The Press. — London, England, 1854-10-28 00:00:00

OCTOBER 28, 1854. been longer endured, but when the capacity ' of the Duke of NEWCASTLE was distrusted, and when a desire for a thoroughly new system was manifested, people were surprised at the clumsy method in which partial changes were effected. Rival vanities amongst the incoherent sections of the Cabinet compelled the awkward compromise that now exists in our War Department which is really more anamalous than ever. But these things have long been patent, and a portion of the article in the Edinburgh is stale, as its views have been more or less anticipated. What is really remarkable is, the fatal candour of some of its confessions against the Coalition. We have not hung back from indicating in our columns the various errors that have marked the am biguous policy and tardy resolves of the present Cabinet; but we never made more severe strictures on the Ministry than the Edinburgh has (perhaps unwittingly) here published. After recording the fact that, "in " January of the present year, the hope of 0 ‘ maintaining peace in Europe waxed faint," the article goes on to enumerate some of " the e• grave errors committed in organising" the expeditionary army. It says that it was " mere pedantry" to fix the standard of field battalions first at 800, and then at 1,000 men, and that it was " a military blunder" to in vite volunteers for the purpose of raising these battalions to the foregoing numbers. It argues at length that the internal condition of our regiments became disjointed, and that there was not that closeness of union which is desirable between our regimental officers and their newly-joined volunteers . We shall not stay here to discuss " the pedantry" or the " military blunder" of the conduct animadverted upon. We desire to fix the attention of our readers on the follow ing most remarkable confession from so in fluential an organ as the Edinburgh Review:— We have not disguised or sought to explain away errors like these, because they admit neither of explanation nor of palliative. They are such as the great duke would not have tolerated under any circumstances whatever, and of which the effects—if the war lasts—will surely be felt. Yet we believe that we can account for them. It was hoped that the Czar might take fright at the first display of vigour on the part of England and France; and that possibly the ez• pedition might never pass beyond Malta, its first stage to wards Turkey. And so, with a view to economy, measures were adopted which produced indeed a respectable force, but which, in saving the outlay that accompanies an accumu lation of battalions and of brigades, dislocated the former, and left the latter without the smallest p►ospect of adequate o.ipport. Here we have a most important series of damaging admissions. In the confession that it was hoped the Czar would take 4 ' fright " we have the candid acknowledgment that, at a grave European crisis, a portion of the Cabinet, if not the whole of it, was in favour of what the PRESS designated at the time as the blank-cartridge policy. We then indicated the evils certain to result, at home and abroad, from such an illusive and merely make-believe course. For doing so we were called " factious " at the time ; but we have now the strong circumstantial evidence of the Edinburgh Review that only sham hostility was the policy followed at a momentous period when genuine vigour was urgently required. Next we have the admission that " it was " hoped that the expedition would never pass " beyond Malta" ! What foresight marked the councils of such a Cabinet ! What saga cious discernment of coming events, what profound knowledge of Europe and its actual emergencies, were displayed by men who, while Russia was organising and fortifying, imagined that it would not be necessary for "the handful of troops" to go beyond Malta! So much for the prescient wisdom of the Aberdeen section of the Cabinet, for we are not without surmises that portions of this article in the Edinburgh are calculated to ncocher against some of the Coalitionists. Be that as it may, we have sincerely to express our obligations to the Edinburgh for having added to our stock of ammunition ; and when such heavy shot is placed by the Whigs in our hands it would unpardonable not to use it. The Edinburgh also substantiates the charges which the PRESS has repeatedly made upon the Commissariat Department, more especially under the cognisance of the civilian Secretaries " of" and "at" War. THE PRESS. Here we have some fearfully grave questions asked by the Edinburgh Review : Guns, gunners, horses for the train, waggons to carry the ammunition, spring carts for the use of the sick and wounded, a bridge equipment, intrenching tools, uppers, miners, engineers --all these, in due proportions, are ne cessary to render an army effective. Where were they? Where are many of them still A few field batteries, giving an average, we believe, of about one gun to every 1,000 men, have been equipped. They followed the infantry and cavalry, and reached their destination by degrees ; but waggons, spring carts, a bridge equipment, the army hue not yet seen—we doubt whether it is ever likely to see some of them. How pathetically, with the lamentable facts brought from Scutari, that question reads— " Where are many of them still?" alluding to the much-wanted spring carts for the wounded. And let us mark, also, how the Edinburgh Review doubts whether, of the necessaries thus enumerated, "the army is ever likely to " see some of them." Verily our readers will agree with ourselves that no more severe reflections could be brought against the Cabinet and its war sys• tem than are here published in the Edinburgh. It adds to their damaging effect that it is no secret that the distinguished periodical from which we have quoted is under the literary management of a learned and accomplished relative of the Noble Earl who holds the seals of the Foreign-office. Doubtless some of these confessions of Ministerial ladies will not be allowed to pass without notice in the next session of Parliament. OXFORD.—THE NEW HEBDOMADAL COUNCIL. " FROM and after the 24th day of October," as the act recites, " Young Oxford" is to try its hand at improving the system under which Old Oxford has hitherto helped largely to make Old England what it is. On that day " Congregation" elected the new council that is to supplant the Board of Heads of Houses in the government of the university. " Congregation" consists, briefly, of the resi- dent Masters of Arts; and it elects, according to the recent act, six Heads of Houses, six Professors, and six Masters of Arts, to form, with the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, and Proc tors, the ruling body. They wield large powers ; have the initiative of all measures to be sub mitted to Convocation ; have the internal man agement of university discipline and police wholly in their hands ; and (which is at present more important than either) can considerably help or hinder the proceedings of her Majesty's Oxford Commission during the two years of its existence. There was not a little curiosity to see how the new Congregation would use its electing powers. It might elect a " happy family" of all who had made themselves no torious for extreme views, and turn the Heb domadal Council into a debating club ; it might commit itself to " progress" and the Blue-book Commission ; it might turn out simply obstructive, and be swamped by Lord ELLESMERE, GOLDWIN SMITH, and Co. Happily, as all the world seems to agree in thinking, it has adopted none of the prover bial " three courses." There is to all appear ance a fair representation of the existing parties that divide Oxford. There are Drs. GAISFORD and WILLIAMS to represent " Church " and State ;" Dr. SYMONDS to propitiate the " Evangelicals;' Dr. PUSEY and Mr. MOZLEY to overbalance him; Dr. JEUNE to shed the light of his countenance on the Dissenters ; Dr. HAWKINS for the Amoldians ; Dr. Scorr and Dr. LIGHTFOOT do duty for " Young Oxford ;" Mr. MANSEL and Mr. GORDON for " crotchets;" Mr. MICHELE represents the routine, Professors CARDWEI.L the research, DAUBENY the science, WILSON the simplicity, and DONIUN the silence, of the old regime. Professor HUSSEY, the best cricketer at school, the best skater and boater at college, the best tutor, the ablest professor that Oxford has known for long, is deservedly at the head of all the list, representing no particular interest, but elected because every one feels what the great Duke said of him, " that man's a man." The omissions are as remarkable as the elec- 1011 tions. Extremes have been carefully tabooed. Professors CONINGTON, BADEN POWELL, and VAUGHAN are " nowhere;" on the other side, Messrs. RAWLINSON, WooLcoMBR, and high Gladstonians in general, are " nowhere," We miss a few good names—Drs. JACOBSON, MAC BRIDE, and ACLAND, for instance—but, also, we miss very many bad ones, and are thankful accordingly. The election is a very fair one. Only it is just there that our doubts about the whole matter begin. Nobody pretends to believe that Dr. JEUNK or Dr. Posav could have been elected by the votes of their own, unaided, party. The whole affair gives one the notion that there has been a tacit compromise, of which one party is making its game, not the less surely because secretly. The Queen's Commission has two years' lease of its life. The " dodge " is to elect meanwhile a colourless executive, powerless for evil, and neutral for good, as regards the university, and to give the Commission full play, meanwhile, on the colleges. Those won, their statutes manipulated, all is won, and thenceforward Rationalism and Jesuitism pro pose to fight it out on a clear stage. We do not overstate the danger to the Church or to Protestantism. Let the two years be " tided over " by this sort of board and the name of Oxford will convey associa tions very different from those it now awakens in the heart of every Oxford man. In the first place the Dissenters will have established an " interest" there : Mr. PETO and the Evan gelical Alliance leave us in no doubt on the ' matter. They are going to found a " hall "at once. They hope to win for dissenting chil dren the advantages of an " Oxford educa tion." We do not blame them ; we only say it is impossible. It is like blue trying to be yellow by mixing with it. But next there come our Jesuit friends, who delight in this calm inauguration of the new state of things, all the more because it is so peaceful. The " Catholic University " pos sesses 30,0001. in hard cash—has expended not a penny in bricks and mortar as yet; and they are " Dissenters " also. Let the transi • tion-time of the two years pass by quietly ; give them a quiescent Hebdomadal Council, and give the Commissioners a fair amount of " liberal and enlightened " liberty of action, and then, in a year or two, nothing particular has happened, only another " hall' is opened ; Mr. So-and-So, a highly respectable Master of Arts, and member of the Church of England, is its nominal head—in other words, " does the swearing" for the establishment. Nzw- MAN, MANNING, OAKLEY, WARD, MORRIS, &LAGER, LEWIS, FABER, TICKELL—you have a brilliant array of " pervert" tutors ready to return to Oxford. ['he hall has a beautiful chapel, gives excellent dinners, invites everybody, in veigles not a few, and the Hebdomadal Council begins slowly to suspect that it has been doing somebody else's work. Dr. SYMONS is in covulsions, and England asks, Where is Oxford ? MR. GLADSTONE. IN our publication of the 30th ultimo we stated briefly the facts connected with Mr. GLADSTONE'S first great financial operation—namely, his reduc tion, on the 14th of February, 1853, of the interest on Exchequer Bills to ld. per day, or 11. 104. bd. pet annum. We imputed to him a financial blunder of the gravest nature in lowering the interest oni • Exchequer Bills when the interest of money gene rally was rising. We proved that this was the case ! by quoting the price of Consols, the state of then, circulation, of the bullion in bank, and of the rate of discount for some time previously, each and all of ~ which afforded concurrent and conclusive evidence oi, l an upward tendency in the interest of money at the period when this first achievement of Mr. Girnsvome was accomplished. We stated that no prudent I statesman would have been unobservant of those' indications, and that Mr. GLADSTONE made an in excusable mistake, a mistake which betrayed care.; beefless or Ignorance of elementary principles, when he ran counter to these patent facts. We promised that we would next point out the results of this financial mistake, and we proceed to do so.