The Press. — London, England, 1857-10-24 00:00:00

TWE PRESS; OCTOBER 24,1857. THE WEEK. THE week has on the whole been unusually fruitful in events. At home, we have had the speech of the Duke of CAMBRIDGE at Sheffield, the letter of Lord ELLENBOROUGU, the addresses of the Duke of RUTLAND and Sir EDWARD Lvrros, and the Reformatory Meeting at Birmingham. The reception the Duke of CAMBRIDGE met with at Sheffield must have been eminently gratifying to his Royal Highness. The high spirit and frank manly nature of the Duke render him popular with the army, endear him to the English people, and the hearty welcome he met with at Sheffield is a greeting his Royal Highness may fairly anticipate on every public occasion. We have alluded at length elsewhere to those portions of the speech of his Royal Highness relating to the recruitment for the army. But there was another portion of the Duke's speech worthy of note. We refer to that paragraph expressing his sentiments upon the treatment of the rebels. Some of our contemporaries adroitly use the expressions of the Duke eo as to lead a hasty reader to believe that the Duke recommended measures simply severe. His Royal Highness said :—" Let us have justice, not " undue, indiscriminate vengeance ; but justice, and stern justice. " We have a right to expect that these men shall be brought before " proper tribunals and duly punished for the atrocious deeds they " have committed." The paragraph of the speech, it will be seen, is not perfect without the last sentence. With regard to affairs abroad, the great event of the week is the declaration of the Divans in Moldavia and Wallachia in favour of the union of the Principalities. At first sight this may not appear a question to interest us much, but in those Danubian provinces it is probable we may find the finest European opening for our commerce. The trade of the Danube is worthy of our consideration. The union of the provinces appears to be accepted as settled. The protest of the Porte against the recent elections has fallen dead to the ground. The silence of our Government is remarkable, when we recall the vigour with which they maintained the status quo in August. The Congress, we believe, will assemble shortly at Paris, where the question of the union will be definitively discussed and then settled according to the provisions of the Treaty of 1856. But with the settlement of the union, if it so happen, the labours of the Congress will not cease. There remains the selection of a prince from one of the reigniag families of Europe. The names of many can didates are mentioned, but it is altogether premature to discuss a question so delicate in its nature and so important in its conse quences. Another change has taken place in the Spanish Ministry—Nan VAEZ, who about this time last year ejected O'DONNELL, has succumbed to ARMKRO. Meantime, the usual amount of speculation upon the tendencies of the new Ministry occupy the continental journalists, as if it really mattered, under the present dynasty, whether this or that sot of corrupt incapables held office at Madrid. It is sufficient that they be Spaniards, in whom principles have nothing to do with place. In Spain, a fresh struggle for place is chronic ; it is an event to be looked for whenever the existing Ministry have become entitled to their pensions, or their Sovereign feels herself at liberty to dispense with their services. It is not easy to account for the pacific nature of the recent change. It is clear that NARVAEZ has dissembled his rage, and yielded quietly, if ungraciously ; but then he found 100,000,000 fr. last year in the Treasury, and this year he leaves empty coffers to his successors. The changes which of late have so frequently oc curred in Spain offer a curious commentary upon those Liberal insti tutions which Lord PALMERSTON took such credit to himself for having secured to that country by the alteration of the Law of Succession. Every change so far has been in favour of that Absolutism which the Noble Lord boasted he had abolished. One Minister rapidly succeeds another, and corruption is found to be a convenient aid to the designs ,of the Absolutist party. Meanwhile, there are indications of a change jail the ideas of the people of Spain ; and a real revolution, which will ,emanate from the people, is not so far distant. What will be the policy of France when that inevitable event' occurs is a question which concerns us c losely. There is much French capit a l i nvest i ng i n S pa i n; the French Government regards events with a watchful eye ; perhaps an early opportunity may be afforded the Emperor NAPOLEON for the full development of his policy. 0,04. The subject of Local Self-Gove r n men t h as ar i sen thi s wee k i n „I • emequenee of a paper read by Mr. Tom TAYLOR at the late meeting at Birmingham, and some comments passed thereon by Mr. TouutiN &tau. The Times is rather inclined to side with the former gentle man, who maintains the necessity of Government interference with provincial Boards in questions of a sanitary nature. It is very easy to see what is to be said in favour of such interference, and the Times has accordingly sad it. Everything in nature is checked by some thing else. No men are perfect, much less country churchwardens Advice is useful. And—and therefore, in short, Mr. TAYLOR'S recommen• dation is a good one. We should be foolish indeed to demur to any one of this string of platitudes. We are aware, as it happens, that human nature and all its devices are full of imperfections, and that nothing is scarcely ever done which could not under some conceivable circus stances have been done better. But that is not a practical way of estimating national institutions. These always involve a compromise. And the question to be answered always is, whether what we retain is more valuable than what we lose. That wo lose something must always be admitted. But it is madness to look only on that side of the question. A boy lases something by being sent to a public school. He is made acquainted with vice earlier than he would otherwise have been. He injures his complexion and wears out his clothes more than ho would have done at home. Nay, per haps he does not even learn so much Latin, Greek, and Euclid as ho might have done in his father's study. But what then? The common sense of the country has determined that the public-school system is the best. If a boy gets less scholarship and more roughness, he com pensates for these drawbacks by something which is far more valuable. He gains self-reliance, self control, courage, hardihood, and a knowledge of human nature. In one word, he becomes a man. Something very similar is the distinction between centralisation and local government. Under the former system public works are better performed. Under the latter the national character ' is more advantageously trained. Men accustomed to the difficulties '4 ' of governing a parish can appreciate the difficulties of governing a kingdom. They become more patient of inevitable delays. more tolerant of human frailties. Fitter, in one word, to understand, value, and support that system of representative government which conti nental nations seem powerless to imitate. This character of the Eng lish people, formed by long habits of self-government and provincial jurisdictions, is to our mind, more than anything else, the cause of our long internal tranquillity. We have been taught the vanity of theoris ing, and have become sufficiently moderate in our expectations not to be too often violently disappointed. Those who would see by what imperceptible steps bureaucracy advances, and what are its inevitable results upon national life, would do well to consult the invaluable work of M. DE Too:1E1E1711.LE on France before the Revolution. There is not one person in England, we believe, who does not now bitterly regret the refusal of the Government last July to trans port to India a portion of our army overland. It was alleged at the time that the transmission of troops to India by way of the Isthmus of Suez was surrounded by great difficulties, the principal one of which was in obtaining the permission of the Turkish Government for the application of the route to the transport of troops. We are glad to have an opportunity of doing justice to the readiness of the Sultan to aid us in every way in his power at this crisis. A correspondent, upon whose accurate information and truthfulness we will stake the credit of this Journal, in a letter from Constantinople, dated October 7, 1857, furnishes us with the following facts, to which we respectfully call the attention of our readers : Four months ago Lord Stratford had an interview with the Sultan, and obtained his acquiescence and approval of the proposal to despatch British troops through Egypt to India. Such a step could not, according to treaty, be taken without a special firman and vizieral order. Lord Stratford, having obtained the Sultan's permission, telegraphed and wrote to that effect to the Home Government. This occurred in the middle of June. No notice whatever was taken of Lord Stratford's communication until last Saturday evening, October 3rd, when a telegraphic despatch arrived at the Embassy, requesting Lord Strat ford to go at once to the Sultan, and obtain the firman he had proffered four months before. Lord Stratford lost not a moment in following out the instructions of his Govern ment. H.M.S. Osprey was instantly ordered to prepare for sea ; and by Monday evening, October sth, the Imperial firman and vizieral order were put on board, and she was de spatched at once to Alexandria. It is a question now which will reach there first— the British soldiers, who cannot disembark in Egypt without the firman; or the firman, enabling the British troops to disembark. Two things are clear from the statement of our correspondent—first, that no obstacles whatever were thrown in our way by the Govern• ment of the Porte to the passage of troops across the Isthmus ; and, secondly, that four months were allowed to elapse by our Government between the period at which the Sultan expressed his readiness to grant the necessary firman, and that on which his Majesty was requested to fulfil his promise. The point is, did it require four months to prepare for the transmission of troops? At a very early stage of the Indian insurrection the desirability of transporting a portion at least of the reinforcements by way of Egypt was impressed on the Govern ment by the Earl of HARDWICKE and other Members of both Houses. The men, allowing a week's detention in Egypt, could have been landed at Bombay in thirty-five days, and at Calcutta in from forty. two to fifty. Every man who had reflected upon the subject, or enjoyed a practical acquaintance with Indian affairs, appreciated at once the moral effect upon the people of India of the prompt arrival of a few hundred men, followed in a fortnight by a few hundred more, and again by the same number each succeeding mail. It is uni versally admitted now that an insurrection throughout Bombay a few weeks since was only prevented by the opportune arrival of a single regiment (H.M.'s 33rd) from the Mauritius. The British people in India cannot comprehend the apathy displayed by the Government in this matter. For the last twelve years they have known and appre ciated the advantages of the overland route, and yet on the first occa sion, when its value to them was inestimable, they find the Government declining to make use of it except for the transit of officers, while, by a refinement of procrastination, they despatched every musket and sabre round the Cape. We may rely upon it that to this lamentable want of energy and promptitude on the part of the Government we may attribute the dangers our countrymen are now struggling against in India, and that peril to which the tranquillity of Presidencies in a great degree loyal and faithful remains exposed. We entirely agree with Lord STANLEY that the great difficulty to be anticipated in the establishment of reformatories is the envy they are likely to excite in the minds of the holiest poor. " If, however,"