The Press. — London, England, 1854-05-27 00:00:00

482 " the benefit of Roman Catholics, and of those " members of our Church who were restless " upon the question of supremacy." Mr. GLAD STONE felt himself pointed to as the real author of the measure, and rose to defend it. He did not even affect to treat the bill as principally relating to the Jews. His whole argument was directed to show that the oath of supre macy ought to be abolished, aiid that Roman Catholics should sit in that }lease unfettered by the pledge which they had themselves pro posed as a sufficient - security against their ever attacking the Protestant Establishment. Mr. GLADSTONE'S over-tender conscience sym• pathised with their difficulties. He regarded those " clauses which relate to the maintenance ".of _the .Established Church as neither more " nor less than a trap for conscience ;"• and he elt " that his Roman Catholicjbrethren had a claim to his sympathy and to his aid, in " relieving them from the necessity of taking " an oath which bound them to obligations, the nature of which, if he were a Roman Catholic, " he confessed he should feel himself at a loss " how to construe." It was impossible that the House could misunderstand the true object of the Bill after these avowals. The division was really called on the question whether the oath of supremacy and the Roman Catholic oath were to be abolished in deference to the views of that party of which the CHANCELLOR of the Ex- CHEQUER is the champion ; and the intense and prolonged enthusiasm with which the an. nouncement of the numbers was received evinced the delight of the House at this signal defeat of Gladstonism. If Lord Jonx RUSSELL has any of that self respect for which the world gives him credit, how deeply must he feel the degradation of his position. He entered the Cabinet without office solely to carry two measures—Reform and an Oaths Bill. The first he withdrew, but not without expressions of respect and sympathy ; the second—in spite of the strenuous efforts of the Ministry—is defeated amid a tumult of rejoicing. The Coalition which made him its tool is now willing that •he should be its victim. The unpopularity of Mr &LADSTONE is visited on his shoulders ; - and the author of the " Durham Letter," which nobly appealed to the Protestant feeling of the country, now stands the defeated leader of a movement to forward the aggression he then so indignantly denounced. • THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE AS A SECRETARY OF STATE. . A► WAR against Brobdignag, carried on by Secre taries of State from Lilliput, is too ridiculous , even for the conceit of the Coalition. It would „appear, by the articles in a leading journal of .Wednesday and Thursday, that the banisters in Downing-street are to be oiled, so as to , enable the mediocrities to slide down to a . lower level, and Lord PALMERSTON is pointed to as a War Minister, vice the Duke of NEW CASTLE, to be cashiered. It is discovered that a red-tapist respectable as a clerk becomes ridiculous as a ruler. By his evidence before the Stonor Com mittee, his Grace of NEWCASTLE has com , promised his reputation as a man of mere • routine, and he has hopelessly invalidated • his claims to the premiership of Little Ped - lington. " Mr. STONOR'S application," says the Duke, " was received on the 30th of November, -" 1853. He was not appointed until the 20th •" of December. That delay had been caused • " by his (the Duke's) anxiety to find a more •"• qualified candidate." Thus we have from his Grace's own lips the statement that he took several weeks to commit his deliberate blunder. :With all his " anxiety," he took no notice of r• the printed statement about the Sligo bribery, . enclosed to him by Mr. STONOR. "If I saw it 14 at all," says his Grace, " I doubtless consi • :"'dered it another testimonial." Admirable • vigilance ! After a long pause he appoints Mr. STONOR, but that gentleman, like another v selection of his Grace's (Mr. JOHN SADLEIR), is removed after a few weeks. Convicted of a 1: serious mistake, the Duke pleads ignorance of L Mr. STORM'S antecedents. But Mr. MILRIVALE, iibk.. THE PRESS. the Under-Secretary to the Colonies, says in his evidence, " I understood the (Sligo) cir " cumstances were notorious, and known to " everybody "—except to the Secretary of State, who was a member of the Legislature, and who had on his desk the printed statement of facts given to him by Mr. STONOR ! Strange that Mr. MERpALE, unconnected with Ireland, should know *ore about Sligo than the ducal contriver of the Irish prop of the Coalition I But his Grace pleads his ignorance, and we will not demur to his plea. Not to be attainted of any corruption in the affair, he is culpable to the extent of making one of the gravest official blunders on record. His Grace's carelessness and oversight with all the facts fairly before him may go far to explain the mismanagement in arranging the details of the expedition to Gallipoli. Lord Eu.zNsonouon proved that the troops might have been sent to Calcutta for 146,0001. less than has been expended in transporting them to the end of the Mediterranean, at the New castle rate of charges. It is to be noted, also, that Lord ELLENBOROUGH based his calcula tions on charging for every common soldier the price that a gentleman pays for a large berth and ample room in a voyage round the Cape of Good Hope. He also proved that, in 1808, 1,700 horses and 22,000 men had been sent out to the Peninsula for a million of money less than our military voyaging to Gallipoli has already cost. John Bull may grumble, and wonder at such facts in an age of cheapness, and short voyages by steam. Let John open his eyes and read the Duke of NEWCASTLE'S own account of his mode of transacting affairs, and he will not wonder at any extravagance of blundering committed by the patron of Mr. SADLEIR, and the promo ter of Mr. STONOR. Opinion, however, has made itself heard. To burn a bishop in a railway train was sug gested by a reverend wag as the shortest mode of preventing travellers being locked in railway carriages. So the breakdown of the Duke of NEWCASTLE as a Secretary of State suggests that the War department must be reformed. Yet whatever may be its complications, when the posts were rightly filled, it was a system under which the House of Bourbon was humbled, and India, won, and WOLFE and WELLINGTON led armies to glory. We must recollect, however, that such things were done while master-spirits held the helm of the State, and some may think that more vigour, and not innovation, is required. We heard CANNING cited this week, and the quota tion from the orator's speech sparkled more lustrously by the foil of the artificial verbiage of Mr. GLADSTONE. Hero is a passage also from CANNING that we present for the benefit of those who have to consider the Newcastle difficulty :—" Away with the cant of measures, " not men, the idle suppositism that it is the " harness, and not the horses, that draw the " chariot along. If the distinction must be " made, men are everything, measures are " comparatively nothing. I speak of times of " difficulty and danger, when systems are " shaken. Then it is that kingdoms rise or " fall, not by well-meant endeavours, but by " the commanding, overawing talents of able " men." To ask whether his Grace of NEWCASTLE is of the " overawing, commanding" character alluded to by CANNING would be ridiculous. The tiny step of his Grace in mimicking the stride of a great statesman is exquisitely ludicrous. It can be described only as a case of Tom Thumb brandishing one of the Sidney- Woronzow needles over his head, and telling us that he will equal SHAW the Lifeguardsman at Waterloo. But, though a politician may be as weak in official capacity as the Duke of NEWCASTLE has shown himself by his own confession, still he may have oratorical powers that may daunt foes and cheer friends. Ten minutes' audience of his Grace upon his legs would lull into a slumber the most cynical of critics. He totters under the weight of his own truisms. Reeling under a small roll of red tape, he poises his platitudes with as grave solemnity as if he were going to hurl thunderbolts. In stirring times he sat for years in the House of Commons, and won no laurels there. Raised to the Peers, and a Secretary of State, his SATURDAY, smallness in trying to fill a large part makes us think of Smottarr's inimitable picture of the first, but not the last, Duke of NEWCASTLE, who associated the title with the spectacle of mighty vanity and mediocre powers united. LAW RAILWAY while M r . impression oihe IN our CARDWELL'S Railway Bill was before the House of Commons, we called attention to a practical grievance of considerable importance and ad mitting of easy remedy. Several railway com panies positively refuse to carry cattle and other agricultural stock unless the sender signs a ticket absolving the railway from all responsibility in case of accident or damage. And a notice of this description, it has been solemnly decided at Westminster, will protect the company even in case of damage a • • rising from their own misconduct. The public are not, indeed, bound to sign such a notice ; for they may bring an action against the company to oblige them to carry their goods upon the same conditions as common carriers. But he would be a bold individual who would venture to enter the lists upon such a point with a powerful company. We are happy to find that this subject en gaged the attention of the Lords, when the second reading of the bill came before them, on the 17th instant. Lord DERBY, in noticing the remedy which it was assumed that the public had in their own hands, observed justly that " this was no practical remedy, for, sup " posing an individual were to incur the heavy " cost and risk of fighting a powerful company " on such a point, it was by no means clear " that he would be successful, the question as " to the liability of common carriers being not "at all settled by our courts of law." The Noble Earl's remarks were 'Confirmed in all respects by the highest letal authorities in the land. Lord LYNDHURST, after stating, with his wonted clearness and precision, the nature and effects of the recent cases, declared thst the Legislature could alone apply a remedy. It had interfered with regard to common car riers, between whom there was much compe tition, and interference was surely much more necessary with respect to railways, between which there was scarcely any competition at all, and which now, in fact, enjoyed a practical monopoly. The language of Lord Baonousx was still more emphatic. He denounced the mode in which the railways were thus enabled to evade their just liabilities by means of " a contract forced upon a passenger—a con " tract into which he entered upon compul " sion—a contract which might almost be said " to be bad on account of the duress under " which the passenger was compelled to enter " into it." In short, the evil and the ne cessity of a remedy were admitted on both sides of the House ; and from the statement of Lord STANLEY OF ALDERLEY, who moved the second reading of Mr. CARDWELL'S bill, we conclude that a provision will now be inserted depriving the railways of a protection wh ich they never ought to have possessed. That it is high time for the interference of Parliament we may learn from a fact stated during the debate by Lord GREY. One of the railway companies which has established its non-liability with regard to the carriage of cattle and horses has attempted to extend the same principle to the conveyance of passen gers. On the back of their tickets they print a notice to the effect that they shall not be responsible for any damage which may happen during the journey, however it may be caused. That an attempt should be made of this de scription is only the natural result of the present state of the law. We canno,. but expect that trading companies will avail them selves of all the advantages which that law allows them, and the principle which they see k i to establish is obviously the same , whe ther it s applied to passengers or goods. The legal effect of such a notice as we have l a st de scribed has not yet indeed been decided, but the very circumstance of such an att em p t being made, with the express view of prevent ing passengers and their relatives from l'eT 3 vering damages in case of injury or death by