The Press. — London, England, 1854-07-01 00:00:00

604 rims*, and, unhappily, certain incidents in patha. mentary life have more than once made the charac ters of "Irish members" topics of severe strictures. In proportion to their numbers, it could easily be shown that the Irish " popular" members have got more places and titles than any equal body of Eng lish or Scotch representatives. The recollection of their skulking in 1847 from the support of Lord GEORGE BENTINCK'S generous motion for their starving countrymen is not likely soon to be forgot ten. Nor can it have passed from the pnblio mind how Mr. Solicitor-General KEoou cried "So help him God !" he never would take office until certain events took place, which have not occurred either previous or subsequent to his official appointment. Nor has a cashiered Lord of the Treasury been for gotten. With such patent facts, bruited wherever the British press circulates, it is ridiculous to de• flounce the Times as " calumnious " for having made observations by no means so severe as those which " respectable witnesses" often hear in " Irish so ciety " on the c induct of certain of the Irish " popu lar" representatives. A "WALKER" COME TO JUDGMENT. JUDGMENT was given this day week in the Court of Exchequer upon a somewhat singular defendant. The word "pharmaceutical" occurred in the course of some proceedings, and Baron ALDERSON, with his bar in close attendance, deserted the legitimate quarry before them at the moment, and set off in full pursuit of the new game. How was the word to be pronounced—hard or soft? With the c like k, or the c like a 1 One learned brother referred to ety mology. The Greeks spelt it pharmakutikos, and, therefore, the c must be hard in the English deriva tive. Another took refuge in analogy. c followed by e invariably became softened into a throughout the whole range of the language, and he saw no rea son for establishing an exception in favour of the pharmaceutists. A third demurred to the validity of this analogy : the consequent e, he said, was silent, and c e u t should be pronounced hard in pharma ceutical, just as c u t was in acutely. Baron ALDER SON listened, deliberated, summed up, and gave judgment. " Let it be soft," said the learned Baron, and soft it is from henceforth, Walker notwithstand ing. In all future editions of the Pronouncing Dic tionary the decision respecting this word must be reversed, the etym3logieal references obliterated, and instead thereof we shall see the following : " Pharmaceutical, n. a. (Farnmaitikal). ' Let it he soft.' —Baron A klerion. Any bigoted Hellenist who may hereafter be shown to have stuck to the kappa will, of course, be found guilty of contempt, and subjected to heavy pe nalties accordingly. THE IRISH COMPLAINT COMMITTEE. THE select committee appointed to inquire into the charges of corruption brought by the Times against the Irish members of the House of Commons have at length completed and presented their report. In this document, after referring to the terms in which the charges were conveyed, and the speeches of Dr. Gray and Mr. Christopher Kelly, on which they were ostensibly founded, the committee recapitulate some of the principal statements given before them by dif ferent witnesses, and arrive at length at this conclu sion, as respects the charges regarding individuals : " Your committee reports that, having followed up and exhausted such sources of information as have been sug gested by the various witnesses, no case of corruption has been proved." As regards the inquiry into the supposed general system of corruption, their decision, they admit, can not be considered conclusive, owing to the difficulties thrown in the way of a fall and accurate investiga tion : " Considering the secrecy which would most naturally be observed, the unwillingness of parties to place themselves in the position of accusers, the fact that your committee had no means of searching for evidence, but were limited to such as might be offered, and the want of the power of examining witnesses upon oath ; and further, that in more than one instance their inquiries have been stopped by direct contradiction in the evidence of those examined, your committee are of opinion that no investigation, of the nature and with the powers of that entrusted to your com mittee, can satisfactorily ascertain to what extent there may have existed grounds for the belief to which so many witnesses have deposed." Respecting the allegations hazarded by the Times, the committee " feel hound to report to the house their conviction that there existed no foundation for the charges as they were therein preferred, and to state their opinion that the lan guage in which they were clothed was unjustifiable and ca lumnious." The report is dated June 10, 1854. THE PRESS. Vrott6ings xn V arlianunt. THE PREMIER'S EXPLANATION. Lord ABERDEEN on Monday night, in the . House of Lords, made his promised speech " explaining " the address delivered in the same place that day week relative to the Eastern question, and on which he observed many erroneous assumptions had been built and many misapprehensions gone forth among the public. These he attributed to the imperfect manner in which he had succeeded in giving ex pression to his ideas, but professed himself at the same time excessively surprised at their existence and their character. The noble Premier founded his speech upon a motion for producing a despatch, often alluded to in Parliament, but never yet pub- lished, written by himself in December, 182 1 ), in reference to the treaty of Adrianople, concluded in that year. It was also with reference to that treaty that the first misunderstanding arose, and which he wished to correct. It had been stated that he (Lord Aberdeen) claimed to be the author in whole or in part of this convention. So far was this from being the case that he had viewed it with much dis like, and bad spoken of it in the very document that formed the subject of his motion as being to the last degree mischievous and dangerous. The British Government then and since had also viewed the treaty in that light, insomuch that they had actually changed their policy in several respects and notably in the arrangements for Greece, which they declined to place, as had been first designed, under the suzerainty of the Porte, believing that the inde pendent action and permanence of the Ottoman empire was heavily compromised by the treaty of Adrianople. Passing on to the other topics men tioned in his former speech, wherein he declared there was nothing which he felt called upon to retract or to regret, Lord Aberdeen alluded to his statement that Russia had acquired little or no extension of territory since the treaty of Adrianople. This he affirmed was substantially correct, at all events with regard to Europe, altlough be admitted that the Emperor Nicholas had secured the possession of many posts of great strength and advantage in a military point of view. But the fact was that the Czar had changed his tactics, and, as they had heard of "Satan's growing wiser than of yore," so the Russian Sovereign had latterly sought to enhance his political influence rather than obtain territorial aggrandisement in Europe. Of this change the noble earl gave some instances, including the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi and the mission of Prince Menschikoff. The latter allusion brought him down to contemporary events and another misunderstand ing of his opinions which he said had given him more surprise than any other. He had been repre sented as declaring that he was willing to make peace on the basis of the status quo ante and revert to the condition of things as established by the Adrianople treaty : " I have been supposed to say that I desired, or did not object, to a return to the treaty of Adrianople, because I stated that if we could obtain a peace which should last for twenty-five years we should not do amiss. (Hear, hear.) Nor should we ; but when I said that I never for a moment meant to convey the impression which it seems my words have produced.—( Hear, hear.) I never said a word to imply that I desired to return tu the treaty of Adrianople. (Hear, hear.) What I said, or intended to say, was, that the treaty of Adrianople has given us peace for twenty-five years, and that if by any treaty which the fortune of war might enable us to make we should secure peace for an equal length of time, we should not, considering the instability of all human affairs, do so very far amiss. It has also been said that I recommended a return to the status quo, or, at least, that I would not object to it. Now, this statement surprises me more than any thing, because I thought I had taken special care to explain that point. I stated that that might be the cause of some apparently ambiguous expressions used by Austria and by Prussia, as compared with the expressions used by our selves, and I said that Austria and Prussia might be de sirous to restore the slates quo; but, at the same time, I made the specific declaration that that was by no means applicable to us—that is, to England and France. (Hear.)" Before war actually began, he proceeded to argue, the status quo was all that was ask e d f or b y Turkey orits allies, but the occurrence of that event bad completely changed the bearings of the question. The events of the war must now determine the con ditions of the peace. What those should be it would be rash and premature to prescribe. Their range must necessarily be extensive, since the possibilities of the war involved every result, from that of the . Russians . entering Constantinople to that of th e al lies entering St. Petersburg. But, whatever the form of the peace, its essence m us t comprise and secure theintegrity of the Ottoman empire:— " Security for the independence and integrity of Turkey, so far as depends upon Russia, is really the object from which we ar edetermined not to depart. (Cheers.) But, again I say, how that is t o b e o b ta i ne d ne i ther I nor any man in this house is able to sa y. W e k now what our ob ject is—our main object at least—and, of course, by one SATURDAY, mode or another, we will obtain that without which peace is impossible. (Hear, hear.)" Lord Aberdeen then repeated his assertion that Rus sian aggression was not really formidable, since Tur key had shown herself hitherto able to cope with the enemy single-handed, and France alone was, in his belief, stronger than Russia and Austria put toge ther. He went en to allude to some personal attacks and imputations : " I could have wished that I might have been sparedjthe necessity of saying anything about the extraordinary and absurd imputations—the personal imputations—to which I have been exposed. It is true that I have more than any other man struggled to preserve the state of peace for this country. 1 have done so because I thought it my duty to the people of this country—my duty to God and man—to exhaust every possible means of preserving peace—(eheera ) —and my only regret is—though 1 trust your lordships will acquit me on that point—my only regret is that I should not have done all, and lest in any way I should have lost some possible means of averting the greatest ca lamity that can beta! a country ; for, however glorious any war may be, the calamities which accompany it are heavy enough greatly to outweigh that glory. 1 know it has been said, if you love peace so much you are unfit fur war. My lords, though peace is so dear to my feelings, still I ant convinced of the necessity of this war. but how do I wish to make war? I wish to makewar in order to obtain a peace; and I know well that the best mode of making war in order speedily to obtain a peace is to make war with the utmost vigour and determination. (Laud eheera.) My noble friends near we know well enough that, peaceable as 1 am, I have never shrunk—that, on the contrary, I have given my most ready concurrence to the most active mea sures of hostility and warlike preparations. Nay more, I believe I may say they will admit that I have personally been more urgent than perhaps any other man in exhorting the speedy concentration and advance of the allied forces north of the Balkan in support of the gallant army of Omer Pacha, and to extend a helping hand to Austria in order to enable her to carry out her professions. This, except for the warmth of the feelings under which 1 spoke, I ought nut, perhaps, to say, but it is the truth that., in the course we have taken, I have invariably urged the most decided comae of action. 1 have now no more to say. I wish to confine myself to ibis subject without entering upon other topics more or less connected with the war. I wish to re move understandings which 1 feel to be perfectly erroneous interpretations of what I said, and I now declare that, so far from my former endeavour to preserve peace disquali fying me from carrying on the war, I think, though of course I may be wrong in the particular means, I think we ought to have recourse to the most expedient, the most prompt, the most successful means of carrying it on. I maintain and assert that my very love of peace induces me now to enter upon this war, which I unquestionably be lieve to be a perfectly just war; and therefore it is that I —so long as I have anything to do with the Government —shall unquestionably carry it on in such a manner as will be most hitt!) , to secure benefit to England, and to es tablish a sate and honourable peace. (Cheers.)" The Marquis of CLANRICARDE found many points in the Premier's speech far from satisfactory. Re specting the despatch itself, he remarked that it was written some months after the treaty of Adrianople was concluded, while Sir Robert Gordon, British envoy in Constantinople at the time, and acting, of course, under instructions from his Government, of which Lord Aberdeen was a member, had been most earnest in persuading the Sultan to sign that very treaty. Reviewing Lord Aberdeen's conduct subse quently, in reference to other European occurrences, he declared that the noble earl had been constantly the advocate of arbitrary power, the partisan of Rus sia, and the opponent of all national efforts to secure constitutional liberty wherever undertaken. The Premier had eulogised the treaty of 182 U because it secured twenty live years' peace : but what sort of peace was it?—. " He could not understand what was the noble earl's notion of peace, or how he could describe Russia as a peaceable neighbour to Turkey, when so far back as ten years ago the Emperor made a proposition to the noble earl, then the Foreign Minister, which he resumed as soon as the noble earl again took office in 18,52, to partition the very country of which the noble earl told them the Em peror was such a peaceable and well-conducted neighbour? Was that the morality which the noble earl would teach great States to observe to minor States in their neigh bourhood? How could the Emperor of Russia be de scribed as a peaceable neighbour to Turkey when twice within the last ten years he had proposed to partition her territories? " The noble earl, he added,had endeavoured to explain away the meaning of his former speech, but could not remove the impressions which had been trans mitted abroad of its nature and tendency. What these were Lord Clanricarde instanced from the Independance Beige, in whose columns the speech bad been briefly, but, he thought, correctly, sum marised in a telegraphic message sent at the time. " Lord Aberdeen essays de justifier la conduits de la Russie, et plaids la cause de le paix." The speech, he contended, was most unwise and ill-timed; and so were the Ministerial preparations of war, since they ought to have been commenced in October last, when military critics were openly discussing the Russian plan of campaign across the Balkans, in stead of procrastinating until February or March. Adverting to the position of the Cabinet at home, Lord Clanricarde characterised the Prime Minister