The Press. — London, England, 1854-09-02 00:00:00

{~ ■ MEM • v, 818 and repels disease. Look to the horrors re sulting from inaction. The leading supporter of the Coalition has, in its publication of yesterday, published a letter which describes the state of the expedition. The Guards arp re p r esented as so jaded end heatt-sickenei that they had to make two marches to accom plish ten miles, and to hoe their knapsacks carried for them ! They left Old England panting for glory, sin& Of have been kvpt two months out of the view of the enemy. Devno, called by the Turks " The Valley of Death," was selected for their recent quarters. The drivers and men of the Ambulance Corps have all died, and, where men of physical energy should have been chosen, it appears that they were selected from worn-out soldiers, too old ' for campaigning. We shall not sicken our readers with the reproduction of some of the detailed horrors of the " Cholera Camp." It is enough to say that the great French artist, HORACE VERNET, has asserted that already the horrors of the expedition have exceeded any thing that his pencil could portray. The calamities of Walcheren are surpassed, and only the same pen that described the plague in London could paint the moral anguish and physical sufferings of our army that had the dire misfortune of languishing under the coun sels of a Cabinet which begun the war in insin cerity, conducted it witli inactivity, and would seem not to care even if its final results were inglorious to the English name. But such a policy cannot be pursued with impunity. Grave political consequences re sulted from the disastrous Walcheren expe dition. Statesmen concerned in concocting it, or in acquiescing in its organisation, vainly attempted to fly from the consequences of their own personal responsibility. Mr. CANNING, to no avail, endeavoured to evade the responsibility which he had incurred; and the disputed leadership of the Commons with Lord CASTLEREAGH, and the intestine discord of the Tory Cabinet of the Regency, were directly attributable to the unfortunate expedition to the Scheldt. In the present case there will be a repetition of parallel consequences. Already the actual horrors of the expedition exceed those of Walcheren, and the questions necessarily arise, what if the Cabinet are really responsi ble for the delays that have taken place? Is It Lord ABERDEEN, with a new " secret under standing," or some more clandestine papers, divulged only to one or two of the Cabinet? Is it the Minister of War with his clerkly intellect that affects the capacious, confound ing the plodding diligence of a mediocre red tapist with the predominating spirit that in spires master natures ? Some one must be censured for the unparalleled fact of the expe dition that left our shores last spring being left up to autumn to pine in miserable torpor. Some one must answer for the dire conse quences of such imbecile tampering with the public interests of Europe. An army must, not thus be imperilled with impunity, and the ensign of England must be rescued from the palsied fingers and anile mind that would fling it as a peace-offering to the Czar to he exhibited as a trophy at the Kremlin. Nor let it be said, as an excuse, that the Cabinet is not accountable for the cholera. We charge upon it the responsibility that by its wavering and weakness--its ambiguous counsels and insincere speeches—its tortuous diplomacy and mysterious purposes—it has bewildered our public servants, and assisted our national enemies. Crowd men together, tell them that on one hand is the enemy, and on the other is a plague, but that diplomacy and the " spirit of peace " forbid their assault on the former, and what must be the conse quence ? Just such as all the journals record in their dismally black catalogues of calami ties in a plague-tainted army. Two months ago the sight of Sebastopol would have been a tonic to the energies of our men, even then kept too long in inaction, and now we have only a month before us for the performance of any important undertaking. September has arrived. Warm days and cold nights will now try the debilitated energies of our troops, and the army will have to fight, if it fight at all, crippled in its strength, and weakened in its numbers. THE PRESS. Nor let it be forgotten that the enemy has had such ample time given to him for prepara tion. This is another of the responsibi lities which the iNitgnet cannot evade. The Cy.ai: has been fesewarned as to what was intended egainst him, end it will not be his fault if he does not rev 4bundant profit from the ancient friendship of Lord ABERDEEN, and the petty abilities of Opll Duke of NEWCASTLE. BUREAUCIinig NOTIONS. THE Secretary of War has discovered the rea son why the Coalition Government does not work so well as could be desired. It has not patronage enough at its disposal. It has only as yet been able to create two new Ministers, viz., a fourth Secretary of State, and a Presi dent of the Board of Health. Several more arc wanted—as a Minister of Improvement, a Minister of Justice, with a Judge. Martial and Prosecutor-Martial for the Army. Money is not an object. Ten thousand a year is not too much for an efficient Minister. The plan is all ready—LAWLEY and STONOR are waiting for places—nothing is wanting but the sanction of Parliament, and that Parliament is not likely to afford. What is to be done? The question is suggestive. What is the use of Parliament ? Why not do away with " this troublesome obstruction of a House of Com mons" ? It exists only to thwart the measures of the Coalition, and pick holes in the Duke of NEWCASTLE'S appointments. With a "free Executive," free floor all representative con trol ; a " free press," superintended, of course, by a chief censor ; and a " free public," kept in strict order by a Police Minister,—what use can there be in retaining representative insti tutions ? It seems incredible that an educated English gentleman should gravely propose notions like these in a journal of good standing. But we must deal with facts as we find them. We cannot mistake the brain which has spun these crotchets. The stamp of Newcastleism is on them. His Grace is proud of his politi cal theories, and imagines he is destined to destroy the old worn out fabric of English liberty, and substitute a bran new system of bureaucracy in its stead. It is his misfortune that he entered political life at a time when principle and opinion were ignored as elements of power. A false esti mate was taken of the public mind, and the success of parties was supposed to depend on the unscrupulous zeal of their secret organisers. The Duke was educated in the school of Mr. BONHAM. At the feet of this electioneering Gamaliel he acquired his political morality, and learned how corruption might be reduced to a system. In the Ministry of Sir ROBERT PEEL, Mr. BONHAM was rewarded with an ap pointment in the Ordnance, and the public will recollect through what circumstances, in con nection with the great railway speculations, he was compelled to resign his post. But the Duke retained a greatful recollection of his early instructor, and Mr. BONHAM is now one of our Income-tax Commissioners. If we recal these circumstances, it is be cause they furnish a key to his Grace's cha racter. As a jobber he almost rises to great ness. A shrewd observer who noticed the earnestness of ROBESPIERRE in debate, re marked, " That man will go a great way, for he " believes what he says." The Duke is entitled to the same sort of praise for conscientious ness. He has no belief in a higher standard of political morality than that he practises. He dispenses his patronage on principle. The testimonials to character which find most favour in his sight are those which tell of voters bribed, of elections influenced, and of the dirtiest and most unscrupulous party services. In his view a party means no more than a certain aggregate of votes, and states manship is but another came for managing elections. To his mind it must appear impossible to strengthen a Government in any other way than by increasing the number of Ministers who have au interest in holding together, and by augmenting the number of places at their SATURDAY, disposal. He must highly approve of the remedy recommended for the weakness of the Coalition Ministry. " We would have it coalesce "yet more--take in Winger relations—have " more legs to stand tpon until it became a "very cett ede of ministries." Here there is no partep ton of the {strength which springs from tinily of purpose, and of the weakness which !loving front divided/Onion. To be sure when pulikie principle is entirely extinguished, and men covet office only for its emoluments, an Administration may become stronger as the legs it stands on are multiplied. And it is to achieve such a consummation that the Duke of NEWCASTLE and his friends are labouring. They have made, they think, a capital begin ning with the Coalition,—they have been suc cessful in creating two new Ministries,--and, could they but get rid of that troublesome obstruction, the House of Commons, they might hope to effect their object of converting our Government into a job. REVELATIONS BY CARDINAL WISEMAN. IT is of the highest importance, in the present state of Christendom, to watch the arts by which Romanism seeks to gain its ends. To the fact that there does exist a great conspi racy on the part of Rome, not only against the Protestant faith, but against the civil and re ligious liberties of the world, we have the tes timony of no less a person than Lord JOHN RUSSELL himself. Rarely did a more impor tant declaration come from his lips than that delivered on the introduction of the Ecclesias tical Titles Bill : For many years since the restoration of Louis XVIII. the Court of Rome has endeavoured to revive pretensions —to attempt domination—to restore supremacy—which many thought had been for ever abandoned. . . Since 1848, men, seeking fur some safety, for some plank by which they might escape iu the shipwreck, have resorted to the authority, the influence, the power, and the name of the Church of Rome. And the clergy of that Church have seen an opportunity of reviving powers which, if success fully claimed, must be fatal to the liberty of every country in Europe.—Hansard, 3rd s., vol. 115, p. 310. Such words could nos have been uttered by Lord Jost; RUSSELL unless grave evidence were before him of the truth of his assertion. Unhappily, the facts of that evidence are now too patent throughout Europe, and it will be our duty to-day to advert to some of the pecu liar arts of Popery from which our national Church is in peril. Indifferentists and nominal Protestants have inquired where is the real danger, in presence of the fact that the Papists are such a paltry minority of our population? To that question, often sneeringly asked, we answer that it is the leavening element of Popery, its tainting su perstition, and its morbid humours that are just as perilous as its more open assaults. A hurricane may at first give more visible proofs of its immediately destructive energy, but the invisible influence of an epidemic plague can leave behind it more deadly results of its fear ful power. We have been much impressed with some striking revelations on the effect which a clique of enterprising Papists can ex hibit, and we desire to bring them under the attention of our readers. Cardinal WISEMAN has recently republished his " Theological Essays," and has prefixed remarkable prefaces to his first and second vo lumes. Referring, in a moment of giddy exul tation, to the origin of the Dublin Review, he says that its leading object was to observe and assist " that wonderful movement which, on " ginating at Oxford, was destined to pervade " and agitate the Anglican Establishment till " it should give up many of its most loving and " gifted 50155 to the Catholic Church." lie goes on to say that, to watch the progress of this " great religious revolution," to observe its phases, to influence, if possible, its direct tion, to move it gently towards complete attainme nt of its unconscious aims, and, moreover, to protest agemst its errors, to warn against its dangers, to provide arguments against its new modes of attack, and to keep lifted up the mask of beauty under which it had, in sincerity, covered the ghastly and soulless features of Protestantism ; these were the duties which the new Review undertook to per form, or which, in no small degree, it was expressly crested to discharge. A little further on he illustrates more clearly I -