The Press. — London, England, 1854-02-11 00:00:00

130 PREPARATIONS FOR WAR. IT is now known that a considerable number of troops are to be sent to the Mediterranean and Con stantinople forthwith. The authorities have been in communication with several steam navigation com panies as to the steam power they might be enabled to furnish to convey troops. Mr. Cunard's company, it is said, cannot spare any of the ships of their line ; but the Peninsular and Oriental Com pany are likely to supply the Government with one or more of their splendid ships. The Ripon, pro bably, will be one ( f the number. The great screw ship Himalaya is expected back in a few days from Alexandria, and it is not improbable that her services will be put in requisition at the earliest moment. There are also available, if required, a couple of the 2,500-tons new screw-ships of the General Screw Company, the Jason and the Golden Fleece, and these four ships alone, it is computed, could conve niently take 7,000 men, and thus do more service than thirty of the sailing transports of the olden time. At the Horse Guards and at the Admiralty, at the Ordnance-office and Somerset-house, the work of pre paration is incessant. Early and late the officials are to be found at their posts, and everybody seems to be working double tides. In the event of war being declared, her Majesty, it is understood, will dispense with the services of the royal yacht for the purpose of enabling more than 100 of the finest sailors in the world to enter a war ship in defence of the country. Tenders were advertised for a few days since for the supply of 1,000 quarters of wheat for the use of the navy. Orders, however, were telegraphed to Ply mouth on Thursday from the Admiralty to take the unprecedented quantity of 3,000 quarters, which have been contracted for at prices varying from 80s. to 894. 10d. per quarter. The Coast Guard are to be made available for manning the navy, an operation which it is now es sential to complete as speedily as possible in the many vessels now fitting out. The Admiralty have accordingly issued a proclamat'on commanding one half of the force, to the number of 3,000 men, to be at once drafted into various ships. The Coast Guard are thoroughly practical sailors, well disciplined, and inured to the duties of men-of-war's men. Rear-Admiral Chads, C. 8., just promoted from captain of the Excellent gunnery-ship, has been ap pointed to the command of a division of the fleet in• tended for the Baltic. Lieutenant J. H. Chads has been nominated flag-lieutenant to his father. It is said that the Nile, 90, screw, will be one of the Baltic flag-ships. Sir C. Napier is mentioned as the probable com mander of the future fleet in the Baltic. The increase in the supply vote for the seamen and marines to be raised for 1854 55-10,000 seamen and 3,000 marines—will be about 190,0001. for six months. It is not intended to ask fur more than six months' pay at present. The Lieutenant -Governorship of the Sandhurst Military College is not to be filled up. There are forty-six candidates, but the commissioners meditate abolishing the office, converting the superintendent of studies into a military commandant. The following is published as an authentic list of the regiments under orders for foreign service, to gether with the date at which each corps is directed to be held in readiness for embarkation :-4th (King's Own), 221 March; 7th (Royal Fusiliers), 25th ; oth ditto, oth ;14th ditto, 3rd; 17th ditto, 4th ; 21st (Royal North British Fusiliers), 15th; 27th (Enniskillens), 10th ' • 28th ditto, 17th ; 35th ditto, 13th ; 38th ditto, 28th; 39th ditto, 2nd; 42nd (Royal Highlanders), 30th; 50th (Queen's Own), 18th; 02nd ditto, sth ; 63rd ditto, 7th ; 79th (Cameron Highlanders), 20th ; 82nd ditto, lath ; 88th (Con naught Rangers), 27th ; 89th ditto, Ist ; 90th (Perthshire Light Infantry), 9th; 93rd (Sutherland Highlanders), 21st; 95th ditto, 24th. This would reduce the infantry force in the United Kingdom (irrespective of the brigade of Guards) to eleven regi ments—viz., the 34th, 20th, 97th, 46th, 33d, 77th, 91st, 12th, 49th, 23rd, and the Rifle Brigade. It is intended early in the ensuing month that a camp, consisting of 30,000 English militia, shall he formed either at Chohham or such other place as the general in com mand of the army shall deem fit. Great activity prevails in recruiting for the army, to augment the regiments to 1,000 rank and file. A large number of recruiting parties have been recently sent to the manufacturing towns, also to Ire land and Scotland, to raise recruits, besides beating up at the head quarters. There is no doubt but the required number will soon be enlisted. Preliminary orders for the enrolment of the Greenwich Pensioners have been issued from the Admiralty. All pensioners are ordered to attend on Tuesday next at specified places for inspection, by officers appointed to ascertain their fitness for ser vice. Failure in compliance with this injunction will render the absentees subject to the loss of their pensions. • THE PRESS. Pamphlets entitled respectively " A Few Words of Advice to the Mariners of England and Enter prising Youths inclined for the Sea Service, showing the Advantages to be derived by Service in the Royal Navy, by a Seaman's Friend;" and "A Few Words of Explanation to Seafaring People on the Coast who are disposed to join the Royal Naval Coast Volun teers," are being extensively circulated at the sea ports. - THE TURKISH BLUE BOOKS. Is our last number we mentioned that the much talked-of collection of State papers was at length issued, and gave a description of its bulk and out ward appearance. The enormous magnitude of its contents renders all attempts at condensation or even of enumeration hopelessly impossible. The papers contained in it are in number 417, occupying 778 pages, and ranging over nearly four years of busy controversy, or rapidly-succeeding events, be tween May, 1850, and January, 1854. Out of the large mass we may select some passages from a single despatch—perhaps the most noticeable of the series—in which the Foreign Secretary communi cates to the British Envoy at St. Petersburg the ministerial view and determination respecting the massacre at Sinope:— No. 345. THE EARL OF CLARENDON TO SIR O. H. SEYMOUR. Foreign-office, Dec. '27, 1853. Sir,—Authentic information, dated the 9th inst., from Constantinople has reached her Majesty's Government that on the 30th ult. a Turkish squadron at anchor in the harbour at Sinope was completely destroyed by an over whelming Russian force ; that four thousand Turks perished; and that the survivors, not exceeding iu number more than four hundred, who have been brought away by English and French vessels, were all more or less wounded. The feelings of horror which this dreadful carnage could not fail to create have been general throughout all ranks and classes of her Majesty's subjects in this country. The object with which the combined fleets were sent to Constantinople was not to attack Russia but to defend Turkey ; and the English and French Ambassadors and admirals were informed that the fleets were not to assume an aggressive position, but that they were to protect the Turkish territory from attack. Had the Turkish squadron been about to make a descent upon Seconm-Kale, as is stated in a despatch from Prince Menschikoff to Prince Gortschakoff, if it had been fallen in with and destroyed by the Russian fleet oft' the Russian coasts in Asia, her Majesty's Government, however much they might have lamented such a disastrous loss of lite, would have regarded it as an ordinary though unfortunate casualty of war. But the Sultan's squadron was destroyed while at anchor in a Turkish harbour, Ind where, conse quently, the English and French fleets, if they had been present, would have protected it, and would have repelled the attack. Her Majesty's Government have not abandoned the hope that peace may be re-established, for they are unwilling to believe that any insurmountable obstacle can exist to carrying out the declared objects of Russia in a manner compatible with the dignity and the independence of the Porte ; and it would therefore have been a matter of sin cere satisfaction to her Majesty's Government that the combined fleets should have remained at anchor in the Bosphorus while negotiations were pending. But this has been rendered impossible by the attack on the Turkish squadron at Sinope. The intentions of the English and French Governments, which were long since announced to the Porte, must be firmly and faithfully executed. For this purpose, although with no hostile design against Russia, it is essential that the combined fleets should have the command of the Black Sea ; and the necessary instruc tions have accordingly been addressed to the Ambassadors and admirals of England and France. In making known to Count Nesselrode that such in structions had been sent, you will inform his excellency that, in order to prevent the recurrence of disasters such as that at Sinope, the combined fleets will require and, if necessary, compel Russian ships-of•war to return to Sebas topol, or the nearest port ; and it is considered that the Turkish fleet should undertake no aggressive operations by sea so long as matters remain in their present state. (Signed) CLARENDON. MR. CAMPBELL AT CAMBRIDGE. A BIEETINO was held at Cambridge on Saturday, at which the Hon. W. F. Campbell attended, to make a statement of his political opinions. The chief topic of his address was representative reform. Of this subject Mr. Campbell remarked that it was more im portant to us than the parliamentary oaths, or even the question of peace or war. He added : " The first point on which each man ought to convince himself was how far the Government as now constituted were entitled to implicit confidence on this class of gum lions. If he ventured to deny that the present Ministers deserved on these points to be implicitly confided in he should state the reasons of his doubts with calmness and brevity. The Government was made up—and this was an advantage, perhaps, on other themes—of Whigs, of Radicals, and Tories. It blended the ideas by which the Reform Act was designed, the ideas by which the Reform Act was opposed, and the ideas by which it had afterwards bent endangered. Whichever order of ideas was sound, the three were quite irreconcilable. The public interest must naturally be forgotten in the effort to form a compromise between such adverse creeds and adverse as- SATURDAY, pirations. But this was not all. In the middle of the last session a bill was solemnly advanced for the disfran chisement of voters in the dockyards; in a few weeks or days it was withdrawn without an effurt to defend its birth or its extinction. A Government which introduced or ganic change, and was not ready to adhere to it, repudiated confidence on subjects of this kind. The confusion which occurred at the commencement of 1852 arose out of the circumstance that the Government of that day had pledged themselves almost a year before to introduce organic change at that stated time, and when the stated time was such as to stultify the measure a balance had to be resolved between the safety of the public and the honour of the minister. But still, in 1853, the same course had been re peated, and it curiously happened a similar result had been produced. As far as the world had been enlightened by authority on this interesting subject, the disposition of the Government was to undermine the principle on which the power of majorities was founded, to make a general dis franchisement of boroughs in which no corruption had been demonstrated, retaining those in which it partially existed, and to annihilate the barrier by which the towns and counties were still kept distinct. On these grounds alone he felt hesitation in surrendering a blind and im plicit confidence to Government, as now constituted, on topics of reform. But all these grounds were insignificant with the one he had not touched and should not venture to enlarge on. The mind which openly asserted its as• cendancy on this theme, as the mind by which it would be governed, had allowed the world two years ago to take a measure of its aptitude in the famous bill of 1852, which he believed was not erased from the public recollection. As there was not the slightest reason to assume that the bill of 1851 bad lost the admiration of its author it was useless to conceal the disadvantage of the moment, how. ever hopeless to redress it. l f anything approaching the recent project was renewed, the followers of Sir Robert Peel, as things then stood, were not in a condition to repel it. Lord Palmerston himself was not in a condition to repel it. And yet these were the very men by whose sagacity and patriotism, in 1852, the country had been rescued. The task of vindicating truth, if truth a second time was to be outraged—the task of guarding Britain, if Britain was a second time assailed by the capricious march of things—appeared to fall on Mr. Disraeh. He should not venture an opinion, one way or the other, on his capacity to meet it. Whether Mr. Disraeli would be found a firm and a reforming guardian of our system, time only could determine ; but if he was not so found the conse quence would be deplorable and novel. The Reform Act woultl be then compelled to look upon the Czar as a pro. tector. The crash of empires must be heard that that of bc , roughs might be silenced, and Europe gleam with arms to rescue counties from venality In this unnatural position L we had to find deliverance in danger, a preserver in a foe, L a shield in an attack, a constitution in an autocrat." ELECTIONEERING AT HULL. --- - - Two enormous blue books have just been issued by the Hull election commissioners, as the result of their pro tracted labours. They contain disclosures so disgrace ful to Hull and its constituency that it might almost be suspected that the electors had bribed the members of the commission to bury in such a load of paper the proofs and details of their corruption. he commissioners report that systematic corruption has always prevailed at Hull. Before the Reform Act there was a general practice of paying the freemen, then the only voters, head money at the rate of 4/. 4s. for a plumper, and 2 guineas for a split vote ; since that act the mode and amount of payment have changed, but the system of corruption has not been discontinued. It has prevailed at every election. At the election of 1841 each party paid between 600 and 700 voters ; in 1847 about 1,20() were bribed ; in 1852, of the 3,083 who voted, nearly 1,400 were bribed. The constituency consists of 1,500 freemen and 3,000 occupiers, and the commissioners state that 1,100 of the freemen were bribed once at least, and the greater number of them oftener, in the course of these three elections. Not that the occu• piers are clear. It appears that a great part of them are always anxious for an expensive contest, and would he dissatisfied without it. A witness says : " If it had not been for the printers, and some few lawyers, I believe we should not have had a contest this last time." The commissioners state that the mode of corruption is very much by employing voters as clerks, canvassers, colourmen, or messengers, more generally termed "runners," the employment being real employment, if possible, but, if that is not sufficient, colourable employment is found ; "but the vote is the substantial consideration for the money." "Almost every person actively engaged in the elec tion contests has not only been cognisant of, but a party to, the prevalent corruption." They state that at every one of the last three elections systematic bribery was committed on behalf of Mr. Clay, with his knowledge and assent; that in 1841 Colonel Thompson, knowing of this systematic bribery for Mr. Clay, coalesced with him, and thereby obtained the advantage of Mr. Clay's purchased votes ; that systematic bribery was committed for Mr. Baines in 1847, but without his knowledge and contrary to his wish ; that in 1852 systematic bribery was commit ted on behalf of Lord Goderich, and he had know ledge of facts which should have caused him to inquire ink the mode in which his money was being expended ; that systematic bribery was committed on behalf of Mr. Bramley Moore and the Hon. C. I 7 I , VIP 166