of authentic intelligence from one part of Europe to another might have affected the fate of empires. We are now going through what the country* went through at Sthe beginning, of the Peninsular war ; we are not now, at the beginning of a war, nor Jwere we then, as good campaigners as the French; but gsllant soldiers as our allies may be, they will find it hard to compete with the British troops after two or three years of experience in the field. A despotism is certainly the most convenient form of Government to carry on a campaign with energy,—but we do not choose to give up~"'our liberty every time we go to war. The English are the only people in Europe who are able to carry out a war under free institutions. * .^So far from proving that England is in her decadence as a great warlike power, we hold that the honest resolution shown in the enquiry into and publication of her maladministration is one of the greatest proofs of greatness and power. In the late war Napoleon, on witnessing'the extraordinary fermentation in England, exultingly said, " That England was a barrel of gunpowder that would soon explode. 1' "Eh bien," says Jules Meurel, " The barrel of gunpowder is there still; but it is your tractable wellconducted nations whg have exploded." The French are now foi*ming the same judgment as Napoleon did of old upon the same data.

We call attention to an advertisement giving notice of the evening class held at the Grammar school-room. The fees arehiow fixed at Is. 6d. a-week, and instruction will be given on all evenings in the week except Monday. We are requested to state, that Mr. Pollard has been appointed assistant-muster in the Lytteltou Grammar and Distinct Schools.