The Press. — London, England, 1854-03-11 00:00:00

r 218 rights of weaker States. It is this which gives tO NAPOLEON the THIRD the moral force which, quite as much as his undoubted abilities and his organised power, has acquired for him the respect of nations, and enabled him to take such a marked and leading part la the affairs of Europe. The English people are just, and how, when they are reaping the benefits of the French alliance, they will not forget to whom it is mainly due. They will remember that, when Sir JAMES GRAHAM and Sir CHARLES WOOD were insulting the French Emperor by ribald abuse before tumultuous and bacchanalian assemblies, Lord MALMEBBURY, the Foreign Secretary of Lord DERBY'S Government, had frankly recognised the imperial authority of NAPOLEON, had discovered the capacity for sovereign rule which he has since displayed, and calculated on the good faith which his subsequent acts have verified. Nor will it be forgotten that the predecessor of Lord MALMESSURY—at once the most bril liant member of the Coalition, and the least acquiescent in its policy—ceased to belong to the Whig Government, because he also had expressed confidence in the ruler of France. Lord PALMERSTON, at the banquet given to Sir CHARLES NAPIER, in proposing the health of the Emperor, said : We have had to do, during now more than a twelve month, with a most difficult and complicated negotiation with the Sovereign of France. We have been met on his part with the greatest straightforwardness—( loud cheers ) with the most perfect good faith—( cheers)—with a single minded sincerity, and with en energy of purpose and a community of determination, which have inspired in our minds the same full confidence m him that I am proud to say he has always expressed in us. (Loud cheers.) Lord PALMERSTON could say this with pride as well as truth, but it would be curious to know with what feelings it was listened to by his colleague, Sir JAMES GRAHAM. His experience may have brought with it mortification, but it had not taught him prudence, as his subse quent speech attested. The inopportune hostility of his gibes at our ally was re placed by maladroit congratulations on the party advantage of having two " Reformers " at the head of our national armaments. To narrow his position further, by distin guishing himself from another Reformer —his Leader in the House of Commons —he even went out of his way to emphasise the confidence which he himself felt in the "discretion" of Sir CHARLES NAPIER. He stopped short, indeed, of the climax, that a greater gain to Reformers was the consequence of his own countenance of their " large mea sure," in the acquisition of his own adminis trative discretion at the Admiralty. From these paltry pretensions we cordially turn to that which a party may remember with juster satisfaction. We may not be able to boast that Conservative admirals or Con servative Lords of the Admiralty are to have the exclusive, or indeed any, share in the triumphs of the coming war. But this cir cumstance will neither diminish the alacrity with which Conservatives will do their best for the common cause ; nor will it lessen their pride that they were deprived of their fair official opportunities by the policy to which it is now recognised that this cause is indebted. Others, including reforming Secretaries of the Admiralty, may reap the advantage of a posi tion they have done their best to undermine ; but for the alliance which is invaluable at this moment we are indebted neither to them nor generally to their reforming colleagues, whether Whigs or Peelites, but to the states men they opposed, and to the Ministry they supplanted. MR. GLADSTONE'S "ABORTIONS." i WE are entitled to make the most of admis sions obtained from Mr. GLADSTONE, as it 19 not circum a financier His rhe _ in dealing some facts too • and we can —lts to gain avowing them. now tells us, from his speech The committee ought to know the position of the public finances with relation to the abortive operaliuns ( for they main - for which last year ton of onl4 tea dy ~000,0004. to be supposed he would acknowledi •.. 14 - Ibits ...clipdvautage as a 1 , ••• ..Vl.‘ , IL , be concealed. we, „ • . • ...i er ure• dextrous than 'V ,r., *e re are some / . . ' % i io •"' ' .• •• .• iikr Glottis to deny ; a , • . She polic 1 which reel as, ‘'''••• • •". ..• .itr by rankly avowii ‘".' 4 1 •.. 'Lim scheme, he nog , . . ... rTI re, We quote from .11 were abortive in reference to the main purpose for they were undertaken) which were attempted last upon the debt and public balances. The committee are aware that the commutati, stook, Vf kith it nes proposed to effect succeeded o an insireolleant extent. Of the *inor stoke whit* were to be compulsoril3 off unless gommukg4 under the act of last session, 8,001 have be er will *presented for payment. Sir, )lave made a full confession, for I have sai the 'chow has proved abortive. Nor can Mr. Gueorforti deny that he t in opposition to the opinions and advi THE PRESS. said that , acted )ppo; ,dvice of some of the most experienced financiers of the House : I will admit that several honourable gentlemen did en tertain doubts as to the success of the plan, and that the words of the honourable member for Huntingdon turned out right. Having made these admissions, Mr. GLAD STONE seems to consider that the subject ought to end. "To err is human." He was wrong—his opponents were right. What more would you have? Certainly the blunder is irreparable ; but, as we are not quite of opinion that " things without remedy should be with " out regard," we may be permitted to esti mate the cost of this abortive operation to the country. For every 1001. stock of that 8,000,0001. which our Chancellor of the Exchequer undertook to pay off in default of conversion he will have to give 1001. sterling ; and just so much as the marketable value of the stock would be below par at the times of payment will the country lose by Mr. GLADSTONE'S management. At present the stock would be worth 91 on every 1001. now paid off; therefore the loss would be 91. On the whole eight millions the positive loss will probably be six or seven hundred thousand pounds. Such an "abortive opera tion " would ruin a Rothschild or a Baring . But, fortunately for himself, Mr. GLADSTONE is allowed to try his " prentice hand" on the finances of the nation. And, after all, what is such a loss in comparison with the benefit of his services? If he confesses his error, is not that enough? Unluckily the loss, enormous as it is, does not represent all the consequences of his blunder. The balances which should now be in the Exchequer, available for the public service, have been employed to pay off por tions of this 8,000,0001. Instead of having nine millions in the Exchequer to meet the demands upon it, he will have but four mil lions. The difference must be made up by deficiency bills. When pressed with the in convenience of such a deficit at the present time, when hostilities are on the point of com mencing, Mr. GLADSTONE replies by a subtle insinuation that what would be wrong as a rule may be right as an exception. It would be very imprudent for a Government to issue four or five millions of deficiency bills quarter after quarter, but not at all imprudent to issue them for one quarter. In other words, the necessities springing from Mr. GLADSTONE'S abortive operations are to supply the only sound and incontrovertible rules of finance. THE CIVIL-SERVICE REPORT. Tug report of Sir STAFFORD NORTH COTE and the übiquitous Sir C. TREVELYAN on the organisa tion of the permanent civil service is to bear fruit after all. It has been generally pooh poohed by the press, and very expeditiously " damned" in the public offices, where people can't be persuaded that the whole affair is not a prelude to the " organisation of the perma nent" influence of Sir CHARLES himself,—the stoker presumptive of the new political en gine. But the public may reason or ridicule ad libitum; the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER has a weakness for mountainous parturitions ; so testimonials in favour of the scheme are paraded in the Ministerial organs ; an Ox ford Tutor, a junior Dean, and a head School master, have each said a good word ( valeat quantulum ); Her Majesty's inspectors of schools chime in as in duty bound ; all con tributions are thankfully received, and a bill is in preparation on the subject, as we were informed on Tuesday night. SATURDAY, At present we have only the Commissioners' Report before us. We premise that, when offi cial demonstrators are called in to " report " upon any incident of our sublunary state, we may expect to find some exaggeration of its defects : they must make it out to be more or less a ea f put mortuum, if only to show their right to dissect it. But we scarcely expected, ever in a report, such a highly-wrought and appalling . picture of our official destitution — such an illustration, in short, of OxErismax's reflection, " With how little wisdom you may contrive to govern the world." We are informed that, so far from the civil service proving attractive to the able and ambitious, by a singular misdirection of their tastes and aptitudes it is chiefly sought after by " the indolent or incapable." Those whose abilities are below the average, or " whom " indolence of temperament or physical in " firmities unfit for active exertions," are in the habit of regarding the civil establishment, at least it is so implied, as a sort of hospitium for inherent feebleness or premature decrepi tude. The Downing-street which we have been wont to consider the centre of active life iu England is represented to our imagination as a superior almshouse, a locality which, if it were favourable to the growth of peaches, THOBISON might have selected as the site for his " Castle of Indolence." The popular im pression that the candidates for a Government clerkship are aspirants for hard work, with inadequate pay, evaporates in the light of this poetic conception. They are not on a par with the Lazzaroni of Naples, because the latter are ordinarily in robust health ; uor are they as respectable as the Lotus-eaters, on account of " the numerous instances" in which un worthy considerations have led to the appoint ment of " men of questionable character. To give specific point to this general representa tion, without relieving any of her Majesty's servants from suspicion, the Commissioners say : We have before us the testimony of an eminent public ' officer, who was for many years connected with one of the chief departments of the State. He writes thus : " During my long acquaintance with the office, I remember four, and only four, instances of young men being introduced into it on the ground of well-ascertained fitness." When the Commissioners add their persua sion that, however incompetent the men, the system is worse, it is an unlooked-for consola tion to find, on their testimony, that the official corps is better than anybody could have ex pected under the circumstances, and to know further they have taken their fair share in the government of the world. The fact is, this report a little overshoots the mark at which it is aimed. The con fessions of a candid friend are not gene rally deficient in unction; and if the Com missioners had been Scotch preachers they could not have " improved the opportu nity " more pungently than they have. For ourselves, we have no particular call just at present to defend the state of things in Down ing-street. Whatever it is, it is the result of five-and-twenty years' " Liberal " manipulation (Peelite and other). How different it was in CANNING'S time and the " Duke's," the inquir ing reader may learn in Mr. ROEBUCK'S " His tory of the Whig Ministry." We much regret to hear of its rapid deterioration under the Lord JOHNS, Lord ABERDEENS, Sir JAMES STEPHENS, Sir WILLIAM MOLESWORTHS, et Id genus omne. Even now we hardly think so badly of it as its reporting friends. At all events, Sir S. NORTHCOTE'S own expe rience must have satisfied him that a man of capacity and attainments in a Government office is not yet as great a rarity as a tortoise shell tom-cat ; and his brother Commissioner, though obliged to testify " yuceque ipse miser rims vidi," ought in fairness to continue the quotation to " quorum pars ?myna Jul." We, for our parts, do not believe that the public offices generally answer to any such descrip tion as the above. As ncords of personal experience, courtesy forbids our doubting their correctness. But we cannot allow political ' (any more than ordinary) " Topsys" to confess "how awful wicked I be" of anybody but them selves. We don't believe that Lord PALMERS TON'S office, for instance, was ever in the con dition which Sir C. TREVELYAN has described. ~.w r 71KSf.M